Live rock confusion

[nemodad]

Hi all,

Need some advice please.
I'm a bit confused with the concept of cycling with "Cured" live rock.

I see alot of articles referring to using "uncured" live rock for a cycle so the die off of orgamisms cause the ammonia spike and start the cycle.
Makes sense to me!

My situation is.. I bought 32 lbs of cured totoka rock for a 38 gallon from a LFS,they wrapped it in wet newspaper and i had it in the tank within 1hr MAX.

It's been 10 days now and i have yet to see any sign of Ammonia, Nitrite or Nitrate.

According to alot of articles on the web.. once i see these readings the tank should be ready for the clean up crew???

So why do i have to wait a month?? Shouldn't i add some live stock so there is a source of ammonia and the Beneficial bacteria can multiple slowly to the demand?

One person told me the tank cycled already, another says "no way!" not ready.

I'm really confused!!!

[Wingin It]

if the rock is already cured, that means it's already cycled and you won't see the ammonia/nitrate/nitrite spike because nothing is dying off (though there may have been a small amount of die off in transport from LFS to home, but nothing large scale) IMO/E anyways.

[nemodad]

So should i add something to create an ammonia source?

[reefwars]

In a way it t and isn't lol so ok since you have cured rock you may not see much of a cycle since die off was minimal now wth cured rock your gonna want to add an amonia soure ie. Fish.

Most use blue damsels because of their hardyness bt with your tank going for a month you could add clowns. Don't keep adding rock to your system add it at once if possible or very small amounts over weeks. After your fish are there for one week take a test... Do it yourself don't trust lfs tests:) in another week do another test , you prob won't see much if any amonia but you should see a small rise in nitrates. Now your finished the first part of your cycle now you can add clean up crew make sure you get some shrimp I prefer cleaner shrimp because of their benifits. Give your clean up crew 2 weeks to do their job less time for small aquariums under 50g. Do another tst then do a large water change 30-50% .wAit a couple days then you can add your first fish, as I would rcommend ditching the damsels:) I would let your sysem stabilize for a few months before adding any more fish untill your system stabilizes. You can add coral as soon as your clean up crew is done. But make sure amonia is 100% not present:):) cheers

[lockrookie]

ive read ppl dropping in a rw shrimp into the tank andlet it rot tokick start the cycle. rather than using i live fish and havingthem suffer through the spike.

[reefwars]

People do ndeed use rotting food for amonia but with using cured rock your fish would be fine If you pick "cycling fish" I won't comment on the benifits or not of using food as I have always done live cycles but I've read it works fine:)

[chandigz]

Cycling a tank refers to the creation of an active nitrogen cycle. Often when using cured live rock you will have a soft cycle or instant cycle. Your tank may be cycled but this does not mean your tank is fully established. It will take a while for your tank to fully establish itself so don't rush things.

[nemodad]

Yes not rushing all, just thinking if i add something in there at least the bacteria will multiply to cope better, instead of leaving it as it is.

I'm tempted to try the damsel, thing is i will want to keep it later and i don't know if they get along too well with Clowns.

Hate stressing the fish out by bring it back to the store, where it will probably die.

[globaldesigns]

Hello, I see by your posts that you are new, so WELCOME!!!

If you bought cured live rock, then when you add it, your cycle will most likely be very minimal. You will get some die off, when you take it from one tank to another, say if you buy from your local fish store. But this die off will most likely be very small, compared to uncured rock.

So, you don't need to add anything... set things up, let it go throw whatever cycle it does, and then you can look at adding things.

Personally even with cured rock, the key to success with Salt Water is patience. If it was me, I would let it cycle, even if it is short, but still wait 1-2 months until I buy any fish. You can however buy some clean-up crew after the cycle.

Have fun!

[ElGuappo]

i dont know about rotton food but i do a few "ghost feeds" to help the cycle along..

ghost feeding is just feeding an empty tank frozen food.. for those who dont know..

as a rule i wait 6 weeks minimum when starting a new tank before adding any ls

[reefwars]

If you add a damsel def remove it give it fir free to someone else there only like 5-10 bucks, but when they reach maturity they get super territorial. Personally with cured Rock you can add a clown their also on the hardier side . Like everyone said don't plan on fish for a couple months when you do want to add them you'll be ready then. Any questions just ask

O and by rottng food I mean food added and just left to decompose not actual rotted food lol that may not be good:) cheers

[nemodad]

Ok i'll wait till the 3 week mark and get a small clean up crew.
I'll wait till 2 months for the clowns.

Hey one more question!
Does it matter if i'm using a 17w T8 Coralife 50/50 bulb for the first 2 months?? I'm trying to gather up enough cash to purchase a decent light fixture so i can eventually keep an anemone,Zoo'z and lps.

Thanks for all your help, it's all clearer now!

