Tank cycle + tank transfer questions/advice

[JoJosReef]

I have a new IM 40L AIO cycling. Old Fiji & Marshall islands rocks (were dry 5 yr) in the tank. Sand is "Natural Bahamas Oolitic Aragonite Coarse Sand (1- 2 mm) - Pisces Aqua", and I added 2/3rds of a booster tub of Fiji Mud mixed in with the sand to help seed the sand. Fritz TurboBoost added on day 1 (Mar 28) and about half the recommended dose of Tim's ammonium chloride (may have also been some dried organics on the rocks that would turn to ammonia).

1 day later (Mar 29) added gulf live rock rubble that's been in the back AIO chamber of my 10g.

One week later (Apr 4) added small bottle of Fritz9, as I was also adding Macros to the tank: a few stalks of Botrycladia, a stalk of Halimeda incressata, Codium and some stringy red Gracilaria.

Did a large water change before adding the Fritz9 and macros. Ammonia was reading ~0.4, Nitrites 1.0+ and Nitrates were ~20ppm.

Current readings (Red Sea tests):
NH3/NH4: ~0.1
NO2: over test sensitivity (>1ppm)
NO3: ~30ppm

Advice solicited:
I am trying to decide on what to do next, as it is the weekend and I won't be back until Monday. Should I forego adding more ammonia? I don't want NO2 and NO3 getting too high over the weekend, right? Is a water change necessary right now or just let it stew over the weekend?

And IMPORTANTLY, Monday is tank transfer day. This whole 10g tank with gulf live rock and gulf live sand (all TBS) is getting moved over to the right side of the 40L tank:

It really is beautiful, isn't it? Bit too packed though

Current plan is large water change (at least 50%), move over corals to new places, drain water and take out fish/inverts, lift main rock and transfer over to tank, re-acclimate inverts and fish, add to tank, sift/clean up sand and add to current sand bed.

For this, I think that the high nitrites and nitrates will be taken care of with the water change, and then the current mature biofilter and stocking should take care of the rest, right?

Thanks for the long read and thanks in advance for advice.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

I would really assume that the rock transferred over will really handle your cycle if you don’t add new fish. Stirring up the old sand can cause problems, but if you rinse I think you should be fine. I moved everything from a 110 to a 210 once left the sand in the 110 and some of the rock, added dry rock to both and ended up with both running smoothly. I did not cycle the 210 at all. Set up as soon as the tank was filled and the new sand had settled.
So I would t add any more ammonia, but would do as large of a water change as you can. When I cycled my new 210 with ammonia and bacteria, I did an Allstate 100% water change before adding fish and it really helped with nitrates.

 

[JoJosReef]

I would really assume that the rock transferred over will really handle your cycle if you don’t add new fish. Stirring up the old sand can cause problems, but if you rinse I think you should be fine. I moved everything from a 110 to a 210 once left the sand in the 110 and some of the rock, added dry rock to both and ended up with both running smoothly. I did not cycle the 210 at all. Set up as soon as the tank was filled and the new sand had settled.
So I would t add any more ammonia, but would do as large of a water change as you can. When I cycled my new 210 with ammonia and bacteria, I did an Allstate 100% water change before adding fish and it really helped with nitrates.

Thanks for the response!

Sounds great. Yes, the plan is to do a large WC, then move the corals and rocks over. Fish get tupper'd and then reacclimated (just a firefish and tailspot) and added very last.

For the sand, I plan to take it out in scoops, pick out all the worms I want to keep, remove some gunk and a few bits of algae. Then transfer the scoops of sand over and worms over.

Already left the office, but didn't add any more ammonia, just leaving the bacteria and macros to stew over the weekend with the nitrites and nitrates.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

Thanks for the response!

Sounds great. Yes, the plan is to do a large WC, then move the corals and rocks over. Fish get tupper'd and then reacclimated (just a firefish and tailspot) and added very last.

For the sand, I plan to take it out in scoops, pick out all the worms I want to keep, remove some gunk and a few bits of algae. Then transfer the scoops of sand over and worms over.

Already left the office, but didn't add any more ammonia, just leaving the bacteria and macros to stew over the weekend with the nitrites and nitrates.

Rinse the sand you transfer as it could release an large amount of detritus causing a huge ammonia spike. I did this in a tank just cleaning vacuuming the sand.

 

[GatorGreg]

Why are you spiking Dr. Tim’s ammonia to a tank that has got already cycled live rock in it by your admission?
(Gulf rock?)

Dr. Tim’s fishless cycle program is not for people who are using live rock in any way shape or form. You do not need that …..it’s counter intuitive.

you added rock that already had an established bio filter. All you have to do is let your larger tank catch up by not overloading the bio filter.

Your 10g seems super successful. It’s very strange that you’re complicating something as simple as cycling/transferring a tank.

 

[JoJosReef]

Why are you spiking Dr. Tim’s ammonia to a tank that has got already cycled live rock in it by your admission?
(Gulf rock?)

Dr. Tim’s fishless cycle program is not for people who are using live rock in any way shape or form. You do not need that …..it’s counter intuitive.

you added rock that already had an established bio filter. All you have to do is let your larger tank catch up by not overloading the bio filter.

Your 10g seems super successful. It’s very strange that you’re complicating something as simple as cycling/transferring a tank.

Could be. I'm still relatively new to all of this. The ratio of old dry rock to gulf rubble in the tank is large, so my thoughts were that the new rocks needed a boost, the rubble just to supplement and let some other bacteria start. Thus, the ammonia was more to feed the bottled bacteria while I continue prepping the tank for the first transfer (10g to 40gL, about 2 weeks of tweaking things).

Maybe it was all unnecessary. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But I also was trying new things like Fiji Mud (minor disaster) and a new gyre pump, so didn't want to subject all of the corals, fish and inverts to the trial and error by transferring on day 1--good thing, too, because it took a week and 40gal of water changes to clear up the water!

Second tank (13.5g) gets transferred in another week!