Seeding new tank

canadianeh · May 13, 2021

I am starting a new 25 gallon lagoon tank using dry rocks. I am planning to take a rock and some Marinepure balls from my other tank that has been running for at least a year and put them in the new tank to help to "seed" the new tank.

How long should I leave them in the new tank until the new dry rocks are seeded? Is there a general rule of thumb for this type of situation?

Azedenkae · May 13, 2021

canadianeh said:
I am starting a new 25 gallon lagoon tank using dry rocks. I am planning to take a rock and some Marinepure balls from my other tank that has been running for at least a year and put them in the new tank to help to "seed" the new tank.

How long should I leave them in the new tank until the new dry rocks are seeded? Is there a general rule of thumb for this type of situation?

Kinda hard to say, it depends on how well at least some nitrifiers in the MarinePure spheres are dislodged and float off and then land on and colonize dry rock.

Is there a specific period of time you might hope for? Like if you might want to transfer the MarinePure back to the old tank or something?

canadianeh · May 13, 2021

Azedenkae said:
Kinda hard to say, it depends on how well at least some nitrifiers in the MarinePure spheres are dislodged and float off and then land on and colonize dry rock.

Is there a specific period of time you might hope for? Like if you might want to transfer the MarinePure back to the old tank or something?

Well I guess I can leave some marine pure balls in the new tank, but so don’t want to leave the old rock in me tank.
Will the tank be ready for a couple of clownfish after a week?

Azedenkae · May 13, 2021

canadianeh said:
Well I guess I can leave some marine pure balls in the new tank, but so don’t want to leave the old rock in me tank.
Will the tank be ready for a couple of clownfish after a week?

Purely dry rock? Probably not. I mean it could be incidentally ready if the nitrification capabilities of the MarinePure spheres are high enough, but generally regardless of the seeding method it does take a bit of time to get 'liven' the dry rock with enough nitrification capability to handle ammonia produced by live stock.

What I would do in this situation is, just do what I'd normally do when cycling. Add 2ppm or whatever amount of ammonia that you'd want the tank to handle (1ppm should be fine), then see how well microbes in the tank handle that amount a day. If so, then you're good for fish. Then maybe over time remove one sphere at a time back to the old tank as your (hopefully then live rock) continue to build up a nitrifier population.