wrong

[Quagmire]

Ahh,so the liverock wasn't added when you first set up the tank.Did you have the live rock in a differant tank curing,or did you get it from the store and put it directly into your tank?If it came from the LFS,they may have told you its fully cured,but thats often not the case.Most LFS wont test the water and wouldn't know for sure if its cured or not.Plus even fully cured rock,may have some die off on the trip home.Depending on how long a trip,and how much the water cools off.Some times when you add fully cured rock,you can still get some die off.Organizms living happily on the surface of the rock suddenly find themselves buried in the sand.

With live rock in the tank,you wont need any other livestock or chemicals for the cycle.When the cycle is finnished,you can add livestock slowly (not 5 fish at a time).If you add slowly,there will be a small amonia spike at first,but it will be small and will quickly be talken care of by the liverock.

[asherah]

The live rock is from my 44r that was set up for a year. The reef bones I got said that you can't put them in a established tank and that it had to be cured.
So I figured it would be enough.


There are 4 fish in my 44 and a few snails. So should I not add those all together then ? One at a time maybe ?

amanda

ps. would it be ok to add hermits and snails after the cycle ? I dont have much of a clean up crew in the 44 =p

[TheReefGeek]

I always recommend 10% live rock if you use dry rock, to kick off the cycle. I know it is hard to be patient, but that is all you can do.

If it were my tank, I would toss a raw shrimp in and let the tank cycle more, I would rater "overdue" a cycle than not build up enough bacteria.

How porous is your base rock and reef bones? If it is really dense it might not support much bacteria.

[asherah]

seems pretty porus.. lots of holes in it. Some of the rocks look like they used to be corals, with ridges and etc in them.
I could post a picture.. maybe that would help ?

amanda

[TheReefGeek]

If it is porous and has holes and whatnot, it will be just fine, all you have to do is wait. Just make sure you add livestock slowly to your tank (1 fish at a time preferably) to build up the necessary bacteria levels for your bioload, and not cause a re-cycle.

If you cycle another tank in the future, make sure there is sufficient die off for a good cycle. (ie, a piece of raw shrimp)

[Psyire]

I would count off the cycling period from the day you added the LR.

It almost sounds like there was no bacteria available to the tank (to multiply) before that time.

It's definately a good thing you are taking your time. Keep going slow and your chance of long term success will be much higher.

[Reefhawk1]

I have always cycled my tanks by adding live sand from another established tank. I slowly add it and it usually only takes maximum of two weeks for the cycle to be complete. I also add live rock into the mix to get things rolling.