Most efficient way to cycle second aquarium

[Claus84]

Hi all,

I'm not that new to reefs or the forum but this seemed like the best place for this question.

I'm looking at setting up a second tank as a FOWLR, mainly to house my coral beauty (mixing with my flame angel in my 90 didn't work out) and also a few fish that may have been iffy to keep in my reef or outcompete my mandarin for pods (poss aip eating file, fang blenny, fridmani dottyback). I need to do this as cheaply as possible whilst still maintaining enough area/rockwork for the angel so I am looking at buying a 48x15x18 tropical tank (56g) DIY stand, HOB skimmer, canister filter (would clean frequently to avoid becoming an NO3 trap) and 40lb+ of Life Rock by Caribsea.

I would like to do this as efficiently as possible with the tools I have at my disposal. I currently have 2 QT's running, one of which will be housing the coral beauty whilst the new tanks cycles, these have internal filters along with a fair amount of seeded filter foam. I could also spare a few chunks of seeded Life Rock from my Reef. I plan to add a bottle of Colony or similar bacti product BUT i'm not willing to use them as advertised, ie put fish straight in after dosing, I would add pure ammonia and wait out the cycle. I could also purchase some more seeded foam from the sump at my LFS.

With all that in mind what would be the quickest and most efficient way to cycle this new tank ready for the angel? And if I concentrate on using seeded media to start the canister and add a bacterial product am I still likely to experience a cycle as the rock becomes active? Or would combining a canister filter with rock prolong the cycle in any way? (Caribsea coat the rock with heterotrophic bacteria which should kick in when wet also).

Thanks in advance!

Nick

Edit: I should point out that when I say get the tank ready for the angel, I mean cycled and safe. I'm aware that really a more mature tank/rockwork is required for Centropyge sp and I will have to compensate with a varied diet, pods etc.

 

[Labridaedicted]

I always cycle by dosing with ammonium chloride and then using a bacteria supplement (i use microbacter7, but there's others).

Sounds like you know the process, though. There's not really a way to speed up a cycle too much or we'd all be doing it. You may just have to keep the fella in QT for a month(ish) while the new tank breaks in. I wouldn't add him until i was sure the tank is done with the nasty part of the cycle since it is an angel and a bit sensitive. I would say once your ammonia and nitrite are gone, it is probably good. I would imagine the algae phase might actually be good for the angel. Give him more to pick at.

 

[donny619]

Hi all,

I'm not that new to reefs or the forum but this seemed like the best place for this question.

I'm looking at setting up a second tank as a FOWLR, mainly to house my coral beauty (mixing with my flame angel in my 90 didn't work out) and also a few fish that may have been iffy to keep in my reef or outcompete my mandarin for pods (poss aip eating file, fang blenny, fridmani dottyback). I need to do this as cheaply as possible whilst still maintaining enough area/rockwork for the angel so I am looking at buying a 48x15x18 tropical tank (56g) DIY stand, HOB skimmer, canister filter (would clean frequently to avoid becoming an NO3 trap) and 40lb+ of Life Rock by Caribsea.

I would like to do this as efficiently as possible with the tools I have at my disposal. I currently have 2 QT's running, one of which will be housing the coral beauty whilst the new tanks cycles, these have internal filters along with a fair amount of seeded filter foam. I could also spare a few chunks of seeded Life Rock from my Reef. I plan to add a bottle of Colony or similar bacti product BUT i'm not willing to use them as advertised, ie put fish straight in after dosing, I would add pure ammonia and wait out the cycle. I could also purchase some more seeded foam from the sump at my LFS.

With all that in mind what would be the quickest and most efficient way to cycle this new tank ready for the angel? And if I concentrate on using seeded media to start the canister and add a bacterial product am I still likely to experience a cycle as the rock becomes active? Or would combining a canister filter with rock prolong the cycle in any way? (Caribsea coat the rock with heterotrophic bacteria which should kick in when wet also).

Thanks in advance!

Nick

Edit: I should point out that when I say get the tank ready for the angel, I mean cycled and safe. I'm aware that really a more mature tank/rockwork is required for Centropyge sp and I will have to compensate with a varied diet, pods etc.

I started 2nd tank by taking live rock from 1st tank and putting into 2nd.

Replaced pieces from 1st with dry rock.

 

[Pockets]

Could take alittle sand from the old tank and put into the new as well to seed it.

 

[Wankell]

I set up a small nano once with Dr Tims and it seemed to work well, of course it will still be a new tank with not much biofilter but it sped up the process tremendously, at least it seemed like it.

Recently I came across Fritz Turbostart 900 at my LFS and was told that it is higher quality and works better, maybe give it a look.

 

[Liquid360]

Yeah I agree with above. I recently had a catastrophic tank failure. Moved most sand/rock to a new tank, no cycling required.

 

[Claus84]

Thanks all, my coral beauty has gone on holiday to my LFS so I can afford to take my time and not try to rush it. Appreciate the input, I have a couple of rocks not covered in softies that I can move over and a few handfulls of sand shouldn't be an issue. Think I'll also add a bacterial supplement, probably Colony or Dr Tim's.

Any thoughts on whether I should bother with a canister filter? Seemed like a good idea for removal of detritus and as somewhere to put GAC/GFO etc but so many people complain about them eventually becoming NO3 traps I'm wondering whether I should just save my money. I'm looking at getting a Reef Octopus Classic 1000 skimmer which I know has a media chamber of sorts so maybe scrap filter altogether and use this for small amount of GAC or GFO instead??

 

[Labridaedicted]

If you have the canister, it won't hurt to run it as long as you keep it cleaned. I used to use an eheim that I filled with bio media and ran carbon in it occasionally as well, and after a couple of weeks it was naaaaaasty. The reef octo hob is a decent little skimmer. You may want to use a separate media reactor so you can vary flow rates for the media and fluidity the gfo. A simple phosban 150 would work well (the brs media reactors are pretty good hob as well.).

 

[Claus84]

Good call thanks, I'm in the UK so can't get the BRS reactors but will take a look at the phosban and other hang-ons. I'll maybe hold off on the canister then and see it how I get on with just the rock and the Reef Octo as I could do with making this as cheap as possible for the time being at least.

 

[Liquid360]

I once used a canister and I HATE them. I now use a GFO/Carbon reactor made by Geosreef. It’s an awesome piece of kit, I highly recommend. I change out the GFO/Carbon every month, more than is likely necessary, but c’est la vive.

http://www.geosreef.com/product/fmc415p/