DR to Alakazam LR

[JMorris271]

Will dry rock turn into live rock without an ammonia source using just the spores drifting around in he air?

[pyithar]

live rock with critters on it? No, but if you already have critters in the tank then Yes.

if you meant live rock by the rock with bacteria that consume ammonia then probably No. since there's no food source for them the population of the bacteria will be very small.

[JMorris271]

So when you have dry rock in a tank and you add live rock,you are still going to have to feed the live rock with an ammonia source in order to seed the dry rock. Or are you just keeping the bacteria on the Live Rock alive long enough to seed the dry rock that eventually turns into live rock Whew!

[kurt_n]

The bacteria in our tanks that convert ammonia to nitrites and then to nitrates need a constant source of ammonia to survive. If they don't have ammonia to consume, they will die off. Granted that die off itself creates ammonia, which will then feed the remaining bacteria, but I think you can see that eventually the population will dwindle in numbers enough that it can't maintain itself and it collapses. No different than any other natural population of animals looking for a food source - too many animals and not enough food will eventually cause mass die off.

So in short, no... if you don't have an ammonia source, you won't have bacteria.

[pyithar]

the point of keeping rocks in the tanks is also to keep fish/corals. if you're thinking about just keeping live rocks, then you don't need to worry about bacteria or anything. your base rock will have all the critters that your "live rock" have eventually over time. your rocks will be able to handle the bioload of the critters.
when you put a fish in there, there will be more ammonia source in there, therefore more food for bacteria thus the bacteria population will increase. it might takes some time. that's why people always say don't add many fishes at the same time because there won't be enough bacteria population to consume ammonia produced by new fishes right away. but after some time, there will be enough population to consume new level of ammonia right away so it shows zero on test. likewise, if you take away a few fish from the system, the level of ammonia produced by fish will be lower, which means less food source which leads to deline in bacteria population.

that's how i understand anayway. anyway, after the nitrogen cycle is finished, the exciment of stocking the tank begins.

[JMorris271]

That sounds good. The reason for my post. I saw on another forum where someone did a piece on cycling and all. They maintained that after a cycle is done correctly, it's ok to put about 50% of the tanks planned load into the tank. While this sounds nice I wasn't sure that it was good advice. I was wondering where all of the necessary bacteria came from.
Thanks

[kurt_n]

Originally Posted by JMorris271

That sounds good. The reason for my post. I saw on another forum where someone did a piece on cycling and all. They maintained that after a cycle is done correctly, it's ok to put about 50% of the tanks planned load into the tank. While this sounds nice I wasn't sure that it was good advice. I was wondering where all of the necessary bacteria came from.
Thanks

It probably depends on how you define a cycle "done correctly".

If you are cycling using pure ammonia, and dosing X amount per day constantly, I can see where you might be simulating a 50% bioload and building up the bacteria to deal with it. Once your system can eliminate that much ammonia quickly, then you could stop dosing the ammonia and quickly add a whole bunch of fish. In theory. Perhaps that's what "done correctly" means to the person that wrote that advice.

But I wouldn't follow it. For me... too much room for error. Plus, you want to be quarantining all fish coming into the tank and quarantining a bunch of fish all at once is a daunting task in itself.

Better to just cycle the tank "normally", then add a fish or two per month. Way better chance of success going slowly.

[snorvich]

Originally Posted by kurt_n

It probably depends on how you define a cycle "done correctly".

If you are cycling using pure ammonia, and dosing X amount per day constantly, I can see where you might be simulating a 50% bioload and building up the bacteria to deal with it. Once your system can eliminate that much ammonia quickly, then you could stop dosing the ammonia and quickly add a whole bunch of fish. In theory. Perhaps that's what "done correctly" means to the person that wrote that advice.

But I wouldn't follow it. For me... too much room for error. Plus, you want to be quarantining all fish coming into the tank and quarantining a bunch of fish all at once is a daunting task in itself.

Better to just cycle the tank "normally", then add a fish or two per month. Way better chance of success going slowly.

I agree. Go slowly, do it right from the beginning.