Thread: Cycle question
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Old 01-20-2014, 04:26 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by darkreef View Post
40 gallon to 150 gallon.
52lbs of cured live rock

Would the parameter stay stable for my corals ?
There's a risk any time you transfer a tank, no matter how you do it. They'll stay stable if you are proactive about testing for them and responding before anything gets too out of whack. Your live rock isn't taking care of 100% of the nitrogen cycle in your tank since biofilms develop on pretty much every available surface, but it's definitely responsible for most of it due to the huge surface area. It's been my experience that live rock's capacity for dealing with nitrogenous wastes is pretty elastic once it's established. If you give the new system a good couple of weeks before adding new fish, I don't think you'll see anything bad happen, but definitely test for ammonia regularly for the first 10 days or so and have a bottle of Prime and the capacity to do a larger water change on hand just in case.

I would also try and disturb your live rock as little as possible. For example, try and place them in the new tank in similar orientations relative to the light source so that you don't have a mass die-back of photosynthesizing and photophobic life in the first few weeks. The undersides of all my rocks are covered in sponges that would be toast if I suddenly flipped the rock upside down, and nitrifying bacteria are photophobic, so they're probably more concentrated in areas that are currently shaded/in the dark in your current tank. If you try and maintain that for the first little bit it can only decrease the risk.
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