General Cycle question, and frag, Lighting question.

So setting up a small 20 gallon tank for frags for a month or so.
do i need to have sand or rock as a natural filter? My plan was to use to the filter and power head i have. And use already cycled water out of my reef tank. Would this cause even a mini cycle from my filter or glass? IS this a dumb question? (there will be no fish) only corals.

And what lighting should i use to frag some mushrooms, frogspawn, zoas, polyps, things like this in a 20g?

This is only going to be set up for a few months untill i get my other tank set up as a frag tank.

 

Annny body? im about to do a water change, should i just got for it?

 

Putting water from a cycled tank will do nothing...

 

How do you figure? If there's nothing in the tank to cycle? Theres no new rock, no sand, nothing. Egg crate.
Please just explain. i'm confused.

 

So after thaught i would have PH problems with no rock or sand right.
Any input would be amazing.

 

When I setup my quarantine tank I used water from my main tank along with a filter/powerhead and a heater and it's working out fine, I did try to seed the sponge in the filter with bacteria by putting it in my sump for a week first though. No sand or rock in mine, just a rack for corals.

If you're not feeding the corals you might be OK since there won't be anything to start a cycle except maybe a little bit of waste from the corals so if you can get the sponge for the filter seeded first to be safe I would think that would be best.

That would be what I would do anyway.

 

Ok i was thinking it would be fine.
Thank you! i will hopefully get some more input too.
Maybe regarding lighting.

 

You don't need to have live rock or sand though it is beneficial as another form of filtration(biological).
Lighting with those corals listed above is not very demanding or intense. Power compacts, T=5's or even halides can be used. I would try to get stronger lighting though especially since you will be changing over to a larger tank, plus this will afford you more flexibility with fragging corals requiring more intense light.
Remember that their is more to maintaining corals than just light such as proper water parameters and reduction of dissolved organics and inorganics, water flow and temperature.
Good luck!

 

So i should be safe setting this thing up with no sand or anything and have coral in it within a day or 2?
Because my reef tank water has perfect params.
I had 96 watt 4 in 1, coralife hood. with actinics.

 

On a temporary basis things might be fine. However, on a long-term basis, I would think you would want the benefit of the filtration and the buffering capacity provided by sand and LR. In a frag tank you really want the water quality parameters to be perfect to enhance growth rates.