Cycling a large tank?

[kwirky]

I rushed my own setup, and wish I didn't. I used tapwater to start it, turned on my lights too early, had too much sand, didn't have rowaphos/phosban from the beginning. Stuff I won't do again.

I wish I never cured my LR in the display tank. it's real messy, with all the die-off on the tank's bottom. You can only siphon so much before you've removed too much water to siphon any more. And LFS liverock is not cured. Even moving it will cause some die-off of sponges due to the rock being exposed to the air.

If I were to do it all over again, I would have stilled my impatience, and done it like Beverly says, 1-3 buckets at a time. It's cleaner, less wasted water, and the slow introduction of the rock prevents an atom bomb of algae in the tank. Coraline doesn't grow well when the rock's covered in hair algae

You have an added cost though of a powerhead for each bucket, and a heater for each bucket.

If I was curing in buckets, I would put my nano's livestock in the big tank right away, if it would give better conditions. My whopping 4 frags went from barely adequate PC lighting to awesome T5 lighting, and they reacted positively almost immediately. And my single royal gramma perked up in the larger water volume right away.

Oh and if you have intense lights on while curing, you'll get inacurate readings of nitrates like I did. Algae will be eating up all the nitrates, so you'll think it's "cured" but it's actually just an algae bloom that's hiding the nutrient buildup.