Refugium Cycling

[303travism]

I was thinking about adding a fug to my sons 12gal nano I would be adding cured live rock but "live bag sand" how do you cycle a fug? Same way you cycle a tank?

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

I don't know what the secret is, but be carefull. When I upgraded my pico to a larger sump, it caused another cycle and I lost almost everything.

 

[KhensuRa]

What a great question... I will be tagging along, as I will be doing this soon.

 

[Cake_Boss]

Is the sand live sand? If the rock and sand are both live, I don't really see what the problem would be. Maybe if the sand was established. :beer: here's to hopefull thinking, as I'm about to do the same thing.

 

[303travism]

The bag says its live but what I've read on here there is still a cycle period and with a small tank I don't think it can handle any kind of cycle.

 

[Walter White]

I'm no expert so take this for what you think its worth. What I would do is cycle the live rock and sand in the fuge the same as you would a new tank only using the old water from the water changes of the nano along with whatever new water is initially needed. I would probably continue to do routine water change swaps until the cycle was complete and the water parameters matched then tie the two together. Im not sure how long that would take but considering you would be seeding the fuge with water from what I assume is an already established tank I wouldn't think too long.

Perhaps someone here will chime in with a better way.

 

[tlsrcs]

I used live sand in a bag and rock out of a established tank in my new 20l I had about three to four days where there was detectable ammonia and k checked last night and its all 0z. But every tank is different

 

[SteveT]

I'm no expert so take this for what you think its worth. What I would do is cycle the live rock and sand in the fuge the same as you would a new tank only using the old water from the water changes of the nano along with whatever new water is initially needed. I would probably continue to do routine water change swaps until the cycle was complete and the water parameters matched then tie the two together. Im not sure how long that would take but considering you would be seeding the fuge with water from what I assume is an already established tank I wouldn't think too long.

Perhaps someone here will chime in with a better way.

This is what I would do. This is basically how I started the cycle on my 90G frag tank...Just filled it with water change water from my other systems. The cycle completed it self in just over a week.

 

[303travism]

Do you run powerheads or anything in the fug? Or just let the water sit and what about lights do you keep the light your going to use on over the tank? Do you put cheato in or wait till after the cycle?

 

[Walter White]

You definitely would want a powerhead, airstone or something to break the surface tension of the water and promote oxygen exchange. A skimmer might also be beneficial however I dont think macro algae and lights probably would contribute much to the cycling period. I might be wrong about that though.

 

[Walter White]

Also a heater as well.

 

[Cherub]

Every tank i ever ran used the instant cycle sand and really it cuts down the cycle time but you do have a mini cycle. I would say3-4 days is all it took and that was for all 4 tanks I've ran. Just cycle it separately and test it until you feel good.