Does a tank cycle when you upgrade???

[BlueWater]

Hi all, I had a 10 gallon long.
Upgraded to a 15 gallon.

My nitrites are 40 now.

Will my BTA be alright? It never moved once in my 10long
and grew 3 inches. Now it's moving all over the place and not happy where it moves and sometimes it floats around.

Should I change out the water??? Or is the tank cycling again?

[bongobrian]

BlueWater- you really shouldn't see a cycle if you are using all the same livestock and filters. Did you clean your filters? leaving everything dirty is the best way to go. Did you add anything new to the tank? like new liverock? it sounds to me like you had an ammonia spike which has now been converted to nitrite. In a few days your nitrite should be undetectable and your nitrates will rise up. My guess is that you have some small animals that are dead and decaying in your tank somewhere. Dead corals can also do this. I don't think it would be die-off from your rock unless you kept your rock out of the water for some extended period of time.

I think BTA will be just fine. Your rocks probably aren't in the same arrangement as before, so the anemone is simply looking for a new place to call its home. BTAs can be really fussy about this. Typically they want a place to sink their foot down into a gap in the rocks or sand, and they generally like a lot of flow. Lighting is obviously important too. You can provide all of that, and sometimes it STILL won't be happy. In a way, BTAs are like women, they can't make up their minds!

I think it is safe, and a good idea to do water changes until your levels drop back down to where you want them.

[BlueWater]

Yes, I added 7 lbs of live rock to the tank.
Should I change the water our or let the spike pass?