[reefwars]

Any light for now is good and not even needed really with no live stock .your clean up crew would enjoy it but they'll do fine with out:) cheers and enjoy th building process it's the best part!! Cheers :):)

[fishytime]

sorry to dis-agree with you Mang^^^^ but, do not cycle the tank with a fish.....cheap or not a fish going through a cycle will suffer irreversible damage.... if your rock was out of water for an hour then you will get die off and your tank will cycle properly without adding a fish....again, patience is key.......oh ya, welcome to CR:biggrin:

[reefwars]

no worries "to he their own"..... me a fish is a fish ive had them come had them go...and they always will:)

[paddyob]

Most use blue damsels because of their hardyness bt with your tank going for a month you could add clowns. s


I have to say I oppose the use of fish for cycling. I don't know, personally, anybody doing this much anymore as the rocks should cycle anyhow. Damsels... if you put them in... good luck ever getting them out without ripping your tank apart. I made this mistake with the first tank I set up. Took advice of adding blue damsels and man.... mean little buggers later on. Use a cycle starter like stabilty.

I would wait the month either way. With salt water.... patience is your best friend. Plan your livestock in the mean time. Live safely and the tank will be fine.

[paddyob]

no worries "to he their own"..... me a fish is a fish ive had them come had them go...and they always will:)


This approach seems... to defeat the purpose of reef keeping. The world reefs are in danger and we as reefers need to do our best to ensure that we stock wisely and conscientiously to ensure we do not purposely stress or kill fish and corals.

If we remove fish from the ocean with the attitude that "they come and go"... it hurts nature.

There are a lot of LFS out there that do not care about this and will continue stocking fish that are not suitable to make a quick buck. But as reefers we do not need to follow this same path.

Fish are animals too. And amazing animals OR NONE OF US WOULD HAVE A TANK!!!!

Try keep the worlds reef systems in mind. If you think its a bad idea for one reason or another... then it probably is.

Not dumping on you Reefwars.... but I have a sweet spot for the reef... and part of me is sad thinking about the fish I have lost in the past due to my own inexperience and poor advice received.

Some of you probably saw the post about BC somewhere trying to make salt fish banned. Do you wonder why? It is because of things like this.


Reef wisely and it will be a rich experience. Reef poorly and you will only be poor.

Sorry for the rant.

[Myka]

Your tank will cycle. Your test kits may not be precise enough to notice though. The cycle should be rather small since you used previously cured rock. As soon as it comes out of the water, it is no longer cured, even if it was only an hour. Although using previously cured rock, and minimizing the time it is out of water will surely minimize or nearly eliminate a noticeable cycle.

Ok i'll wait till the 3 week mark and get a small clean up crew.
I'll wait till 2 months for the clowns.

Sounds like you're on the right track here. Personally, I wait 3 weeks from putting the rock in when I don't see a cycle on the tests. At that point I add a SMALL clean up crew since there should be some diatoms growing by then. If the clean up crew does well, I start adding a few hardy corals on week 4. Imo, fish should come third after corals. Hardy corals tend to be much hardier than fish, and help to age the water and tank in preparation for fish. I don't add a fish until week 6-8.

FYI, someone mentioned a tank becoming "established", a tank isn't considered established until at least a year imo.

This approach seems... to defeat the purpose of reef keeping. The world reefs are in danger and we as reefers need to do our best to ensure that we stock wisely and conscientiously to ensure we do not purposely stress or kill fish and corals.

If we remove fish from the ocean with the attitude that "they come and go"... it hurts nature.

There are a lot of LFS out there that do not care about this and will continue stocking fish that are not suitable to make a quick buck. But as reefers we do not need to follow this same path.

Fish are animals too. And amazing animals OR NONE OF US WOULD HAVE A TANK!!!!

Try keep the worlds reef systems in mind. If you think its a bad idea for one reason or another... then it probably is.

Not dumping on you Reefwars.... but I have a sweet spot for the reef... and part of me is sad thinking about the fish I have lost in the past due to my own inexperience and poor advice received.

Some of you probably saw the post about BC somewhere trying to make salt fish banned. Do you wonder why? It is because of things like this.


Reef wisely and it will be a rich experience. Reef poorly and you will only be poor.

Sorry for the rant.

Excellent post! I couldn't agree more!

sorry to dis-agree with you Mang^^^^ but, do not cycle the tank with a fish.....cheap or not a fish going through a cycle will suffer irreversible damage.... if your rock was out of water for an hour then you will get die off and your tank will cycle properly without adding a fish....again, patience is key.......oh ya, welcome to CR:biggrin:

Agreed.

