Cycle question?

I wanted to move my 20 gallon into a 40 gallon all together in one day. Would it be possible to avoid major nitrate and ammonia spikes if i were to take the 20 gallons from my old tank and put it in the 40 gallon and then buy 20 more gallons of new saltwater? I have bio balls and sponges on other tanks i could use to seed the 40 gallon. I would be transfering 2 clownfish, 1 flameback angelfish and 1 zoa coral. Thanks for the help!

 

you could do that fishluver

is the 20 the tank in your avatar ?

what do you have for filtration on the 20 at present, I only ask as the image does not show much in the way of rockwork , have you added more? or do you have cannister filter as means of bio filtration or HOB filter etc

how long has the 20 been set up?
as often it is disturbing the sand bed in established set ups that cause mini cycle issues during a transfer

if you move your existing rock, and any other existing filtration capacity to the 40 from the 20, then you should avoid any cycle issues, providing you do not immediately add extra livestock

Steve

 

Yea its the same tank in my sig. and i still only have 1 rock because the tank was more of an emergency set up and i was planning on buying dry rock to add more rock. the filter is the aquaclear rated up to 50gallons. I also wasnt planning on moving the sand because I bought a new bag of 40lbs of sand for the 40. And thans for the quick response and help steve!

 

your good to go then IMO

Move the rock, the aquaclear (as that holds a lot of your bacteria at present)
or if you have a new filter for the 40 - take the media out of the aquaclear and put it in the new filter ( transfer the bacteria)

if your current bio filter was adequate on the 20, it will be equally adequate on the 40 whilwst bio load is the same
you may need to increase real estate for bacteria as and when you add additional live stock

add more rock in time is OK dry being a good choice, no die off, no pests etc

and increase your stock slowly, to enable the bacterial population to increase accordingly

 

Ok! thanks for the help! I will go ahead and move the filter media to the new filter I have, and slowly add dry rock. thanks,

fishluver