tank cycling

[LilB0506]

so just wondering, when setting up a new tank... lets say for example my friend is doing a water change, and i take the water he takes out and out that in my tank would that help it cycle quicker since it already has bacteria and stuff in it?

[MattTVI]

not really, the majority of denitrifying (sp?) bacteria in a tank is in the sand, rocks, etc... comparatively very little is in the water column.

when it comes to reef tanks, patience is a virtue, so enjoy watching your shrimp rot... :-)

[hng]

The water will contain bacteria but probably not very much. You would do better with a few pieces of live rock or scoops of live sand.

[LilB0506]

yeah im getting live sand and im doin mostly base rock from hirocks.com with some live rock to seed it...

[xaoss23]

Originally Posted by LilB0506

yeah im getting live sand and im doin mostly base rock from hirocks.com with some live rock to seed it...

That should do fine... so you just have to be patient like the rest of us

[Daytona955]

I added some frozen marine uncooked shrimp to my tank. I just let them decompose. It helped speed things up and I had no mini cycle after adding fish.

[LilB0506]

ok thanks guys

[russbriscoe]

The thing that sucks is that everything just takes time... I bought all uncured rock and let it stink up my home for a couple of weeks. now every thing is great. I didnt do any water changes or anything. I just set the rock in my sump and let nature do it's thing. It took about 6 weeks to get clean. Once this happened I started doing weekly water changes for 6 weeks, then bi-weekly, and now I am monthly. I also used all live sand.

BTW, my tank now, 5 months later, is great.

[three90s&125sump]

Time is your best friend here, the more you have the better off you will be in the long run. I let my tank cycle (rock cooking) for around 16 weeks before I added sand to it and 20 weeks before I put animals in it. I wanted to be sure that I had as much stuff out of the rocks as I could get before I put the sand in so it didn't get sucked into the sink. I used a mag36 at point blank to blast the stuff out of the rocks. It worked very well, much better than sloshing it in buckets.