Setting Up New Tank + Marine Pure Block Questions

[MolaMola]

Can we use marine pure blocks to seed new tank with bacteria by pre-soaking in sump of established tank? If so, how long to presoak in sump?
I have a bag of marine pure balls that have been in sump for ~1.5 years that came from a jellyfish tank and another small tank. Some algae on surface of bag. Not sure if they are now full of crud and would bring algae to new tank even if rinsed in clean SW.
Was planning to use water change water from other tanks for first fill, along with LR that has been in sump for ages since taking down some tanks at shutdown.
Still debating on using live sand but will decide today.
Also have some Dr. Tim's bottled bacteria. And ammonia.
Starting suggestion? Usually I go super slow but am motivated by end of semester to get this up ASAP for frag space and to reset old frag tank.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Just as an educated guess I would say the "how long" should be somewhere on the order as the amount of time needed to cycle a tank in the first place, so that 4-6 week mark. Possibly a bit less since you'd have a sufficient population of said bacteria already, however I really have no idea how much free floating bacteria (of the kind you're trying to seed) there is.

Using the balls you've had plus rock should be more than sufficient though. In fact depending upon how much rock/balls it is your cycle might be extremely reduced as the surface area of the tank is way smaller than the surface area of rocks.

 

[Reefinglens]

Marine pure bio media hold exponential surface area in comparison to live rock (so they state) I’ve used their big blocks (8x8x4”) in the past on my previous 90 gallon and have had great success. I still use bioblocks but have switched to maxspect nano tech as they’re only 4x4x1” blocks.

To answer your question, you can do what would be considered an “instant cycle” by using the bio blocks. When I started my reefer 250 I use all dry rock that I had in a bin for years, 2 seeded bioblocks from a Biocube that was only running for 3 months, a bottle of microbacter XLM spread over 3 days and a pair of clowns. I’d recommend testing daily. On day 4 I did about 30% water change and parameters were perfect to start stocking up the tank. My snowflake clowns are still with me as well as several new additions and the reef is super healthy with a hefty pod population.
And I recently did the same with my new Nuvo 14 and after only about 2 weeks I currently have a cleaner shrimp, a harlequin shrimp, a neon blue gobie, a yellow striped possum wrasse, and a few softies. And everything is doing great!

I would definitely recommend getting that algae off of the bioblocks in clean temp matched saltwater because if the pores on the blocks get too gunked up they can suffocate the bacteria population causing a bad nutrient spike (so I’ve read at least). Also I’d do 50% tank water and 50% newly mixed saltwater just so you can keep some nutrients and of course add the Dr. Tim’s bottled bacteria. I’d also keep the lights off for that first week as with any new tank to avoid any algae blooms especially since there’s algae present on the blocks. But this is just my 2 cents based on personal experience with starting new tanks using seeded bioblocks. Best of luck!

 

[B the Nano Reefer]

Here are my thoughts:

The amount of time it will take the new bio balls to build a worthwhile enough population of beneficial bacteria will depend on the maturity of the tank, but given the surface area of these bio balls and the tank being at least 1.5 years old (from the sound of it), I would imagine it happens pretty quickly. If it were me, I’d give it at least a week or two. I would avoid transferring over the “cruddy” bio balls because yes, no matter how good of a scrub you give them, you could carry algae into the new tank, though this is also a risk even with the new bio balls if the algae gets to them quick enough (though less likely).

If you are going to use the live rock from the same sump, you’re still risking carrying over the algae, unless the rocks are visible free of any. If so, you may as well save yourself the time of cycling the new bio balls and just scrub down the existing ones as best you can and transfer them over as well.

As for water, unless I’m transferring the same livestock into the new tank that’s in the old tank, I prefer to start with a fresh batch of water. The beneficial bacteria you want are on the rock and bio balls and not free floating. If anything, there’s a greater chance you carry over unwanted free floating bacteria or parasites.

Given the transfer over of the live rock and bio balls, your cycle shouldn’t be long at all. I’ve never done the “fishless method”, I always cycle with a fish and have (knock on wood) had no casualties so far from a cycle. So I’ll leave that part to others.

 

[Turkeysammich]

Short answer. Yes to all your questions. Except the sand. I’m not a fan. If you do decide to use the sand. Wash the heck out of it. Plus make sure to wipe down the walls of the aquarium with vinegar and water before you start anything.
I wouldn’t worry about bringing bad stuff over. Our aquariums are full of bad stuff. Just part of the game.

 

[MolaMola]

Thanks for the advice and opinions! Did some plumbing tonight (husband help) and decided to get tank going next week, but will probably not rush to stock. My former clown/nem tank is looking much better so I can add a bunch of frags in there, plus I can do an overhaul of current wiry algae and foraminiferan-infested frag tank and create space in there. As for students getting to do some fragging before their semester class ends, I decided I might just pop off some overgrown (and overgrown with algae) frags from their plugs and students can glue onto clean plugs, heh heh. Also got some cool shroom cages from Reefway and I know students will love to handle those.