Cycle needed?

Charley75

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Newly set up 90 gal. I’m using Ocean Direct live sand and mature live rock from an established tank. How do I know if a cycle is still needed? Thanks
 

Copingwithpods

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Newly set up 90 gal. I’m using Ocean Direct live sand and mature live rock from an established tank. How do I know if a cycle is still needed? Thanks
On paper you should be ready in a matter of days as things settle down. If you want confirmation you could ghostfeed the tank and if ammonia stays at 0 you're ready bud
 

Dtrisc525

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I used live rock, live sand in my nano tank, and still went through an entire cycle, not using any other added ammonia source. I’d be on the safe side and see if one happens as well.
 

shaggydoo

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Cycling is the name of the game, it's a cycle. Add something that poops, wait for bacteria to replicate and take care of the waste. Move too fast and enough bacteria won't be there to break down deadly chemicals (ammonia nitrite) into less deadly nitrate. Slow and steady wins the race. Helpful bacteria grows fast if you steadily and slowly increase the bioload.
 

brandon429

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No cycle is needed here, see this thread for cycling without ghost feeding and confirming a tank is ready with your eyes



consider all the reefs at macna or reefstock

did they skip the cycle or show up 30 days early to begin

above is twenty pages of skip cycling. It’s not that it sometimes works or that we can’t be sure without tests, it’s that it always works and we never need any tests to cycle when using established live rock. Your first inclination was fully correct Charley


putting feed in a live rock system with no animals to eat it is a recipe for hesitation and algae. Moving live rock from one system to another doesn’t kill bacteria, it’s why you don’t need to cycle. It doesn’t kill worms or pods either.


dry rock setups require something different than moving live rocks tank to tank. dry rock starts are handled oppositely from live rock starts.
 
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homer1475

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consider all the reefs at macna or reefstock

did they skip the cycle or show up 30 days early to begin

above is sixteen pages of skip cycling.
Ive seen you post this numerous times, and while I mostly agree with you, your giving people false hopes of never having to cycle a tank. It really irks me for one reason......

No one has fish in those tanks! They are full of coral, which has 0 bioload. So a cycle isn't needed.

To top it off, were only talking 4 days max if they do have fish, and a bottle of bacteria(regardless if you think they are worthless, they do work for an instant cycle, or rather instant bacteria populations). I could keep a couple fish an an uncycled tank for 4 days without issue too, but keep them there longer then that, and we start to have ammonia issues.
 

brandon429

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Disagree, because its twenty pages of happy, no failed cycles, for four years. its as if our work is easily discounted but not read at all



Yes there were full fish in the reefs at these conventions




see this post for a quick clue, shorter read too
*what clues, visual clues, on the live rock beyond just the resident starfish prove that rock is cycled?

@Malifry97

a revolt is coming if we don’t wait 30 days :)
 
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brandon429

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You could not keep fish in an uncycled tank for four days, post it. It’ll go cloudy and die over nite unless you manipulate dilution, say two hundred gallon tank and one damsel
 

homer1475

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With true live rock, I'll agree with you, the tank is probably cycled. But without testing, how does one know? Visual ques mean nothing to chemistry.

And like I said you keep using shows as your guideline, but those fish are only in there for a couple days, and like I said I can keep 2 clownfish alive in a 10G tank with 0 things in it for 4 days too. The tanks without fish, are corals tanks and have 0 bioload.
 

homer1475

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You could not keep fish in an uncycled tank for four days, post it.
Umm... people do it all the time with QT tanks. TTM doesn't require you to cycle anything, and its 72 hours(3 days). But even shows get setup on Thursday/Friday, and torn down on sunday. So thats like 4 days max.
 

brandon429

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And prime. Prime is used to offset the ammonia

i can see we aren’t going to base statements off our work documented.

Charley knows his reef is doing fine, his inclinations were originally shot down but then the work of 20 pages no failed cycling was posted. here for the underdog with sole example links.
 
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brandon429

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@Malifry97

instant cycling in the hobby isn’t well grasped in forums is that fair or unfair statement

Charley when you wake up post a full tank picture and we will visually cycle/confirm your setup as if fifty of them have not already been linked.
 

homer1475

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Your totally missing my point and are blinded by your "skip cycle".

I get a skip cycle, seriously I do, I've done it plenty of times. But you cannot tell people that start with dry dead rock, live sand, and water their tank is cycled. Or even better give examples of tanks in shows that use real live rock, and bottle bacteria to keep things alive for 4 days, or tanks that have 0 bioload because they are 100% coral.
 

brandon429

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Agreed we are not aligned. I’ve never posted to cycle like that

This post from Charley is about live rock skip cycling. Changing the direction totally into dry rock cycling per your statement, we can skip cycles with dry rocks too:


its best to verify ammonia ability before proceeding on dry rock skip cycles.
 
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brandon429

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Good deal. Your posts don’t offend me at all but I can understand your motivation based on alternate viewpoints linked. Skip cycling can be very frustrating to established norms. Without works logged the whole notion would seem crazy to forum readers.




it is fair to say Charley that posters here do not think you are cycled at all—-> not once was it stated you are ready to go/ no doubt.

Can’t wait to see pics. We have several links above though, that say you are. no cycle anarchy has been posted to you...we seem to have good practices on file so far.

matter of fact, once we get proof pics here I’ll make this an example thread for page one above cycling thread. It’s important to contrast how forums never permit skip cycling vs conventions that do, using both live and dry setups all starting on the same start date. Somehow that whole convention pulled it off, I know you can too.
 
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brandon429

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The big picture scope for this thread:

we shouldn’t get lost in battling, dealing with live rock transfers is how we move tanks home to home without loss, or move to conventions. If someone wants to remove their sandbed and go bare bottom, and not have to re cycle, we need patterned works to pull from regarding live rock biology and ability. People want to upgrade or downgrade, and having set + reliable rules about what bacteria do prevents us from wiping out costly systems.

when someone states in a post they’ve set up a new reef, with established rock, the forum expects a cycle because it’s a recent build. but I see those detailed alternate applications above (move to convention, move rooms, move to a new home, remove the sandbed and put back) as the same thing, thats how we differ on the matter. I matched my advice directly to his substrate needs not how long the rocks have been in the new glass tank
 
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Malifry97

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@Malifry97

instant cycling in the hobby isn’t well grasped in forums is that fair or unfair statement

Charley when you wake up post a full tank picture and we will visually cycle/confirm your setup as if fifty of them have not already been linked.
Thats a very fair statement. And yes a FTS will help.
 

brandon429

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Good morning, and you’ve woke up to a huge cycling debate. Where were you the last four hours :) / deep REM dreaming of a peaceful reef day?


50FA4FF4-7B95-479D-B718-E1C3D815C211.jpeg
 
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