Tank swap - how long until things stabilize?

[W1ngz]

I've just completed a tank swap from a 5 year old 75 gallon to a 90 cube.

I'm wondering how long I should wait to really consider things to be 'settled'. A week? A month? I'm not seeing any ammonia spike (watching with a seneye, it went from .003 to .007 for a day, and dropped back to .003). My pH swings seem to have flattened, but I'm not sure that's a tell, as I've also closed things up and turned on the AC quite a bit in the last week also.

Aside from the tank and sump obviously, the following changes were made to the system.

Moved my chaeto into the refugium of the new sump, and switched to overnight lighting instead of daytime. The chaeto used to be in a small section of a little frag tank, lit with the same light cycle as the tank.

All new sand (caribsea special grade), mostly old rock with a few new pieces (dry marco rock, so little to no die off expected there). The new rock was cycled for 2 months with the occasional few drops of ammonia in a bucket with a heater and powerhead.

 

[brandon429]

nice post

this is being linked to our sand rinse thread which is 23 pages of swaps. Yours is the first seneye confirmation of skip cycle :)

file that under things that could've helped us eight years ago lol. nice work

do you have before and after pics

its ready now, no wait req'd

we like to ramp up lighting though as if a cloudy week is coming, no bright production lighting on first go on the new tank is the recommend. see the thread for reasoning behind that, patterns are in the pages.

 

[brandon429]

also before I post, our entire thread is about detritus mitigation and how moving over clean items vs cloudy ones makes all cycling predictable.

Given you swapped out your bed, the greatest storage zone of detritus, I must assume you didn't move over crudded up/detritus laden rocks or your spike would be much higher.

The seneye indicates you moved clean surfaces?

 

[reacclimating 2 the hobby]

You should be good to go if you moved over your rock and cycled anything new.

I've never changed my lighting when moving an established tank. I don't see a reason to if your corals are already accustomed to it.

 

[W1ngz]

nice post
this is being linked to our sand rinse thread which is 23 pages of swaps. Yours is the first seneye confirmation of skip cycle :)
file that under things that could've helped us eight years ago lol. nice work
do you have before and after pics
its ready now, no wait req'd
we like to ramp up lighting though as if a cloudy week is coming, no bright production lighting on first go on the new tank is the recommend.

I'm not even sure I'd call it a 'skip cycle' since all the rock is mature, and 90-95%% of my water was moved with it aside from the really cloudy crap which was also used, just run through a filter sock. Glad for some confirmation that's likely to settle quickly.

also before I post, our entire thread is about detritus mitigation and how moving over clean items vs cloudy ones makes all cycling predictable.
Given you swapped out your bed, the greatest storage zone of detritus, I must assume you didn't move over crudded up/detritus laden rocks or your spike would be much higher.
The seneye indicates you moved clean surfaces?

All the rocks were blown off in the old half full tank then placed into buckets with tank water that was siphoned out early on, before the sand bed got stirred up, so yeah I'd call them 'clean' surfaces.

 

[brandon429]

we call it skip cycle because even today the going theory if polled / aquarists will nearly universally agree that a cycle or mini cycle occurs when accessing the tank to any degree, especially a sandbed swap

we used to only have api to go from, and of course 99% of anyone is under a mini cycle there. nice to have seneye, nice to have detritus work confirmation wo knowing that earlier. uber sensitive ammonia testing to match outcomes to our work is rare and neato

ur thread is on page one of the sand rinse thread this helps build trust for others when they begin planning a move/swap/upgrade/cyano cure

 

[W1ngz]

You should be good to go if you moved over your rock and cycled anything new.

I've never changed my lighting when moving an established tank. I don't see a reason to if your corals are already accustomed to it.

The lighting hasn't been changed - yet. I'll be moving over to a t5 hybrid in the next few days, using a piece of light diffuser until I can get a screen top and probably starting it off with only one side of the fixture powered for the first few days.

 

[InvaderJim]

Meant to post my question in sand rinse thread. lol

 

[brandon429]

Bump

this very thread has been a positive consistent reference for us for a while now, well done longevity, how’s this reef