Live Rock assist?

[Aquattro]

Emphasis on adding fish slowly from day 10 on makes this not ideal. At best I can stretch it a week, maybe.

[Tn23]

I've actually didn't like that step as well because I was transferring from an old tank just like you. I think that's just to get the cycle kick started etc so the rocks can slowly get use to the bioload. Maybe if your cycling it in a tub or bucket you can throw a few of your smaller fish in there just to get the bioload kick started once the 14 day is completed you should be able to add more fish in quickly. At least this has worked for me. My no3 and po4 are still in check and after 14th day there's not much left for algea and diatoms.

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[Aquattro]

I'll try that. The rock will soak for 3 weeks anyway, then go into the tank. I'll cycle it there with the zeo, but fish will all have to go at once. There's no catching fish without draining the tank.

[Masonjames]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Question about load and rock. I've just added about 80 pounds of really amazing pieces of rock to a tub, and will seed it with established rock from a display. The 80 pounds has been sitting dry for about 5 months.

I figure I'll run this for about a month before my new tank is ready for water.

I'm not confident in it's ability at that point to be fully capable of filtering my fish load. I will have lots of water for changes, but it will still be a young filter system

So, I thought about adding a large aquaclear foam block to an established tanks' sump. This should give me an additional filter block to assist my rock until it catches up.

Does this make sense, or just sound good on paper?

If it works, what impact would it have on the donor tank? Nitrate potential, or not really in that time frame?

Thoughts?

I agree that you will need to try and get your bacterial populations up there if your dumping all livestock at once. I'd be (reasonably) feeding just as though it was stocked. Adding anything with bacterial populations will most certainly go a long way. So your train of thought seems right on track to me and seems like a good solid approach. I don't think there would be much issues on donor tank. Might not want to make and drastic changes during or instantly after on donor system if concerned as it will no doubtably experience some level of population shift but normal circumstances I would assume would be problem free. IMO not even an issue. But understand the concern for buddy system. But I don't know your bioload nor would I have any clue as to the filtering capabilities you'll have at that time so who knows. I think your on track though. But honestly I don't know. My head is to preoccupied right now to think straight. Lol

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Not that I would discourage this practice, but I thought the same thing and 3+ years in my tank still has PO4 issues if I don't have massive amounts of money burning in a gfo reactor, er, I mean, if I don't have massive amounts of GFO being replaced every couple of weeks.

I would instead encourage a healthy mixture of rock-that-hasn't-been-dried-for-too-long in the tank as well.

IMO the best approach for dry rock if you don't want to spend months cooking it is to simply nuke it. Less the bleach. Unless there is a lot of organics. Then bleach first. Bit just give it all a good acid bath and then cycle it. Such a simple process that can make worlds of difference. If you keep getting sluff off at the bottom of the holding container, it's not yet clean. This should be minimal though anyways and you should be able to just cycle and be done. After you won't have (or shouldn't have) any phosphate issues with the rock itself. Although it sounds as though you have started cycling already and then the above may not be appropriate with your time frame and it is far more effective when the rock itself is dry.

Good luck!

[Aquattro]

Wayne is going to seed a large foam block for me, it should be enough to make up any lag in the LR filtration.
Dry rock is in a rubbermaid soaking away. I'll borrow some fresh LR from the LFS tomorrow and add that to the dry. Add some food and some snails.

[Delphinus]

I did the 14-day zeo cycle when I started the 280. At day 10 I added some small chromis (5 maybe? I don't remember). Otherwise though at 14 days I moved basically everyone over in one go from the old tank. There were no issues.