Opinions sought...Will this Tank Cycle?

[Chris Atkinson]

Biocube 14 has been run for years by seller with 20 lb of liverock and two blue yellowtail damsels.

I bought it used and the sides were gunked up badly, rocks were coated with mossy fuzz. It smelled strongly like a yucky bay at low tide. Seller said he was trying to grow some anathilia and it died off/would not take and he'd not had time to clean it up.

I put the liverock in a bucket with the original water and scrubbed it a bit. Rinsed it off in clean saltwater. Dumped all original sand due to its nasty, gunky, grey matter and anearobic bacteria odor. Rinsed tank out with tapwater/hose a bit, then purged with RO/DI rinse.

I put fresh "livesand" from a purchased packaged bag from local fish store, then put liverock back in (never let liverock get dry during cleaning process). I filled the tank with water from my established 75 gal Display Tank.

So far, one blue tang is in there and after 72 hours, readings are Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0. I will run it a few more days and do a few more tests before putting the other tang in. I want to verify that the tank is not going to do a cycle before putting more critters in there.

Opinions sought: Is there a chance that the cycle will be neglible and perhaps un-noticeable? I'm sure that others of you done this sort of thing with a tank relocation and cleanup. Do you tend to see much of a cycle?

Thanks much for any thoughts.

Chris

[VacavilleFC3S]

UHHH you have a blue tang in a 14g cube???? it probably will stress it self to death by the end of the week in a tank that small. take it back to the store before it dies.

yes you will get a small cycle from adding new substate, the bacterias will most likely become unbalanced for a short period why they re-populate it.

[Chris Atkinson]

Originally Posted by VacavilleFC3S

UHHH you have a blue tang in a 14g cube???? it probably will stress it self to death by the end of the week in a tank that small. take it back to the store before it dies.

yes you will get a small cycle from adding new substate, the bacterias will most likely become unbalanced for a short period why they re-populate it.

That was a typographical slip. The BioCube came with 2 yellowtail blue damsels. (whatever those damsels are called) I have one of them in the BioCube. I don't have any "tangs".

I ran the pinks and blues again tonight. Ammonia zero. Nitrites zero.

I know this test kit is good at catching a cycle, as the ammonia was off the charts when I was cycling my DT with liverock that came shipped from far away wrapped in newspaper.

If the ammonia starts looking like it's climbing, I'll pull the damsel out. So far, so good.

Thanks Vaca for the help.

[Sisterlimonpot]

Although it's frowned upon (cycling a tank with damsels), damsels are hardy fish and can survive a cycle, if in fact you do witness a cycle the chances of your damsels surviving are pretty good. especially knowing that you took precaution to save the bacteria on the live rock. Keep an eye on the ammonia though.

[Chris Atkinson]

Originally Posted by Sisterlimonpot

Although it's frowned upon (cycling a tank with damsels), damsels are hardy fish and can survive a cycle, if in fact you do witness a cycle the chances of your damsels surviving are pretty good. especially knowing that you took precaution to save the bacteria on the live rock. Keep an eye on the ammonia though.

Thanks much! I'll be keeping an eye on it all. So far the ammonia is fine. So far the damsel is fine.

If the ammonia starts to creep up, I'll go ahead and x-fer this dude over to my established 10 gallon eclipse tank. The other damsel is in there along with a few critters that my family has come to love, but which are not considered reef-friendly, which is why none of them are in my 75 gallon display tank.

Once this 14 gal cube is cycled, all of our inhabitants of the 10 gal will be transferred over, and the existing/established 10 gal will become my quarantine tank for use with new fish that are intended to go into the 75 gal D.T.

[NCNBilly]

I doubt you'll get much of a cycle. That rock was more or less used to the bioload. If it was me, i'd probably have cooked the rock to kill the algae though.

[thegrun]

Originally Posted by NCNBilly

I doubt you'll get much of a cycle. That rock was more or less used to the bioload. If it was me, i'd probably have cooked the rock to kill the algae though.

+1, it's difficult (nearly impossible) to get a handle on algae once it is established on rock. I agree that you should not see a cycle with the precautions you took. I would go slowly on introducing more livestock to the tank though, as it is very likely your biological filtration has been knocked down with the move.