Cycline my SW tank

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
J

JTRG05

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 9, 2009
251
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Northwest Ohio
I used Live Crushed Coral, Live Rock and ASSUMED it would be all ready to go. WRONG. Here I sit with Ammonia levels at 1ppm and a low nitrate level, no change from when it was put in.

How long will I be looking at for the cycle to complete, the same amount of time as I do with my FW tanks, or will it be different with all the live rock and live sand?
 
If the live rock and live sand/coral are truly 'live'...

Then you have both types Aerobic bacteria as well as the Anaerobic bacteria. But we have no real way to know how much of them you have...

The bacteria has a doubling time of less than 24 hours... so it shuold build up pretty quickly...

But if the "live rock" and "live sand/coral" are actually just rock & sand/coral... you might have a much longer wait...
 
@ nc_nutcase: Kind of what I was afraid of. Was hoping for a quick start.

@ snyder810: Supposedly cured.

It was cured pompeii live rock, it has plenty of random life on it, as well as some volunteer coral, although it will die as I don't have the lighting for it. I'll wait another couple of days for the live rock/sand to duplicate, and keep an eye on my params. And not add anything to expensive, nor anything I will get attached to.
 
if you're reading ammonia I wouldn't add anything period.

People selling cured rock are full of beans 99% of the time, unless you bought your rock out of a hobbyists tank that's been set up for at least 6 months, odds are you're still going to have some die off and wind up having to process a fair bit of ammonia.

Wait, and do water changes, the more you do the more life will survive. It's all you can do.
 
I should add... if you're in a hurry and you want your tank cycled more than you want to maintain biodiversity you can let the ammonia go and "cook" the rock, and higher concentrations will feed more beneficial bacteria faster and will actually shorten the cycle, IMO not enough to merit killing the vast majority of the critters on and in the rock, but sometimes you're better off without all the bugs and critters, especially if you're planning on growing corals rather than keeping fish.
 
As a question - how long has it been cycling... it usually takes 2 months.
 
depends on the live rocks amount of die off if there is 1ppm there is most likely a good bit off die off use your nose what smells bad scrub off till you smell a clean ocean smell do this in a 5 gallon bucket with fresh saltwater till all the rocks are clean and do 50% water changes every other week till 0 ammonia and your gold

mr.reef24
 
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