Fastest and best way to cycle a new 120 gal tank..... also any pointers ???

[tellico tornado]

Ok, i have a 55 had it for about 4 months now. Tried to make a reef out of it and couldnt stand the cramped feeling. So i drug out the ol Master Card and bought a 120 gal tank. Set it up the other day and added water yesterday, mixed the salt today and everythings going good so far. Im ready to add fish and my LR from my 55 over, but i dont wanna kill anything. What would be a good way to add stuff? I have about 75lbs of LR to add in there, a frogspawn, Ivyopora [spelling?], green stripped mushrooms and two damsels and a six line wrasse.... clean up crew consists of a coral banded shrimp, 4 pepperment shrimp, a few snails and few crabs. I dont think i wanna just toss all of it in at once do I? Also, im running two powerheads on each end and using sand in front and crushed coral in back. In my 55 i used a DSB and LR for my filter..... im wondering where i can get the best deal in a complete trickle filter system? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[noodle]

indeed if you transfer your lights from your 55 gal to your 120 gal u will get like .5 wpg. You need better lights. I suggest a protein skimmer. As for adding your creatures i would put more lr in there first cause when u put in there it will kick up sand. after that put your clean up and damsels in there, they are pretty hardy. Oh yeh and if you only have a few snails i suggest getting more. Unless you want to clean your tank like every day.

 

[ren]

The new tank will need to cycle before adding the corals and inverts. The damsels would probabally survive and cycle it but I would suggest an alternative - get 8 large prawns from the grocery store. the 25-30ct shrimp - raw and throw em in and leave em be to cycle the tank. It will take 3-4 weeks to run the cycle but ya won't stress out any fish - loose any fish - and get a great bioload setup. Not to mention having the damsels in it if ya ever wanted to get rid on em would be nearly impossible to catch em. I'm using 4 of the shrimp in a 54gl - cycled in 3 weeks just having a self made problem with Alk and pH now.
HTH

 

[fshhub]

fortunaltely fo ryou, sounds like you have one thing on your side, time
IMO, in your case, i woudl not hurry one bit and do it all slowly, since you appparently have the 2 tanks, why hurry, b/c there realy is no fast good way to do anything, especially cycle a tank
other than that, i agree with what all has already been said
get a skimmer, better lights(eventually), and cycle with either shrimp and or your extra lr(which i would definitely double for a 120)
HTH and good luck