jeffahartman204

I have an existing 55 gallon tank for the last 3 years or so and now I am up grading to a 180 gallon tank. I bought all new equipment for the new tank to include a sump / refugium combination filter, in sump protien skimmer, about 80 lbs of new live rock to start, and heaters and such. My question is can I speed up the set up time by moving some of the existing 50lbs of live rock and substrate from my existing tank to the new one? My end goal is to only have one 180 gallon tank. I have the salt level and temp the same right now and I did all of the testing and most of them are in the normal range. The new tank is only running for 2 days and I am sure the new live rock will spike the amonia in the tank but by putting some of the other live rock in that should help even out the amonia?

susitna-flower

Hi, WELCOME TO FISHLORE!

It should help, but wouldn't eleminate the entire cycle. If you split your rock this may cause your 55 to not have enough bacteria to handle the fish load still there.

You can also use bio-spira Marine for speeding up your cycle.

I'm not a salt water person, just wanted to get this back up to the top were, hopefully more SW people will see it.

Rbacchiega

You'll still have a mini cycle due to the die off from your newly purchased live rock, but it might not be as big of a cycle. In my 90 I've just recently added about 50 lbs of live rock from a tank that is currently being torn down. The cycle is still there, but levels are already starting to drop and get to a sustainable level.