Instant cycle on new tank?

If a friend gives me enough of his water from a water change to fill half my new tank(29g), will I be able to skip the cycle? He is also going to give me a couple cups of his sand and a small piece of live rock covered in coraline algae. I will fill it the rest of the way with new salt water. I also have around 25-30 lbs of dry rock and 25 lbs of new sand going into the tank. I was just wondering what to expect from this method. Opinions....

 

I'm actually interested in hearing about this. I've always wondered this myself.

 

Disaster, if you don't anticipate a cycle.

No; the water column contains very little beneficial bacteria.

This is the most beneficial thing you have planned. The good bacteria is on the rock and sand. You'll seed your sand with this approach, but you won't prevent a cycle. You might speed it up, however.

 

The water won't do much for you, very little bacteria resides in the water column. I wouldn't bother getting someone else's water change water.

Now the sand and rock will certainly help. These will give you a good jump start to getting your bacteria population up. It will not be fully cycled, unless you added 100% live rock and sand. You will still need to ghost feed the tank to build up the bacteria. With the new sand and rock, you will still get a diatom bloom until all silicates are used up, and likely hair algae and/or cyano after that.

Edit: Hunter beat me to it!

 

Gotcha. I still plan on testing.

 

Thanks for the solid advice. It's not always what you want to hear, just what you need to hear. Trying to explain asking for advice on here to my wife, I told here it's like google if you got a little shock from your computer every time you asked it something.

 

You've received great advice.

As long as you keeping asking questions you should be fine, tell the wife, it's an expensive hobby.

 

You can speed up your cycle by adding bacteria such as bio_spira but you aren't going to skip it. Just like death and taxes, it will happen. Its just a matter of how severe the cycle is. BTW, don't add your buddies tank water to your tank.

 

wait it out is your best option

 

Id still wait for a cycle. Most likely you're still going to get one like others have said