Cycling dry rock

[G_Lows]

I’m planning a tank upgrade and I want to start from scratch, I have some new reef saver rock and some older rock that has been properly bleach cured and dried.

If I want to begin cycling the rock in a brute can, how do I make sure I’m getting consistent bio load after the cycle and that the rock will be good to go once I get the tank setup? How frequently would you change water and how much? Light or no light? What about managing p04? In the threads I see on this topic a lot of people have very high p04. I’m a few months out on a tank upgrade so time is on my side.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

How long before you set up the tank? If it’s a few months, why not wait to cycle it?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Personally I add a damsel (after the cycling the rocks of course), nothing beats real bacteria from a fish. A fish, a heater, a powerhead, and an optional airstone is all you need. Just ambient light. 3 months and the rock will be mature enough to avoid algae growth when you put them in the tank. No need for water change, just go easy on feeding. I've done it this way successfully a few times

 

[G_Lows]

How long before you set up the tank? If it’s a few months, why not wait to cycle it?

I’d like to avoid cycling in tank and would like to start the tank with established rock that can handle the bumps in the road when setting up a long term stable reef tank

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’d like to avoid cycling in tank and would like to start the tank with established rock that can handle the bumps in the road when setting up a long term stable reef tank

Sure, that makes sense, but if you do it closer to the tank set up, you would not need to worry about keeping it active. :)

 

[BriDroid]

I’m cycling dry Marco rock in a Brute in my garage. Not sure if it’s needed or not, but it feels right. I have 60ish pounds in 20 gallons of saltwater. I’m dosing PolypLabs Genesis and Microbacter7. I have a powerhead, a heater, and an airline putting bubbles in. I keep the lid on. I’m dosing with ammonium bicarbonate (because I have it on hand). I’m using a cheap API test to monitor ammonia. I’m trying to keep it around 2ppm. It’s been going a week now, and the ammonia is slowly starting to drop. I also plan on watching the phosphate since my nano had a hard time with 0 PO4 when I first set it up.

I plan on setting up the new tank within the next 2 months probably.

 

[Fish Fan]

Sure, that makes sense, but if you do it closer to the tank set up, you would not need to worry about keeping it active. :)

A lot of reefers value starting the rock cycling months in advance, in an effort to have more mature rock when the tank is finally setup. Sounds like you don’t think there’s a value to doing that? Thanks for your help!

 

[G_Lows]

Sure, that makes sense, but if you do it closer to the tank set up, you would not need to worry about keeping it active. :)

A lot of reefers value starting the rick cycling months in advance, in an effort to have more mature rock when the tank is finally setup. Sounds like you don’t think there’s a value to doing that? Thanks for your help!

Starting a tank with mature rock with sponges, pods, and the bio film is the ultimate goal. Cycling in tank is probably the easiest but we spend so much time setting up our tanks (which is part of the fun), I and many other don’t want to wait a few weeks to a few months after setting up the tank to add livestock. Most of the time the process gets rushed and we all know what that leads to. Buying mature live rock is an option but at a steep price.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

A lot of reefers value starting the rock cycling months in advance, in an effort to have more mature rock when the tank is finally setup. Sounds like you don’t think there’s a value to doing that? Thanks for your help!

Let’s just say I am skeptical.

I think there’s a false myth that cycling is setting up the tank in ways that benefit it later. I think that is likely not true. I now see it as just a crutch to allow adding fish early. The bottled bacteria added are unlikely to be those that dominate later.

I did something along these lines (trying to get my refugium up and running well before the rock came) and think it contributed to later getting dinos in my tank. Unless you start doing all sorts of things to the rock that will happen later, I’m not sure it’s helpful.

 

[Dan_P]

I’m planning a tank upgrade and I want to start from scratch, I have some new reef saver rock and some older rock that has been properly bleach cured and dried.

If I want to begin cycling the rock in a brute can, how do I make sure I’m getting consistent bio load after the cycle and that the rock will be good to go once I get the tank setup? How frequently would you change water and how much? Light or no light? What about managing p04? In the threads I see on this topic a lot of people have very high p04. I’m a few months out on a tank upgrade so time is on my side.

