RE-RE-Cycling

[VoodooChild]

I'm swapping my aragonite some time this week with my Menards sand and since I don't have anything in there, I'm not to worried about disrupting the cycle (I'll just consider it like I'm starting anew). Now, I could use the shrimp method again and not turn on the skimmer which I believe was my problem before, or, I could cycle with the live rock I plan to buy from Gulf View, upon I which I believe it would be best for me to keep my skimmer going. Any comments? Thanks again.

[OrionGirl]

I'd use the shrimp method. If you cycle with the live rock, you'll end up losing a lot of the critters that come in the rock. If you've already ordered and the rock is on it's way, you'll need to do more water changes than if you use the shrimp method. Since you do have some bacteria in the system, grab a scoop of the CC and put it in a nylon. Leave this in the tank, and you'll have a good seeding.

[VoodooChild]

I will certainely do that. I misread the nitrate strips, and I don't have any nitrates, which makes me wonder if the tank has cycled at all. I'm sure I must have something though, and I still have 49 shrimp leftover, so I'll just do the shrimp again. I doubt I'll be able to get all of the aragonite out, so there'll probably be an 1/8 of an inch left over or so, where it's just to much of a pain in the .... to scoop out, so that should be adequate for seeding. Thanks again for the help. Back to the square one. Man! I'm never going to get my fire goby!

[OrionGirl]

Patience! I know, it's hard. An empty tank just ain't much fun. Spend lots of time drooling at the LFS. If the ammonia levels are dropping and nitrites are present, there are some beneficial bacteria hanging around.

When we converted to sand, we drained the tank, kept the water, and used a clean dust pan to scoop out the CC. Worked pretty well, think there was maybe a handful we couldn't get out. Then we poured the sand in dry (no rinsing!) around the bases. Added the water, put the LR back in, got it back to temp, and put the corals and fish back in. Took all day (3 times, on 3 tanks), but we never had a spike and no clouding at all.

[VoodooChild]

Whoah whoah whoah. You put the sand in without rinsing and didn't have any cloudiness? That's impressive. I was planning to do all of this with the water in, I don't really care about the mess, I'm careful, and then put the sand right in. I figured that the turbid water won't matter much to the nothing that lives in there. I was going to rinse it though and make kind've a mud. But if you didn't, perhaps I won't. I'll keep my skimmer off though. I have to remember that. 10 days....Do you suppose my Millenium (just for moving water) will clog up with all of the sand that's going to be kicked around? Thank you.

[OrionGirl]

The logic behind not rinsing is simple. You want the smallest grain size you can get, to provide a higher surface area:volume ratio. So, a cubic inch of sand provides more surface area than a rock that's one cubic inch, right? Does it make sense to then rinse out all of the smallest particles? We had to empty the tank, though, because we had a UGF in there that we pulled out at the same time.

If you don't empty the tank, use a riser tube to siphon the sand to the bottom instead of dropping it in and letting it settle. This will help a bit. Having water movement will help the settling process (which is why fast moving streams are clearer than slow moving ones). There shouldn't be enough clouding to cause a problem, but run a prefilter on it is you're worried.