Bare Bones of Cycling -questions

[velfamily]

searching around the forum, reading up on cycling....

i am looking for bare bones information. (we have a 75g also, but just about everything in it came from an active teardown from a friend, so we have not gone through the cycling process before)

in a 65g hex, we will be starting with 65#s dry rock, live sand & LR rubble.
yes, we are prepared for the amount of time the cycling is going to take.

so my questions are:

lighting? will a CLF bulb in a dome, clip-on fixture be enough?

filtering? at what point does a filtration system become necessary? the beginning? or is there a sign, such as a bloom, to watch for to start it?

flow? will adding hydor mover be enough, just to keep the water from being stagnant?


i thank you all for your answers. the experience everyone shares on rc has made our saltwater tank a beautiful addition to our home. looking forward to our 2nd tank! (today, the kids are all agreeing on a seahorse tank... we'll see what tomorrow brings!)

[spleify]

Glad to hear you have found RC to be a good recourse, and I agree with it is great.

Well to answer your questions, we will need a little more info.

The lighting is definitely on the low end, but it depends what you are planning on keeping, if you just want a fish only tank, you might just get away with that lighting, same goes for the flow, if iy is a fish only, or a seahorse tank like you mention, you MIGHT be ok. I would still upgrade both of these though IMO.
Filtration is an important one too. Its a good idea to have some good filtration to made it as pleasent as possible for your inhabitants. Do you plan on running a sump/refugium?

[velfamily]

sorry, it seems i was unclear

the lighting, filtration & flow will all be upgraded when the tank is ready for...whatever it is we decide on.

i'm wondering about these things for the cycling period only. i'd rather not run the reef lights, filtration system & such (like what we have on our other tank), during the cycling time if it is not a must. does that make sense?

so i guess, what i'm wondering is if the "bare bones" equipment i've mentioned enough to cycle the tank? or should i go ahead with all the special lights/filtration & such?

thanks

[spleify]

Sorry I misundertood you question. The lighting and flow might be ok for the cylce, but IME I would get the filtration how you want it, so it goes through the cycle with the rest of the tank.

What is your plan for filtration? Are you going to to run a sump/refugium?

[kyrin01]

LIGHTS: You dont even need lights for the tank to cycle, ime if you dont use lights then you wont have the massive algea blooms that ppl with lights have. Yes ther will still be algea blooms but not the ones that scare ppl. lol.

FILTRATION: This is one of those topics that can be debated every which way. Some ppl say water changes are fine, and others say you need mechanical filtration. Id say if you are going to get filtration do it when your ready and dont worry about it now. You shouldnt really need to do a water change until you are reading 0 amm/Trites anyway, because thats when you have the most Trates in the system.

FLOW: with the cycling process id say get as much flow as you can stand just to keep any pockets of water from sitting to long. Maybe a couple of cheap PH's to blow thru, in front, and behind the rock structure.

Others will have diff input, and this is only MY .02 that i have from my personal experiences, but i hope that it helps! Good luck!

[Michael]

id suggest a couple of decent powerheads, even though you intend to allow the tank to mature, i still think decent flow is essential,, i understand your comments about upgrading after the cycle, but dont skip on the flow, and imho, you should know what you intend to keep before you start, if you do decide on a sea horse tank then your doing it all wrong imo, please dont be offended, im here to try and help.

[velfamily]

Originally Posted by Michael

id suggest a couple of decent powerheads, even though you intend to allow the tank to mature, i still think decent flow is essential,, i understand your comments about upgrading after the cycle, but dont skip on the flow, and imho, you should know what you intend to keep before you start, if you do decide on a sea horse tank then your doing it all wrong imo, please dont be offended, im here to try and help.

not offended at all. i'd love to have your input on what i should be doing differently if we go with horses. i assumed (yes, i know what they say about assumption! lol) cycling would be the same regardless of what we decide will be it's inhabitants later. hmmm, never occurred to me that horses would be in need of something different at this stage

[velfamily]

forgot to add, the plan (for now) is to use a freedom filter... a restaurant in town with several tanks just closed & my LFS will be selling off all the used equip. we are good customers so she has offered us one for $50. such a good buy we thought we'd go with this set-up for the hex.
our 75 has 3 canister filters

[Michael]

cycling is the same, but a sea horse tank shouldnt be full of live rock, they need eel grasses and a very moderate flow and lighting tank to thrive as well as peaceful tank mates, a mandarin and pipe fish are readily available tank mates,if considering a seahorse tank, the biological filtration would be better in the sump and/or a hang on, in the natural biotope they dont live near reefs and live rock, also a very very low bioload is recommended as well, a specialist fish to keep, i sincerely wish you the best, try here for more info http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=35, and again good luck to you and please report back with some pictures when your up and running

[wooden_reefer]

Cycling per se, defined as the cultivation of nitrification bacteria, is very simple.

You need circulation, gaseous exchange, bacteria seed and source of ammonia.

Cannot be more bare bone.

If you cycle with recently collected live rock, cycling will be just a bit more complicated. Here, you may want to keep ammonia (from dieoff and decay of lives on the rock) not too high so as to preserve some lives on the rock.

[Raggamuffin]

Originally Posted by wooden_reefer

Cycling per se, defined as the cultivation of nitrification bacteria, is very simple.

You need circulation, gaseous exchange, bacteria seed and source of ammonia.

Cannot be more bare bone.

If you cycle with recently collected live rock, cycling will be just a bit more complicated. Here, you may want to keep ammonia (from dieoff and decay of lives on the rock) not too high so as to preserve some lives on the rock.

This reson is why I ran powerheads, 4 hours of light daily and a hob skimmer while cycling... if you really want LR and have critters you want to keep on it make sure you do a water change when am creeps up to 1.0. The name of the game at that point is how close can I keep it to 1.0 without going over.

[wooden_reefer]

Originally Posted by Raggamuffin

This reson is why I ran powerheads, 4 hours of light daily and a hob skimmer while cycling... if you really want LR and have critters you want to keep on it make sure you do a water change when am creeps up to 1.0. The name of the game at that point is how close can I keep it to 1.0 without going over.

I never use recently collected LR to cycle. I cycle first using old dead rock and other dead medium and then add the good expensive LR that is recently collected into a tank already with very much enough cycled medium. No matter what the die-off is, there will be no re-cycling or ammonia surge.

Cycling ought to be cycling per se and from the dead, and ought to be always very very very simple.

Bare bone is not about just knowledege, it is about the actual process based on thorough understanding of a simple concept.