[reefwars]

That's why I say to he their own ... If you'd like to lecture me about the oceans reef then I say save your breath, i've heard read and expeirienced and seen in person our oceans reef, I was raised less than 20ft from the ocean. I have oersonnally cut the net off a whale , so I do care but if you take things to heart we wouldn't have a hobby in the first place . It's a fact fish are gonna die in our tank sooner or later , it happens ...sure there things we can do , but if you don't experiment well never learn new things. That said obviously I wouldn't keep my tang in a 20g , but I pick and choose my battles... If i got hung up on all the worlds problems I'd never sleep .....war, bombings, forests,oceans ....I say less talk and put your words into action ....what have you done to save out oceans outside of a tank, I was part of our towns beach clean up for many years...volunteered every year, I have about 500g of water in my house fir fish all healthy and doing great, I have had tanks my whole ..whole life, but in the end I respect your reefing habits and usually don't diss other peoples . There ate many ways to do things your beliefs may not be the same as mine doesn't make them right or wrong. Everyone has their own morals, but if I dare you to go to a mother and tell her what she does isn't what you'd do, or to a dog owner and say I wouldn't feed that it's not what I do , or possibly the church about what religion to have....most would say ......to he their own. So instead of coming on a forum to lecture about your beliefs, just state what you know as facts and not your morals.

If you think cycling a tank with fish is wrong then that's your god given right and no one can take it from you it's the beauty of freedom ....but it works both ways.last night I had a guy come buy some things he has a yellow tang regal tang and some triggers in a 60g ,instead of saying I think he's wrong or destroying our reefs isimply explained things that may happen , it's his own choice whether to follow but I wouldn't dare say I think he's hurting our hobby or is going to destroy our oceans ........why????


Because people need to make their own decisions between right and wrong and what they interpret as good reefkeeping practises.

I'm not going to be replying to this thread anymore because the topic would be never ending and I've heard it all before. I respect you'd advice pat but you have to respect also that not everyone has the same thoughts you do and just because they don't doesn't make you any better of a reefer than me:) I jar Wang you to know even if this comes off as rude it isn't I really do respect your advice and morals.........

"To he their own"

[StirCrazy]

ok, I am going to take the different aproach here. you added 32 lbs of fully cured LR to a 38 gal tank. you won't see a cycle at all unless you realy over dose an amonia source. the reason is that basicly because your tank is already cycled. at 1 hour max wraped in wet newspaper, it will be very doutfull you will have any significant die off, and the rock is fully established with bacteria. when you compare the amount of bacterian in LR to what is in the water colume it is a huge difference.. manymany times the maount in the rock compared to water and the important ones are deep with in the rock and not in the water anyways. for all practical purposes with in a day of the multiplication of the bacteria it wouldn't matter.

so my recomendation is to still take it slow, but go ahed and add hermits if you want them and some snails. if you lose a couple snails no big deal, but I doubt you would lose any more than normal if you aclimate them properly.

when I did mine I added 180lbs of LR with about 20 corals which were atached, to a 94 gal tank. I tried using dead raw shrimp to start a cycle but after adding about 1/2 a lb of shrimp and watching the rot and disapear there was still no cycle as the rock brough all the critteres and bacteria that was needed. I added a cleanup crew of hermits and snails, then a week later I bought a fish. if you are looking at a couple clowns add you cleen up crew right away then in a few weeks start looking at your clowns.

this is actualy a common method for a quick start up of display tanks, the tank is new but the filtering agent (the live rock) is well established.

the problem you get into is when you buy LR with lots of algae, sponges, and such on it and it is out of the water long enough for a die off then it is no longer cured and has to be re-cured.

Steve

[Ryanst]

I dont know if i should put in my two cents or not but I have never been one to hold my tongue. lol I have set up 4 tanks in the past year and didnt see an ammonia spike or anything ever in any of the tanks. In my opinion if you buy cured live rock and after a week or so you dont see a spike in ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate and you take a couple of the rocks out and smell them and they dont smell like rotten eggs or anything bad I would add a hardyish smaller fish. monitor everything over the next 2 weeks and if everything is good I would add another fish. This is just my way of starting new tanks.

[Myka]

If i got hung up on all the worlds problems I'd never sleep .....war, bombings, forests,oceans ....

Here I thought we were talking about possibly burning a fish's gills with ammonia? :neutral:

Your tank is most likely 99% cycled anyway, so you are not likely to be causing any damage to a fish, but this doesn't stop people from wanting to bring awareness to the fact that you don't need to use a fish to cycle a saltwater tank. That practice is very archaic. In the future, someone reading this thread may read that they don't need a fish to cycle the tank and that is one or ten less fish going through the suffering. I say it makes it worthwhile. :)

Some people feel strongly about using fish to cycle a tank because it causes unnecessary painful damage to an animal. You are on a fish forum; there are lots of people on here passionate about fish! :wink:

[nemodad]

Thanks for all the info guys,

It nice to see so many people passionate about the hobby, i sometimes feel alone in this hobby as the wife thinks it's a waste of money and others are just don't get it.

I spend alot of time reading on the internet and find so many contridicting arguments, i just want to do the best I can.

BTW, was staring at my tank yesterday and had an attack!!!
I started rearranging all the rock, it started with one rock then the whole thing look like crap!!! After an hour of frustration i came up with something.

I'll post a pic later, the water was too cloudy.:biggrin: