Adding a tank to an existing system

Rubymoon286 · Apr 23, 2020

Hey all, I have a 10 gallon display with a 30 gallon sump and I'm getting ready to get a 6.8 gallon pico display put together, and I'd like to add it to my current system. I used dry rock for the scape in the 6.8 but haven't added water to it yet. My question is do I need to set up a separate cycle and attach the tank once it's cycled, or can I hook up to the existing system without risking a system crash/new cycle due to the dry rock?

ozborn99 · Apr 23, 2020

Age of original system?

Rubymoon286 · Apr 23, 2020

ozborn99 said:
Age of original system?

Just under a year, and has been pretty stable throughout that time.

ESH · Apr 25, 2020

Anyway you can mix some of the rock? move some of the establish rock over to the new tank? that'd help with establishing things. Any new rock that hasn't been cycled could leach phosphates, and in a smaller system there is less water volume to disperse.

If your main system was larger I'd think you would be fine, but in this case I'd monitor your parameters a little closer. Wouldn't hurt to add something like Dr Tims to start the smaller tank off and help with seeding, or actually even easier, start with water from the main system and then replace in your display system.

For comparison, I've added a 20gl to a 110gl system, a 90gl to a 220, and I am in the process of adding another 5gl tank to the now 310 system. I didn't have any cycle issues doing so, but the difference was that I only used these tanks for frag tanks, so the only add was an increase in water volume. I have added additional bio bricks into my sump and didnt see any kind of mini cycle. Hope this helps!

ozborn99 · Apr 25, 2020

Yeah. You'll be just fine. Don't worry about it. Not enough volume to offset your tank into cycling again. You're basically adding more surface area and water volume to your existing system. Like poster above, just make sure you add more rock, or bio cubes, and probably use some sort of bacteria starter so you don't wind up with any type of outbreak of algae on the new surface area.

Rubymoon286 · Apr 25, 2020

I've got a bottle of fritz turbo start that I'd planned to use and I bleach treated the rock and soaked them in RODI for two months to leach as much of the nutrients out as possible before building the display. I think what I'll do is just test every other day instead of every three to keep on top of it and hope the turbo start is enough to prevent a cycle. I used probably tenish pounds of the soaked dry rock in the new display so hopefully the turbo start will populate pretty quick.

Thank you all!