Starting a cycle
 

Hi
Starting to cycle dry bleached and acid bathed rock for the new tank whadaya use to start a cycle?

I used live sand and a piece of shrimp and left it to mature for 4 months

I did the same bleach bath and acid and I never seen much of a cycle but I did add live rock after week one even after people told me not too because of bad hitch hikers . But I did it anyway just to see some sort of life in the tank. So on week 3 I still had no ammonia or phosphate and my other level were good I started adding fish and coral but every tank is different i guess

I used all live. No cycle. Was awesome.

Previous setup I used dry rock and tried the Time option, but after a couple days found it wasn't working :razz:

i seeded the dry rock in my other system and stole media from my other system

kind of instant cycle:mrgreen:

Never understood the dead shrimp thing. All you're doing is delaying the presence of ammonia (ergo, the presence of bacteria which can metabolize the ammonia) until the shrimp decays. Skip all that and just add ammonia til you get a .3ppm reading. Seed with some bacteria via product or liverock. From here, you have two options:

1. Wait and test til good. 90% water change - GO!
2. Hit with a ton of VSV til you get a bacterial bloom, then wait for it to go away. 90% water change - GO! (this is a bit more advance but sets you up for an algae-less cycle)

Either way, it's bulletproof.

Any sense on how much ammonia needed to get ~ 40 gal to .3ppm? Was thinking this makes more sense than adding a rotten shrimp

I just wing it. Add .5mL and start from there.

You left out taking a wizz in your tank.:biggrin:
I read about some quacks doing it years ago. I couldn't imagine my wife coming home and catching me pi$$ng in my tank:lol: how'd you explain that?

Think that fits in "other" ... ;)

I hate dry rock. When I have to deal with it I use Prodibio Start, and use some tank water from one of my own tanks.

I used live sand, dry rock, some live rock and prodibio start up. Im starting to wonder if because of this I wont get a cycle? Amonia and Nitrate are steady at 0 and nitrate has been at 10. Nothing has changed in a week.

It depends what kind of dry rock you used. Though if you haven't seen any ammonia in a week I'd be inclined to say you won't. Did you check ammonia arond the 2-3 day mark too? Nothing then?

The branching type of rock has nearly nothing on it, so it doesn't seem to cycle. The shelf stuff isn't too bad either. The Pukani stuff is horrendously dirty and causes a crazy cycle which can be lessened if you powerwash it, bleach it, and acid bath it. I've found dead starfish in it, big dead worms, large chunks of dried algae.

Hi Myka

Amonia did go up but only slightly on day 3. I missed day 4 as I was away for work. All the water parameters have been the same the last 9 times i've tested. The rock I used was from Wai's in calgary. Not sure what type but they are rather large and filled with holes. They seemed to be very clean. They went from bleach white to a darker color at this point. I can see some algae growing on my live but non growing on the dry rock.

I was trying to find what type of dry rock I have and it looks like "reef saver".

I'm thinking about not bleaching my rock and throwing a shrimp beheaded in.??? What y'all think?.

I think you'll need a lawnmower to trim the algae in 4 weeks :)

I've always preferred the method of using an abundance of live rock and seeding the tank with the detritus/aged seawater pulled from another tank. My current tank was quickly cycled by using the live sand/rock/water from a pico that had been running for a year or so. I provided the tank with a small amount of ammonia by adding mysid a few times a week. Obviously, it's something that shouldn't be rushed as I'm still waiting for my DSB to mature and chaeto to grow out in order to feel more comfortable about the biological portion of the system. I'm a big believer in biological diversity within a reef tank.

I downsized from a 90G to a RSM250 65g I used 60% old water from the 90G and 40%new water, all the rock that went into the RSM came out of the 90g sand was all rinsed with used salt water from the 90g. the bio in 2 bags were from my 50g sump which ran with my 90g and is hydrton balls, lr rubble and bio rings.
Basically it was a big water change and worked great for me without any cycle.