Cycle question

[darkreef]

I want to cycle my new tank before I swap out.
Can I cycle with live rock with no light on the tank .
I could feed a little plankton for the pods no ?
Since there won't be no algae .

Was just going to take some live rock from my sump
And add a few water changes from my existing tank

[Myka]

You don't need light for the tank to cycle, and you don't need to feed it. In fact, you shouldn't feed it while it is cycling.

[Chase31]

This is my own knowledge so you may want to wait for someone with more knowledge to pipe up. But if you transfer from tank to tank with minimal air time you should get no cycle. Unless your using ur own rock plus more live. If you transfer all livestock and rock at the same time the tank will be cycled. You are cycling the rocks not the tank.

[Myka]

After reading Chase's response...I was assuming you were cycling NEW rock. If you're ONLY using old rock from your old system then like Chase says, it shouldn't cause any ammonia spikes and shouldn't require any cycling.

[asylumdown]

+1 to the others. If all the rock from your old tank is going in to the new tank, and there's no new uncured live rock going in to the new tank, your cycle will be so small it will probably be undetectable.

You only need to worry about it if you're using all new rock in the new tank.

[Skimmer Juice]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

+1 to the others. If all the rock from your old tank is going in to the new tank, and there's no new uncured live rock going in to the new tank, your cycle will be so small it will probably be undetectable.

You only need to worry about it if you're using all new rock in the new tank.

so say the tank you were doing a swap from was 60g and the new tank was a 100g . Could you just swap everything over ,if you were not adding anything new. Except for the water you have to add to fill the extra 40g ? It would be just like doing a 40g water change?

[darkreef]

40 gallon to 150 gallon.
52lbs of cured live rock

Would the parameter stay stable for my corals ?

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by stinky

so say the tank you were doing a swap from was 60g and the new tank was a 100g . Could you just swap everything over ,if you were not adding anything new. Except for the water you have to add to fill the extra 40g ? It would be just like doing a 40g water change?

that's what I would do. Personally I wouldn't even take the water. It would be like a big 100% water change, which every once in a while isn't such a bad idea to do, but that idea freaks some people out.

The only thing I would never take with me from one tank to another was the sand. Sand beds fill up with so much gunk and detritus over time that I think transferring a sand bed from one tank to another will cause more problems than it's worth. In that case you'll lose whatever nitrification capacity your sand was adding, but then I'd just test for ammonia every day for a week or so and dose prime if anything popped up.