Hoorayyyy
 

IT CYCLED !! Finally !!
Ammonia 0 ! Nitrates 0! :D I'm so happy ! lol
What do I do now ? Should I add some more rock etc from my 44?
The goal is to transfer the 44 to the 92.
I'm jumping up and down ! lol

amanda

You should be able to transfer everything over at once now, because the cured rock in your 44 your know can support the bioload already, and now that your other tank has cycled you wont get any spikes.

Do you have sandbeds in both tanks now, or just 1?

I have sand in both =)

amanda

You have to decide whether you want to rinse your old sandbed out or not when you transfer it then. It depends on how old it is, how much detrius there is trapped in it.

Amanda if I were you I would maybe take a test sample of water into a LFS or let someone else test with different test kits. The reason I say this is that you just posted that you had ammonia and nitrite a couple of days ago and this is a new tank so it is pretty fast for it to move all the way through the cycle to have 0 nitrates. It is just better to be safe than sorry IMO.

I would also rinse each rock intended for the new tank in changewater. This will remove loose dead stuff as well as accumulated detritus from the rock. That way you won't be transferring all that nuisance algae producing crud into your new tank. If you already have rock in the other tank, rinse it too. Lost of detritus will come off it too.

ok I will rinse each rock. It has been sitting at the same level all week and I couldn't decide weathedr or not it was at 0 or not =p
I got my husband to look at it last night and he agreed it looked like 0 to him too.

amanda

I wouldn't move the old sandbed.... too risky.

What's a sandband? :razz:

New type of live musical performance? Kidding of course.

And surely we all know he means Sandbed.


(oh no.. not again.....:lol: )

I would thoroughly rinse it before you move it, to get the detrius out first so that you dont spike your system.

I wasn't planning on moving the old one....

amanda

To help you decide whether or not to re-use your sandbed, here's an article on Hydrogen Sulfide and the Reef Aquarium (taken from the Reef Chemistry "sticky" thread in the Reef Forum):

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-12/rhf/index.php

You may also consider using no sandbed at all, depending on the fish you already have or want to keep in the future. All three of my reefs have been BB (bare bottom aka without a sandbed) since summer 2005. I wouldn't go back to using sandbeds if you paid me truckloads of money, though I would take the money and probably buy more salt, test kits and additives :biggrin: :razz:

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Not that I want to get into the same old sandbed debate, again. But you could also try a half sandbed (patent pending:mrgreen: ) like mine. I had a semi deep sand bed (1.5-2 inches) and proceeded to suck it out, only I stopped half way for some reason.:neutral:

I now have a sandbed in the back of the tank and under the rockwork but not in the front. It works well because my powerheads no longer kick up a storm in the tank!