Cycling with help of established system?

I currently have a 10 gallon tank that is established. I have been given a new 30 gallon tank that I setup with about an inch of dead sand and 30 pounds of dead rock from reefcleaners. I added some biospira and dosed the tank with 2ppm pure ammonia about a week and a half ago. There is no sign of ammonia and the nitrite is at .25 ppm and the nitrates are between 10 and 20 according to the API test kit.

If I take some of the live rock out of the established tank and took the biowheel filter and put it on the new tank temporarily, would this help the 30 gallon tank get over the hump in terms of building up some beneficial bacteria to convert the nitrites to nitrates so I can start moving some inhabitants?

 

Cycling just takes time iv got 4 tank it takes about 6 weeks in my opinion then your good but just dont get in a hurry u will regret it but one of my tanks i used natural sea water a lil expensive but i have coral in it with in a week and never had a problem with it its almost a year old now

 

You can move things over and soft cycle the tank. Do small frequent water changes and test daily for ammonia and nitrite and do the appropriate water change.
Really try to cut back on feeding initially until the tank is fully cycled.

 

I am using the API chemical drops to do all my testing. All of the sand was thoroughly rinsed out prior to adding it to the tank. All the water used was RO/DI with salt added at about 1.024.

I'm wondering if I should just wait it out as the cycle seems to be almost complete.

 

My concern eric1980 is that tank is not fully cycled. It is not realistic to expect a tank to cycle that quickly, regardless of what your test results show. While I have never used biospira I have my doubts that it could completely cycle a system that quickly.

In my opinions you have two ways to safely proceed.

1. Continue to let the tank cycle and ghost feed it during the cycle to encourage growth of the biological filter. At the earliest this should take 4 weeks.

2. Move over the rock and corals/fish/inverts from the running systems soft cycle the tank, have some prime on hand, and continue to test daily.

Cycle is a misleading term IMO. Just because you have no detectable ammonia does not mean you have a large enough population of beneficial bacteria. Yes you have some but you add fish/corals/inverts and food to a newly set up and you overwhelm the biological filter and end up with new tank syndrome to some extent.

 

Another option. Many people have good luck adding bacteria to the tank such as Dr. Tim's One and Only. This bacteria would speed up the cycle.