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OK, here is the situation... I developed a stress crack in my 55gal tank that has been up for over a year and a half. I replaced it with a 120gal tank. I was planning to upgrade eventually and change the substrate but this pushed that schedule up a bit! Anyway, I saved about 20 gallons of water from the old tank and about 5 of those gallons are in the new tank presently. I also saved about half the gravel which is sitting in water from the tank in a plastic container right now. I set up the new tank on Monday night/Tuesday early morning this week and it is now Thursday. My question (finally) is, would it still be beneficial to add the old gravel to the tank in nylon (i don't want it there permanently) or since it has been sitting in this container since Monday, has it lost it's good bacteria?

There is absolutely no benefit to adding old gravel to a new tank...

Once the flow of oxygen is curtailed in a tank and the gravel removed, the aerobic bacteria, the good guys, revert to anaerobic bacteria, the bad guys.

One whiff of the old gravel may reveal the changeover of bacteria.

--garyroland.

So even though it has been sitting in the water from the tank it is no good? I didn't mean to leave it this long, but when i finished setting the new tank up at like 2am I was too tired to do anything more and I have been super busy all week! Oh well, I guess I know better now.

Not your fault and easily corrected...

Rinse the gravel several times in warm water until it runs clear.

The addition of the New Improved Cycle to the tank will restore the lost bacteria after the clean gravel is added.

It'll probably take a couple of weeks to fully populate the gravel bed with nitrifying bacteria.

--garyroland.

I wasn't exactly clear... I put totally new gravel in the new tank. I still have some of the gravel from the old tank soaking in water from the old tank. I don't want to add it to the new tank because it is a different color, but I thought if i put it in a mesh bag of sorts that it may be beneficial to the new tank for bacteria colony purposes. I did add NIC already... last time I used Bio-Spira which seemed to do the trick, but I thought I'd give NIC a shot this time since I already had it on hand.

Oh...

The old gravel, once well rinsed, can be saved for whatever use you desire.

The old gravel bacteria population passes on to good bacteria heaven once it's removed from its tank and stored.

--garyroland.

Mo...

This is after the fact but my opinion is differently than Gary's.

I have found that seeding a new tank with just about anything from the old tank does in fact help to speed the cycle of a new tank along. I have done this dozens of times with no adverse affects. Most time I come away with I guess what you would call an instant cycle. No spikes of ammonia or nitrites, cloudy water or anything else affiliated with new tank syndrome.

Although... I would never attempt it using anything in a tank where the original tank has had any kind of interruption from running normally. So with the scenario you described, no I wouldn't have done it.

My purpose for responding to your thread was to just let you know for future reference that it can be done.

Good Luck with your new tank.

Same thing happened to a 55 I once had. Not fun....

Gravel that has been removed from a tank and let sit for a few days will not biologically jump start a new tank...

I believe most of us know that existing gravel from another established tank taken and placed in a new tank immediately will aid in starting the proper cycle in the new tank.

--garyroland.

Thanks guys! I kind of figured I let it go for too long. THe new tank is doing fine so far and I've been watching ammonia etc. on an every other day basis. All thge plants and rock things went from the original tank to the new one immediatley so that may have helped a bit along with NIC. Anyway, thanks again! Now my only problem is roasting myself to death so the temp difference of the room is not too different from the temp of the tank to avoid cracking the glass!