New tank upgrade help and cycle questions

[Tylor Switzer]

So a little back story, I had a 60 gallon cube setup with live rock and a thick sandbed. I recently purchased a 112g tank when I purchased my home. But I tore down my 60 gallon tank and put most of my live rock, my corals a little bit of sand and my fish inside a Rubbermaid and made myself a little makeshift tank. I put my sand in 5 gallon buckets and kept a little bit of water in it to keep it wet.

So as I start the setup of my new tank a few months later im curious to know if I can reuse my sand?? I haven't had any water circulation in the buckets but they've been covered and maintained at room temperature. I will probably add more new sand in the tank as well as some new live rock that's been wet in buckets at the local lfs.

Also once I get the rock and salt in the sytem, and start to cycle the tank, should I put in my chaeto and run my skimmer or other filtration components while its cycling??

Any help would be great and ive got a week or two before I put the water in the tank, so if there is anything I should be doing before to make the transfer easier let me know! thanks for taking the time to help!

 

[JoshO]

I've never had a deep sandbed so I'm not 100% here but from what I've read you'd need to rinse it THOROUGHLY or just grab some new sand! Your live rock and media will house more than enough bacteria to keep you going without the need for the sand to be housing it!

 

[brandon429]

Agreed that is right.

the rot associated with the sand isn’t worth the risk to get its bacteria. Rinse it with tap until it runs 100% clear, then use it. transferred live rocks carry the whole bioload. Want to see a working example



this thread

New setup- no cycle happening?

First piece of information: ZERO ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate Okay- so here it is. (My 2nd salty tank.) Newly setup 120 gallon tank (5 days old). 100 pounds of Live sand, some live rocks (from a mature tank, even some mushrooms and a little agae), some dry rock. 2 clown fish, added first...

www.reef2reef.com

its a skip cycle build. He had full complement instant reef with fish and mushroom corals solely because he moved a few rocks from a pet store to his home. Skipped the whole cycle due to five live rocks moved.


you won’t get a cycle if you are dealing with aged live rocks as your filter base

move over only perfectly rinsed, cloudless rinsed sand using tap water so you have enough to complete the rinse.

he too will not get a cycle, six fish right off the bat do not die simply because to move live rocks moves all required bacteria.

 

[brandon429]

It used to be thought in the hobby that bacteria adapted to a bioload associated with surface area (live rocks and sand) were linked in a delicate balance where removing sand presents a total imbalance, lesser bacteria than the prior steady state was claimed to be unable to handle the established bioload.


that is not true, and the above thread example shows it.

The few live rocks carried over run the whole system; that the rest of it is dry and catching up with bacteria doesn’t matter. He can carry a full fish bioload on day one because independently from live sand, a few live rocks has football fields of laid-out surface area and that too is enough to run all the fish you’d want.

the exact same scenario is taking any reef tank here, and installing four extra canister filters on it. Let the filters run sixty days, that’s no harm to your reef. You had a reef running fine, and added four more canisters of fully active surface area... it oxidizes ammonia and produces copious nitrate.
the filters integrate 100% into the bio filter.


*ripping them all offline immediately (rinsing a sandbed in tap) harms nothing, your tank could carry the bioload before you added four extra filters, sand is ‘four extra canister filters’ to a reef tank-expendable surface area. We can make tanks instantly bare bottom using accurate surface area science.