How long to seed carbon and rocks?

[funman1]

Looking to jump start my new coral system, and I put some carbon and some rock in my big 20G sump on my main tank, and wondered how long till the bacteria would seed the carbon and rock enough to move it over to the coral system?

I'm not looking to make the rock "live" as we think of it, but just enough to kick start that system so it will start to make the rock live on its own?

I was thinking like 48 hours or so? Am I way off or will that work?

 

[bored4long]

Steve, is your goal to seed the rock with enough bacteria to support the filtration on the prop tank? If so, it might be easier to just dose Ammonia to the rock in the prop tank. This way you can test the water and watch the cycle and know exactly when the bacteria is large enough to handle a bioload. If I misunderstood the purpose, just ignore this post.

 

[MrMikeB]

I place bio-media in my established tank for a full week to get properly seeded, and then move over to the new system. It might be overkill, but I have had minimum ammonia spikes this way and the typical diatom algae cycle were notably shorter.

This is of course second to taking existing material out of my main (rock/sand) to seed another system as my preference.

 

[matttaylor]

48 hours would not, imho, be enough time. As Mike pointed out at least a week is a good starting point. If you need a "jumpstart" i'm due to change out my floss and you can have it, or do the same from your tank.

Another option is since you have so much chaeto, pull some out and throw it into the new system and allow the bacteria to take off that way.

 

[funman1]

I may go the cheato route then..
But I was worried that there's nothing for the cheato to "eat" as it's clean pure water...
I don't use any kind of filter floss in any of my tanks

Looking to move over some corals and also my strawberry dottyback, and a cinamon clown.

 

[matttaylor]

Just feed the cheato light to start, and then once you add the fish they will feed it.

 

[jtarmitage]

Also do a water change on your existing tank, and use the old water in your frag tank. That will transfer over a lot of bacteria as well.

 

[matttaylor]

^ especially if you use a gravel vac and add some of the poo from the sand bed.

 

[Justin74]

I was gonna suggest just put either an exhausted filter pad or carbon or whatever you got thats packed with bacteria and just let that sit in there for few weeks. The old pad/carbon will probably have way more bacteria than needed to utilize your "clean" water and the die off of excess bacteria along with nutrients and decay in the pad will help establish some colonies and balance the bio lode within 3-4 weeks, which will be?? A fish? A couple of snails? Just frags and chaeto?
Chaeto another great way to seed with pods along with bacteria.

-Justin

 

[Trevor S]

you know I was once told that you must have patience and not rush things.. 48 hrs is a little rushing IMO

 

[funman1]

Yeah but it's just a frag tank

 

[bladeruner143]

It might be easier if you just drove it over to Davis, and set it up in my living room! I think that would be the fastest way Steve! :rollface:

 

[mpoletti]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11140203#post11140203 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Trevor S
you know I was once told that you must have patience and not rush things.. 48 hrs is a little rushing IMO

Thats funny Trevor. How long did it take for you to set up your new elos BTW, sweet tank.

 

[matttaylor]

Trevor doesn't know what patience is!