You dont have to cycle a tank

[xdave]

If you had an AquaClear on the 55, you could just take a foam block out of that and stick it in the filter on the 20 and you're done. The only real consideration other than that is what percentage of the filtration on the 55 is the AquaClear responsible for. If like in the 20 the OTB is the filtration plus some PHs just for circulation and not runnig a filter, it would work.
I guess I dont really think about the details, because theyre all stuff that I would or wouldn't do anyway. I literally do this, grab the dirtiest media in the filter on a no fish system. If all the sytems have fish, thats what I put in first. The wait 2 weeks before adding more livestock thing you should do anyway. Nobody should ever throw everything in at once.
I don't do it this way because I'm impatient. I prefer it over other methods for many reasons.
@Defect808, I keep thinking I'm the traditional one, or should I say my friend thinks he is

 

[defect808]

Dave what are you like 80? Just messing with you. I think you should post a picture of your tank so everyone can see it. I know I want to see it. ***)
Correction---- Your friends tank

 

[alyssia]

I just adore you!

 

[xdave]

I can't have one where I'm living

Thats probably why I hang out here so much. As far as pictures of tanks, I never really took many. Most of the tank pics I have are just birthday party ones with a tank in the background.
This is my Red Sea Volitan, he took 2nd or 3rd, whatever red is, in overall marine fish. that is a 10 gal hes in there so he was only about 5" at the time. Volitans aren't considered show size below 10", people actually had the nerve to complain to the judges.

The only other tank picture I have is this one. I have the old picture background on there because it needed to be kinda bare. It was my unmedicated QT. I would rescue fish from work that had a problem, usually just came in with torn fins, or getting beat up, whatever, and put them in there to see if they were going to develop any problems. In there you see a Yellow Tang that was still in shock 2 days after he came in, a Pakistani Butterfly that was just wailing on any fish in sight, and a Flame Angel that was just so little he got picked on a lot. The tang went back to work after a couple weeks, the Pakistani went to the zoo after a year, the Flame I kept for about 10 years.

My daughter put some of my littler trophies next to the tank so the fish would know that not only would they be ok, but someday they'd be the prettiest fish ever. Is that adorable or what. The flame ended up in my FOWLR tank at a different house. He had the personallity of a puppy. If I didn't pay attention to him, he'd fake a heart attack. He'd dart around and all of a sudden he'd stop dead, actually go into shock colors, turn over on his side and float to the bottom. If you didn't come over right away he'd start twitching.
Wow, I'm gettin all misty over here.
By the way, I turn 50 in December.

 

[big_money]

Without knowing about this method of cycling a tank, I basically did my 110g tank the same way. I added some new sand and seeded it with a little sand from a 20g established tank. I took about 15 lbs of live rock from the 20g tank as well. I then swapped 25% of my bioballs with the LFS that I trust. The bioballs I got were from the LFS owner's display tank (his personal DT, where none of the fish are for sale).
I phantom fed for the first 24 hours and then added a damsel. The ammonia went up slightly to about 0.25 for four days and on day five it went to zero. None of my tests showed any nitrites or nitrates.
I had a crab that hitchhiked on a piece of LR from the 20g tank that I found on day 3. He seemed fine, although I caught him and put him back in the 20g (I didn't know if the ammonia was going to rise more or not and didn't want to kill the crab, given that he's more sensitive to ammonia).
I had a question the other day that someone answered about a QT. The recommended way to setup a QT was to use some media from an established tank and some new water and plop the fish in there (correct temp, salinity, pH, no chlorine, etc...). The media has all the micro-organisms to process any ammonia produced by the fish in quarantine. To me, this seems like basically the same method that xDave is describing! Doesn't it seem that way to anyone else? If it works to "cycle" a QT, why not use the same method to cycle your DT?

 

[xdave]

Originally Posted by big_money
...
I had a question the other day that someone answered about a QT. The recommended way to setup a QT was to use some media from an established tank and some new water and plop the fish in there (correct temp, salinity, pH, no chlorine, etc...). The media has all the micro-organisms to process any ammonia produced by the fish in quarantine. To me, this seems like basically the same method that xDave is describing! Doesn't it seem that way to anyone else? If it works to "cycle" a QT, why not use the same method to cycle your DT?
HELLO, THANK YOU!!! Why is it that people would think this method is ok for a quarantine tank where water quality is the most critical of all, but they can't even conceive thats theres a possibility of it working for a display tank? Seems a just a little contradictory to me.

 

[alyssia]

Originally Posted by xDave
HELLO, THANK YOU!!! Why is it that people would think this method is ok for a quarantine tank where water quality is the most critical of all, but they can't even conceive thats theres a possibility of it working for a display tank? Seems a just a little contradictory to me.
Well, when you use a sponge media to put in your QT from your DT it is coming from your own tank, not an lfs tank that you don't know anything about. At least that's the way I see it.