Cycle needed?

[Gill]

Do i really have to cycle my 125 or can i just move everything from my cycled55? Can you sence my impatience lol.

[jgf86123]

You could move everything, but, it will be safer if you fully cycle it then move everything over.

[Rick]

As Mick mentioned it's safer to cycle the entire setup but as we all know sometimes this just isn't practical. (If I would have done this when I last switched tanks I wouldn't have had room to breathe here)

 

This assumes the tank was set up recently. (If a tank has been set up for years then the sand can be toxic to fish once it's stirred up and should be replaced)

If you do move everything then be sure you move everything including all of the water. Effectively you end up doing about a 50% water change during the swap. (I've heard you can get by with as little as 25% of the old but I would use as much as possible)

 

Also keep in mind that no matter what the tank is still going to cycle. (It needs to find a new balance) Your just trying to keep it to a minimum to hopefully prevent any serious impact.

[pledosophy]

I recently moved and went from having a 65g reef and a 30g planted tank to having a 125g reef plumbed inline with a 65g planted tank.

 

I had no issue with ammonia, but I did not feed for the first 4 days, and I used a product to neutralize the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I believe it was Amquel, but I just tossed the bottle.

 

I didn't use much of my old water, but went with mostly brand new water. I don't think the water matters to much IMO, the bacteria live in the rock and sand. JME

 

So far so good.

[Gill]

Every thing turned out OK but i did get a .25 ppm reading of ammonia, and the stress of that was not worth the instant gratification. Next time i think i will wait. I used the sand but i had to clean it with the old tanks water. So happy to clean that sand bed finally, after four years it was DIRTY!

[dsoz]

Congrats on the new setup. Now post some pics!!!

 

dsoz