“Cycling” typically means establishing a population of bacteria that oxidize ammonia to nitrite and a population of bacteria to oxidize nitrite to nitrate. Once established, these bacteria can fed ammonium chloride and their activity can be monitored by observing how quickly the ammonia disappears after it is dosed. Daily ammonia doses of about 0.5 ppm total ammonia that disappear in 24 hours would indicate a very capable population, more than enough for a reef system. Maintain normal salinity and temperature but don’t illuminate unless your intention is to grow algae. Water change is probably unnecessary because trace element depletion is not likely. Alkalinity and pH might be checked occasionally, but I don’t expect any issues.

As for phosphate, you will know if the rocks are adding phosphate to the water fairly soon after adding them and can then develop your plan to remove the phosphate.

 

[Dan_P]

Let’s just say I am skeptical.

I think there’s a false myth that cycling is setting up the tank in ways that benefit it later. I think that is likely not true. I now see it as just a crutch to allow adding fish early. The bottled bacteria added are unlikely to be those that dominate later.

I did something along these lines (trying to get my refugium up and running well before the rock came) and think it contributed to later getting dinos in my tank. Unless you start doing all sorts of things to the rock that will happen later, I’m not sure it’s helpful.

I would be bolder and say that the bottled nitrifying bacteria population established early will represent a surprisingly tiny proportion of the bacteria in the aquarium within weeks. They might even be replaced by other bacteria and Archaea to oxidize ammonia.

How about “functional bridging” instead of crutch? Unless you start a new aquarium with live rock or introduce non-coral livestock more slowly than is the normal human impulse, establishing a nitrifying bacteria population is the humane thing to do.

As for starting your refugium early and contributing to issues later, I would love to hear more details about what you actually did and the timeframe. I am a big fan of dinoflagellate blooms.

 

[Mebbid]

I think there’s a false myth that cycling is setting up the tank in ways that benefit it later. I think that is likely not true. I now see it as just a crutch to allow adding fish early. The bottled bacteria added are unlikely to be those that dominate later.


I did something along these lines (trying to get my refugium up and running well before the rock came) and think it contributed to later getting dinos in my tank. Unless you start doing all sorts of things to the rock that will happen later, I’m not sure it’s helpful.

Could it be that our current outlook on cycling is a dated idea stemming from decades old practice and a strong basis in the freshwater side of the hobby?

I would posit that our reef tanks are cycling until there's a relatively stable population of ocean dwelling bacteria and micro crustaceans and that the appearance of diatoms, dinos, and cyano are just an extension of cycling a tank beyond nitrifying bacteria.

To answer the question from the OP: If I were in your shoes I would get the rock started with the nitrogen cycle now, and order the smallest container of live sand from tampa bay saltwater they offer and huck that in the container with the rock whenever it arrives. When that's in feed a cube or two of frozen food a week to keep everything moving along. No light, likely no need for water changes.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Could it be that our current outlook on cycling is a dated idea stemming from decades old practice and a strong basis in the freshwater side of the hobby?

I would posit that our reef tanks are cycling until there's a relatively stable population of ocean dwelling bacteria and micro crustaceans and that the appearance of diatoms, dinos, and cyano are just an extension of cycling a tank beyond nitrifying bacteria.

To answer the question from the OP: If I were in your shoes I would get the rock started with the nitrogen cycle now, and order the smallest container of live sand from tampa bay saltwater they offer and huck that in the container with the rock whenever it arrives. When that's in feed a cube or two of frozen food a week to keep everything moving along. No light, likely no need for water changes.

Yes, and I think it is also driven by companies supplying products to promote and monitor and control that cycle.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I’m cycling dry Marco rock in a Brute in my garage. Not sure if it’s needed or not, but it feels right. I have 60ish pounds in 20 gallons of saltwater. I’m dosing PolypLabs Genesis and Microbacter7. I have a powerhead, a heater, and an airline putting bubbles in. I keep the lid on. I’m dosing with ammonium bicarbonate (because I have it on hand). I’m using a cheap API test to monitor ammonia. I’m trying to keep it around 2ppm. It’s been going a week now, and the ammonia is slowly starting to drop. I also plan on watching the phosphate since my nano had a hard time with 0 PO4 when I first set it up.

