Trying to avoid the cycle

[Achoo]

I'm in the process of moving. I have a 120 gallon tank at the old house and a brand new 75 gallon tank just filled with water yesterday at the new house. I have plants arriving for the new tank on Friday. The fish will be moved to the new tank in about ten days.

Can I completely avoid cycling the new tank by using water and gravel from my old tank in the new one, or will this just speed up the cycle? In either case, when should I add these items - as soon as possible, when I put in the plants or at the same time that the fish are added? :?

 

[iceywater101]

If you add water and gravel from the old tank will greatly help speed up the cycle and give you a mini cycle. I would add the fish after the water and gravel

 

[sudz]

You may be able to have your tank lightly cycled if you can take the media (sponge, carbon, biomatter) from your 125 gallon and put it into your 75 gallon. I had my tank VERY lightly cycled in 4 days(0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, trace nitrate) with a piece of shrimp floating around and biomatter from a 10 gallon tank of mine.

Test EVERY day if you can. Plants are ok as long as ammonia doesn't go insanely high.

HTH, and welcome back to AA

 

[malkore]

Filter media, and solid decorations/plants are the key to jump starting a fully functional nitrogen cycle in a new tank. Water itself contains very little of the bacteria you need. Gravel, sponges, ceramic bio rings, rocks, fake and live plants all help kick things into full gear from the start.

 

[QTOFFER]

Welcome to AA, Achoo!

In short, yes you can if you have an established tank to work from. Beneficial nitrifying bacteria live on all solid surfaces, but are not present in the water itself.

I recently set up a new 29 gal. I took a generous amount of biological media (ceramic noodles) from my established 58 gal tank's cannister filter and placed it in the new cannister filter for the 29 gal. (I topped off the media baskets in both cannisters with some new ceramic noodles.) I also added some driftwood and live plants from my well established tank. These items are usually slathered with beneficial bacteria, as is established aquarium gravel.

I lightly stocked the new 29 gal and checked the water parameters every day. There was no ammonia spike, no nitrite spike, and nitrates were measurable by day 14. At that point, I started to increase the stocking level. I'm still measuring levels every day, but have yet to see any detectable ammonia!

 

[Achoo]

Thank you all for the helpful advice! I'm going to transfer some gravel, a sponge and a large decoration into the new tank tonight. I'll test the water daily and hopefully this will keep the stress to a minimum for my fish.

 

[TomK2]

Next time run the new tanks filter on the old tank for a month or so before the move, then just move the filter over when adding fish. If all your fish are going over into the 75 at once, bring the filter from the old tank with them. However, if you are going to be running two tanks, and are not moving the stock over from a 125 to the 75, but essentially starting up a new 75, then take a bunch of media from the 125 and put it in the 75's filter when you start adding fish, like QTOFFER says. Your nitrogen cycle will be minimal if you use a big enough seed. I have done this, and since my seed was too small, I had 0.25 of ammonia for 2 or three days then nothing.