Using Cycled water?

[Amatuer21]

Going to be setting up a 20 gallon nano cube and i am thinking about using 20 gallons from a fully cycled established tank. Is this a good idea or not? It would save time from having to wait for my tank to cycle correct?

 

[Reef Frog]

No it won't help much if at all. The water does not host a large volume of bacteria. A small piece of LR has all that you need. You are going to get some advice about patience. Shortcuts often back fire but there are a few:

Dr Tim's method dosing pure ammonia & his bacteria.

Adding 100% totally cured live rock. But this is expensive & you will probably get a mini cycle anyway.

I say do it the traditional way and enjoy the cycle. Sometimes the anticipation is half the fun. Kind of like Christmas Eve when you were a kid.

 

[Amatuer21]

Lol the anticipation. Ya i was thinking about it and you are right. Itd be a pain anyways to carry and transport 20 gallons of water. Ill use approx 15 lbs of dry rock and 5 lbs of live rock maybe more. I will check out the Dr. Tims method

 

[Denver_Keeper]

+1 to the above. There are ways to cut cycle time, but there is no effective way to skip the cycle all together.

I even got a very small mini-cycle when I upgraded from a 90g to a 150g. Everything moved on the same day, and almost all the old water was used. I still saw small spikes due to die off within the rocks.

Put at least one piece of live rock in the filled tank with a bunch of base rock. Wait for the bacteria to multiply and colonize all the rock. When both Ammonia and Nitrite test 0 for a few days straight, then add the first fish. There just is no other way to do it right.

 

[Reef Frog]

It sounds like a good plan. Good luck and enjoy the journey!

 

[Hawke1974]

So let me ask this... I watched an episode of Tanked last night for the first time... and they setup a tank, ran tap water to it, added the salt and then tossed in all the fish... is that a smoke and mirrors thing for tv.. or are they really adding the fish from the get go?

 

[TYAG]

It's all smoke, tv is never what it seems cut here cut there splice together etc

 

[Amatuer21]

I seen that same exact thing. I was like uhh have i been doing this wrong the whole time lol

 

[nmbeg]

Tanked is garbage. I am sure the actual guys know how to do it right, but I'm not sure the actors are even the real businessmen that do the actual work. On tv they make it seem like it's a one-day job, but in fact it takes time and part of the smoke of tv is to wear the same clothes everyday so the editors can easily splice it together.

 

[Reef Frog]

Yes it's a shame so many poor creatures will suffer needlessly due to this show. I find it curious the general public would even be interested.

On the same note I hear Disney is coming out with another Nemo movie. Clownfish of the world, beware.

 

[nmbeg]

On the same note I hear Disney is coming out with another Nemo movie. Clownfish of the world, beware.

lol