Cycling Tank?????

Hey Guys/Gals
I have recently set up my 55 gallon with some base rock and some rock from my 25, which will all be in the 55 in time. Just a question about speeding up the cycling. I have been running the canister filter on the 55 that was hooked up to my 25 for over a year now. will this help in cycling? I'm sure someone knows all about this stuff.

Mike

 

one quick addition the sand bed i've used has been cycling now for almost 5 months in a heated filtered food safe rubbermaid container.

 

Nothing will speed up a cycle. having said that I'm not a fan of mechanical filtration on reef tanks and have never use one for cycling. But in theory I would not think it would help at all. Secondly you say you used rock from your 25G this rock I assume is cured already. so really all you shouldn't real see much of a cycle at all. It will just take time for the base rock to populate and become Live. This could be helped along with the addition of a fish

J

 

Just as a heads up, you do not want to be running mechanical filtration of any type during cycling. If anything that would be slowing you down.

 

so ust run a power head or something of that type?? right now in the canister filter, there is only filter floss.

 

is the filter floss a good thing or a bad thing for cycling? also when should i start up my new skimmer????

 

Before I hooked up my fuge, I used my eheim canister to get things going. All it had in it was the blue pad and live rock rubble in a net. I then transferred the live rock rubble to the fuge once I had it going. Saw a spike, then it was fine.

 

I would turn off the canister filter off for now. Also, turn off the skimmer. Run only actinic lighting during cycling as well. When the cycle is completed, run the skimmer, your full lighting (on it's day/night cycle of course) and the canister filter with only carbon in it. That's what I would do.