10,000th Cycle Question Thread

[TMF89]

Alright guys I have a question. I know you're supposed to do water changes during a cycle, but here's the situation. I'm setting up a 29 gallon reef tnak in my college house. I'm getting all the supplies at Christmas, but won't be back up there until the next semester on January 10th. I will be up for the weekend after Christmas though, with a week between then and then 10th when I'll be back up for sure. I was wondering if I can set up my tank during the first weekend of January when I'm up there, and leave it alone for a week with no water changes/maintenance? I'm either going to use Bio-Spora or the shrimp method to do the cycle, along with dry rock from a LFS. I can use timers to control lighting/current of course.

[HanoverFist]

You do water changes to protect the life on the live rock. If you aren't using live rock with a lot of life on it, or any at all, then there's nothing to worry about really. In that case you're just growing bacteria basically - which will love you for NOT doing water changes.

So, if you have expensive LR find someone to do a few WC for you. If mostly dead rock and/or some cheap LR just forget about it.

[TMF89]

Well I'm getting some local 100% dry rock. So I should be cool to get it all set up, and leave it? What do you recommend for waterflow/lighting while cycling?

[Chris27]

You'll be fine to set it up and keep it running while you're not there. Just throw a powerhead in there to keep the water moving and leave the lights off so you don't have to worry about algae when you get back.

[TMF89]

Awesome! So just set up the rock work/sand bed, get the mixed saltwater in there, drop in a shrimp, and let it go to work? How long do cycles with shrimp usually take? It'll be nice to have a week and a half gone by before I even have to look at the tank again, are there any rough expectations for where I can expect my parameters to be? Thanks guys!

[weezyfella]

wouldn't there be a concern with water evaporation? topping off water?

[KrazyReef]

I would also ask the LFS for may be 5 galons of their water to help speed up the process.

[con999]

Originally Posted by KrazyReef

I would also ask the LFS for may be 5 galons of their water to help speed up the process.

im sorry but that was wasted money. the the bacteria come from sand and rocks not the water.

\also just so you guys know you shouldent be doing water changes durring the cycal. you need to let everything build up to cycal the tank. but doing a water change you could be remove the ammonia, and thats what you need to start the cycal

[con999]

Originally Posted by TMF89

Awesome! So just set up the rock work/sand bed, get the mixed saltwater in there, drop in a shrimp, and let it go to work? How long do cycles with shrimp usually take? It'll be nice to have a week and a half gone by before I even have to look at the tank again, are there any rough expectations for where I can expect my parameters to be? Thanks guys!

you need at least a peice of LR to start the cycal. thats how you get the bacteria in the tank to eat the ammoina. your tank will not cycal if you have not life in their

[con999]

also the cycal will take about 5 to 6 weeks to cycal.then put 1 fish in their. wait a few weeks 3 or 4 for the bcteria to get to the right population. and after about 6 months you could be ready for a few hardy corals

[bertoni]

I'd wait to start the tank until I got back, unless there's someone to replace evaporated water. That could be an issue. If that's not a problem, I'd just put the system together and add a bit of fish food, instead of the shrimp. The system should be okay if topoff water gets added as needed.

[TMF89]

So no matter what method I use I need at least a couple pounds of live rock to start the colony?

Have any of you guys used Bio-Spora? I talked to an LFS who said they used it on their display tank and while they didn't add fish immediately, it shortened the cycle to like two weeks. If you have used it, experiences? I'm not trying to be able to instantly add fish, but I wouldn't mind a two week cycle.

[bertoni]

No, it's possible to start a tank without live rock, but it might take longer to get the bacterial population going.

Bio-Spira might help with live rock that has a lot of die-off on it, but I'm not convinced it does much else.

[TMF89]

What about using live rock without curing it? I know you're supposed to cure live rock after buying it to get rid of all the dead organisms that died on the way to your tank. But what if I was able to get it into my tank right away from the store, and then threw in some fish food/shrimp to feed the bacteria? Would the amount of micro organisms that died be small enough to not have to cure the rock? Would that speed up the cycle quite a bit?

[bertoni]

If the live rock doesn't have much, or any, die-off on it when it gets into your tank, there'd effectively be no cycle. I've set up tanks that way, mostly with live rock from existing tanks, though. Adding a bit of fish food to such a system now and then is a good way to test the filtration and keep animals fed, though.

[TMF89]

The shrimp is merely to produce biomatter for the live rock to feed on, correct? Shouldn't fish just be added directly to the tank, as long as the LR is good quality and there's no die-off/ammonia spike to worry about? Would one small fish have little enough biomatter for the tank to handle? I was just thinking that, people keep small fish in 10 gallon tanks, so if I added 10lbs of live rock to my 29 gallon, wouldn't I theoretically have enough live rock to take care of the fish? Or am I missing some really basic cycling rule that's just not coming to mind? lol

[bertoni]

It's there mostly for the protein, which will decay to produce ammonia. It also will help feed animals on the rock, if there are any.

The goal of waiting and testing the tank with fish food is to give time for any secondary ammonia spikes to happen, and to test that the bacteria are ready for the intended fish load. In addition, secondary metabolites can clear the system, especially with some water changes.

[TMF89]

And the secondary ammonia spike is from die-off from the live rock, right? Or, if the bacteria in the live rock isn't up to handling the new bio-load, correct? And the more bacteria/organisms on the live rock, the shorter the cycle will be since there are more organisms to handle it, right?

[bertoni]

The secondary spikes might be some large animal deciding to die, for example. I don't think anyone's really proved what is happening, and they seem to be fairly uncommon.

The less die-off and organic debris there is in the live rock (or whatever), the shorter the cycle will be. The same is true for the presence of bacteria. It's hard to know which is more important.

[TMF89]

Alright cool. So theoretically if I were able to get the rock in without die-off, there would be no cycle? I'm at home now, and not at my college house. I was going to go up during break and set up the tank, then let it cycle while I finished break, getting up there ten days later. But if there's no real die off, during that time the bacteria will have nothing to feed on, so I could wind up with a large die-off, right? But if I use the shrimp method, I'll basically have to cycle unless the rock is already that populated with organisms to handle the shrimp, which it probably won't be right?

[bertoni]

If you use well-cured live rock and don't transfer it very far, you can set up a tank without ever seeing any ammonia. I've done that three times. If you use dead rock, you could start growing bacteria with a bit of fish food every day for a while, which might or might not result in much measurable ammonia.

[TMF89]

Alright. And my earlier analogy about 10 gallon aquariums with 10lbs of LR supporting fish means that 10lbs should be able to support a fish in any size tank (if I did 10lbs live and 20lbs dry), means that I could add fish very quickly? Again in theory.

The one problem I forsee is that my college house is a four hour drive away from the LFS. If I were to put the rock in buckets with a little bit of fish food, would they survive the trip alright?

[bertoni]

Well, the ammonia processing capacity can be there, if you add enough food. It's probably safer to add fish to a tank that's been started with just clean dry rock, if you wish to stock up quickly. There can be other issues involved with live rock.

[TMF89]

But wouldn't using dry rock mean a longer cycle because the bacteria have to grow?

[bertoni]

Maybe. That depends on how much organic debris is on the live rock. That can take a long time to process, too.