Cycling tank
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Crabs McJones
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While you can use filter media from another tank to seed your tank to help start your cycle, I dont believe in such a thing as an "instant cycle" alot of companies sell bottled bacteria that says you can instantly add fish, but even those I dont trust. Best bet is to properly cycle the tank. Why risk the livestock?
André Brasil
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Answer will depend on the person you ask, what are your available resources and your idea of "instantly".
Lol I just wasn’t sure because I had read of people supposedly doing this but would using filter media from an established tank be helpful in cycling the tank? I am 100% okay with waiting I was just curious.
Crabs McJones
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Yup, using cycled media from another tank is a great way to start your cycle. Just make sure you have an ammonia source for the bacteria to cultivate off of. Raw shrimp from the groceries store is very popular, otherwise dr Tim's ammonium chloride
Yeah this is my second tank I’ve set up my last one I waited about the same amount of one as you, I know patience is very important I was just trying to see if there was anything that I could do different that would make it better in any way.
Crabs McJones
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@chris0412 Please disregard this users advice.Instant cycle? Why yes! They sell pixie dust on amazon.
The only immediate results I know of in reefing is pouring ACID in your tank killing everything. That's instant....
Good results takes weeks and weeks of patience
Crabs McJones
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What size are we working with?
d2mini
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Another option is starting your tank with real live rock AND sand from a place like Tampa Bay Saltwater.
All my tanks are started that way and all can support SPS coral and fish in just a few days.
D2 is right, although some wont use fish due to qt/fallow reasons its true skip cycling is available as a readable 12 page thread heh science/not dust, actual tanks doing it and we track the outcomes.
but its not for the art of breaking rules, we aren't advocating anything rushed but in instances of tank breaks/moves/upgrades using 5 yr material, the science of skip cycling is required. I know you aren't a novice wanting to break the rules, so if you have a valid reason for your tank to instantly be able to process ammonia, from whatever the source, yes that's avail. ive never cycled any reef tank ive ever posted online, and that's a lot of pico reefs stacked w coral on day 1 or 3. I wasn't trying to break rules, I was using purple live rock from a pet store and by rule that's already cycled, I was avoiding redundancy.
if there's a specific reason to skip cycle, then its valid and we can do it in our sleep with any amount of reef material you want, that's how we transport reef materials without them dying for various reasons, that's all skip cycle biology. I don't keep reef fish, only the rest of the reef so the ethics part/immune. the bioloading support I require is the miniscule amnts from coral metabolism and from feed breakdown within the tank. 98% of any pico reef living right now across keepers was skip cycled. 2% used dry rocks and brought them up the normal way.
but its not for the art of breaking rules, we aren't advocating anything rushed but in instances of tank breaks/moves/upgrades using 5 yr material, the science of skip cycling is required. I know you aren't a novice wanting to break the rules, so if you have a valid reason for your tank to instantly be able to process ammonia, from whatever the source, yes that's avail. ive never cycled any reef tank ive ever posted online, and that's a lot of pico reefs stacked w coral on day 1 or 3. I wasn't trying to break rules, I was using purple live rock from a pet store and by rule that's already cycled, I was avoiding redundancy.
if there's a specific reason to skip cycle, then its valid and we can do it in our sleep with any amount of reef material you want, that's how we transport reef materials without them dying for various reasons, that's all skip cycle biology. I don't keep reef fish, only the rest of the reef so the ethics part/immune. the bioloading support I require is the miniscule amnts from coral metabolism and from feed breakdown within the tank. 98% of any pico reef living right now across keepers was skip cycled. 2% used dry rocks and brought them up the normal way.
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Brew12
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Part of me wants to get up on my soap box and rant about why I dislike the term cycling. Instead, I'll just leave it at this. Yes, you can use the filter media from an established tank and the new system should be able to instantly handle the ammonia from a small amount of fish. This does not mean the system is ready for fish or that it is safe to add fish. There is much more to a reef system in terms of balance and equilibrium than the nitrogen cycle.
