New Tank Question

[Shifty203]

Hi there,
So I decided my little 30 gallon tank wasn't big enough to get any fish I really wanted, so I went ahead and bought a 125 gallon tank. It's been up and running about a week and a half now, but I only introduced the live rock 5 days ago.

The live rock I aquired was from another person on these boards, and got it out of his tank. Its still covered in dark purple coraline algae, feather dusters, serveral hermit crabs, and some mushrooms. It was only out of water for about 20 minutes to transport it to my house and straight into my tank.

Should I still expect a full cycle? Or will there just be a small spike? How long ,from anyone else's experience, does it take to cycle a tank this way?

[ashr]

I would say you will see a large cycle. Even being out of the water for 20min and the difference between tanks can kill things. Just watch your levels for another week :)

[Flash]

let your tank cycle untouched for another week and then test the water...
how much rock did you add? was your sand all new?

[Shifty203]

let your tank cycle untouched for another week and then test the water...
how much rock did you add? was your sand all new?

Only 83 pounds of rock so far.

The sand was all live sand at one point, but had been stored for a while in sealed pails. In smelled pretty bad when I opened the pails, so I rinsed it all until the water ran clean, then put in in the aquarium and added one 5 lb bag of live sand from the fish store.

[ashr]

In that case I would still wait another week :)

[Flash]

or 2... "live sand" from the fish store is not live! i'd give it another 2 weeks... or just get all the rock you want in there and then wait. every time you add rock there will be another cycle!