Cycling discussion

Jmcdaniel0 · Nov 27, 2015

A friend of mine, and I were discussing this topic and I thought I would get your opinions.

He recently bought a tank through me, and 100lbs of Real Reef live rock from me as well.

He thinks that if he uses *live* sand and the reef rock he figures his tank is reef ready and good to go. I told him that Live sand isnt really alive, most of its contents die off , and its not exactly the best option. I explained thatnto my knowledge the reef rock will me alive so to speak, but itmwill have die off aswell. My thoughts are he needs to wait and see because his tank will still go through a cycle, but he believes what he has read and assumes he can go ahead with fish and coral.

What do you all think?? i did alot of reading and it seems there are a lot of different opinions on this. Just curious where you all stand.

Rob.D · Nov 27, 2015

Bagged live sand and that fake rock stuff will help in cycling his tank but all tanks need to develop denitrifying bacteria over a course of time; assuming that his tank is ready to go without any evidence of the traditional ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate cycle is risky, at best.

Jmcdaniel0 · Nov 27, 2015

My thoughts exactly.

Jmcdaniel0 · Nov 27, 2015

I mean the rock i get is nice stuff, has all kinds of good stuff, but it still has to be bagged and shipped.

Ryan15236 · Nov 28, 2015

I used like 100lbs of dry then 10lbs of live rock from lfs and added corals and two clowns all in one day and I never lost a thing. Or had any spikes. Tank has been running 4 months now and has 25+ corals. Sps LPS and zoas. Idk if I got lucky or what. Although my LR went 10 minutes from the LFS straight to my tank.

Pete polyp · Nov 28, 2015

If the rock came from an established tank then there's no problem stocking immediately. It's pretty much the same thing as moving a tank. The bagged live sand really isn't live sand yet, but it's an excellent product. Ime it will shorten the cycle a little.

Brian Kim · Nov 28, 2015

Jmcdaniel0 said:
A friend of mine, and I were discussing this topic and I thought I would get your opinions.

He recently bought a tank through me, and 100lbs of Real Reef live rock from me as well.

He thinks that if he uses *live* sand and the reef rock he figures his tank is reef ready and good to go. I told him that Live sand isnt really alive, most of its contents die off , and its not exactly the best option. I explained thatnto my knowledge the reef rock will me alive so to speak, but itmwill have die off aswell. My thoughts are he needs to wait and see because his tank will still go through a cycle, but he believes what he has read and assumes he can go ahead with fish and coral.

What do you all think?? i did alot of reading and it seems there are a lot of different opinions on this. Just curious where you all stand.

Did he buy your established tank along with your established rock? That pretty much sounds like tank transfer and those live sand will only further help him with not having to go through mini cycle
Now, if we are talking about live rock that came shipped from somewhere, then it will definitely go through a cycle due to the dieoffs.

brandon429 · Nov 28, 2015

In this thread I try and make a good case for specific prediction and control of cycling in any tank, be it dry start or live rock xfer, or blended

I for one have never cycled not one day any reef or planted tank on my YouTube page or online. There is a specific test that simply tells in all uncertain conditions how much bioload a cycle can handle. Specific cycling time frames two weeks, two mos, or zero days and repeatable.

If any part is wrong or not able to be replicated in test I'll delete that part of the thread.

The title is, don't cycle live rock with rotting shrimp 20 reasons why lol

http://reef2reef.com/threads/new-ta...rimp-live-rock-no-shrimp.214618/#post-2493396

brandon429 · Nov 28, 2015

Consider any large marine aquarium convention

Can you see them exposing ten grand in bounce mushrooms to an unreliable transfer system? A day to setup, and not crash, or register nitrite, and for sure avoid the highly predictable .25 ammonia false mini cycle then run 3 or 4 days, same as 2000 days, w no mini cycle.

Biological transfer runs the tv show tanked

It runs the emergency hospital tank that must process immediate fish water with no prep. Moving from smaller tanks to big ones and skipping the cycle is handy, turns out a drive across town from the pet store isn't different

In every case a cycle can be made to do what we want it to do, or avoid.

Jmcdaniel0 · Nov 28, 2015

Brian Kim said:
Did he buy your established tank along with your established rock? That pretty much sounds like tank transfer and those live sand will only further help him with not having to go through mini cycle
Now, if we are talking about live rock that came shipped from somewhere, then it will definitely go through a cycle due to the dieoffs.

No, it is a brand new tank, using bagged *live* sand, and cultured reef rock. this is man made reef rock that is *grown*. in the ocean, not aqua cultered in a tank.

brandon429 · Nov 28, 2015

Bagged live sand and cultured reef rock can for sure be skip cycled (show up with all needed bacteria) if the live rock is simply transported underwater to stop dieoff.

Brian Kim · Nov 28, 2015

brandon429 said:
Bagged live sand and cultured reef rock can for sure be skip cycled (show up with all needed bacteria) if the live rock is simply transported underwater to stop dieoff.

+1 This

Chriscrna · Nov 28, 2015

Lance Armstrong knew quite a bit about cycling. Perhaps we could ask him.

Pete polyp · Nov 28, 2015

Chriscrna said:
Lance Armstrong knew quite a bit about cycling. Perhaps we could ask him.

Nah.... we don't wanna cheat

Reefrookie220 · Nov 28, 2015

Ryan15236 said:
I used like 100lbs of dry then 10lbs of live rock from lfs and added corals and two clowns all in one day and I never lost a thing. Or had any spikes. Tank has been running 4 months now and has 25+ corals. Sps LPS and zoas. Idk if I got lucky or what. Although my LR went 10 minutes from the LFS straight to my tank.

It was crazy seeing this, the salt wasn't even mixed fully when I go there and all that coral did just fine. I was flabbergasted.