Dry Rock
 

OK, so I have had the 75 gallon with a 25 gallon sump up and running now for a month now and I'm hoping to get some assistance about cycling dry rock times.

I have 60lbs of dry rock in the main display with 60lbs of new sand. I have another 25lbs of rock from my solana in the sump. The pumps have been running for one months time. The skimmer has been running for 9 days, and last friday I had placed in a few Chromis.

I have been using Seachem Stabilizer in the tank for 9 days as well.

So far, I have yet to see any ammonia spike, and nitrates and nitrites are at a minimum. I was gone away for the first two weeks of the tank running. for the last two weeks i have noticed the following occurrences in my tank

1) a thin brown layer of algae film covered 85% of the tank
2) that died off and cleaned up
3) now I have little tuffs of green hair algae.

So for anyone else that had used dry rock in a new tank with new sand, how long did it take to cycle?

Umm
Why did you put the chromis in the tank?

Thanks Naesco,

Please don't ask a question with a question. I didn't ask about ethics.

Using 50/50 base rock/live rock, it took me about a month to cycle. Took about 6 months to cover the base rock with coralline, dusters, and pods. Hope those Chromis are doing fine.

Thank you, did you add anything to the tank like the seachem or is this stuff just a gimic.

The chromis are doing just fine, thanks for asking

Yeah I dosed half a bottle of Purple Up using their recommendations but I think that product is a gimmick as well. I think I also dumped in some/lots (can't remember) of Hagen Cycle. Dunno if either product was really needed.
Guess I was a bit wet behind the ears when I started the SW hobby.

Thanks again

I do not believe purple up to be a gimick. When I Was dosing I noticed a huge increase in coraline growth. that being said steady constant kalk water dosing works too. and cheaper.

personally I love Seachem Stability...some say it's snake oil, but I've had nothing but success in setting up a tank quickly with it. You'll need to "seed" dry rock, which is essentially what the Stability has done. What you witnessed was a diatom outbreak and now seeing some hair algae...all normal stages in cycling a tank.

Thanks Rogue & Rbacchiega!

the stabilizer is likely the reason you havent seen an ammonia or nitrate spike...it just means its working.

If algae is growing and your nitrite is zero your cycle is complete.

Base rock has it's advantages but it will take a long time to look good and get nuisance algae under control.

I wish I could have used some of my Solana rock in the new tank, however the current pests residing in the solana's rock, lead me to the use of the new pest free dry rock.

Thank you for everyone's response.

I was going to help you with the answer to your post but found your post confusing as everyone knows that you do not use live fish to cycle a tank so I was wondering why you mentioned it and that is why I asked.

Tell me that you did not use live fish to cycle and yes, ethics are an integral part of this hobby my friend.

Seems like you are hijacking my thread, this thread is about cycling dry rock times. These fish were put in over three weeks after the tank was running ( please see original post ). Dead shrimp was used and as well as the stabilizer.

Thank you for your concern.

I started ~35lbs of dry rock off with 2lbs of live rock. Despite throwing food in as well, I never saw anything more than 0.5ppm ammonia and 3ppm nitrite. Neither of which I'm sure weren't me making an incorrect judgement of the colour of the test kit... If i read it correctly your 25lbs from the solana was live? If so, I'm not surprised you haven't seen a traditional cycle, or if you never do..