Several questions about tank upgrade

[nwsharksfan]

Currently I have a 55 g reef tank with 55 lbs live rock, duncan coral, toadstool, acan that survived on the live rock when purchased, mushrooms, clove polyps, a clownfish, royal dottyback, and a goby. No sump. I have a reef octopus 100 hob skimmer and a phosphate reactor. I am moving all this to a 92 gallon corner tanks (not drilled) and I have a few questions:

1) so far I put about 25 lbs of the live rock from the 55 into the 92. 92 is filled with fresh RO water (with salt mix obviously) and has been brought to the proper temp. Also added some sand from the 55 to the 80 lbs of virgin sand i added to the 92. How much and how long of a cycle can I expect? The live rock was out of water for all of about 1 1/2 minutes while i scrubbed off some undesirables. When can I start moving over the inhabitants of the 55?

2) I am balking at setting up a sump for two reasons. First, it will cost about $200 for the sump (I'm not handy enough to build my own), $75 for an overflow box, guessing $75 for the return pump and a bit more for any other plumbing. And once all this is done then there's the fear of a overflow. The power goes out here often. I was thinking that instead of $350-$400 for a sump I can get a "plug and play" hob refugium for $160. Thoughts? Can I make due with just the HOB skimmer and phosphate reactor?

 

[Sniperhank]

If you move the rock over into the new tank, you will not have a cycle as the beneficial bacteria is already established in the rock. You will not see any issues as the sandbed and newly added rock become established due to this.

HOB refugiums are little to no help. For any type of nitrate reduction out of algae to be effective it needs room to grow. Due to the small size of these HOB setups, you see almost no benefit outside of possibly breeding some pods.

I have many brown outs at my current residence. I have a HOB overflow into my sump. I have only had 1 issue with an 'overflow', but it wasn't because of a power outage. I am a big fan of CPR overflows as they utilize a small 'nipple' that you can hook an aqua lifter pump (15 bucks) to it that will pump any air out of the 'U' where air can get trapped and cause a siphon loss.
When it comes to the sump itself, you simply want to make sure you have a setup that will allow for several gallons of water to enter the sump in case of a power failure. Once the water level drops below the HOB grates, siphon will then be lost to be established again when the power comes back on by the aqua lifter removing the air from the U.