I plan on setting up the new tank within the next 2 months probably.

Why are you trying to keep ammonia at 2ppm?

What you are likely doing by keeping ammonia that high and continually dumping in bottled bacteria, is creating cyclic hetertrophic blooms that actually compete with nitrifier establishment.

Stop dosing ammonia and bottled bacteria. Let the nitrifiers do their thing. From there forward if you want to "keep them alive" you really don't need to do anything but add a pinch or two of food once in a while.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Could it be that our current outlook on cycling is a dated idea stemming from decades old practice and a strong basis in the freshwater side of the hobby?

The nitrification process has existed for ~2.5 billion years.

What has changed is companies trying to sell products to "speed" up the aquarium "seeding" process by putting a bit of what happens naturally in a bottle and charging money for it -- some with instruction to keep pouring it in forever -- so that they make money from you forever.

So no, the "dated" outlook is still as valid as it has always been and the "new" way often causes more confusion and problems than it solves under the guise of "speed". People buying ammonia, bottle after bottle of bacteria, extra test kits, etc. To save what? A few days for the initial seeding to take hold?

In the end, the new dry rock, substrate and surfaces in the aquarium must undergo months of microbic and macro fauna progression to "mature".

 

[BriDroid]

Now you’ve got me convinced that I need to abandon the brute can in the garage and just setup the new tank. I did order a bag of the Ocean Direct sand since it seems to have done a decent job in my nano.

How do you feel about moving a cup of my existing sand into the new tank? It’s full of red spaghetti worms and I’m sure all kinds of other good stuff.

 

[BriDroid]

Why are you trying to keep ammonia at 2ppm?

What you are likely doing by keeping ammonia that high and continually dumping in bottled bacteria, is creating cyclic hetertrophic blooms that actually compete with nitrifier establishment.

Stop dosing ammonia and bottled bacteria. Let the nitrifiers do their thing. From there forward if you want to "keep them alive" you really don't need to do anything but add a pinch or two of food once in a while.

Just what I read online from “experts”. They all said to keep ammonia at 2ppm and wait for it to drop to 0.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Why abandon? You have started the process, just stop pouring money into it.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Just what I read online from “experts”. They all said to keep ammonia at 2ppm and wait for it to drop to 0.

You only need to raise ammonia to about 2 ppm and let the bacteria start doing their thing. After it drops toward zero, you can raise it to 1–2 ppm again just to confirm that it falls the second time.

By keeping ammonia high and continually dumping in bottled bacteria, you run the risk of creating cyclic heterotrophic blooms instead of establishing a stable nitrifier base. Heterotrophs have ferocious appetites and work quickly. Many bottled products contain heterotrophs alone. Some do have Nitrosomonas or both. The nitrifiers will establish, but the heterotrophs can slow the process through competition. That “stalled cycle" is often the result of repeated bottle and ammonia dosing in a new system.

 

[Mebbid]

Could it be that our current outlook on cycling is a dated idea stemming from decades old practice and a strong basis in the freshwater side of the hobby?

The nitrification process has existed for ~2.5 billion years.

What has changed is companies trying to sell products to "speed" up the aquarium "seeding" process by putting a bit of what happens naturally in a bottle and charging money for it -- some with instruction to keep pouring it in forever -- so that make money from you forever.

So no, the "dated" outlook is still as valid as it has always been and the "new" way often causes more confusion and problems than it solves under the guise of "speed". People buying ammonia, bottle after bottle of bacteria, extra test kits, etc. To save what? A few days for the initial seeding to take hold?

In the end, the new dry rock, substrate and surfaces in the aquarium must undergo months of microbic and macro fauna progression to "mature".

Sure, theres lots of problematic products out there. A lot of bottled bacteria use nonsense strains of bacteria that dont really help and only serve to get over the hump of nitrification which imho is a tiny part of fully cycling a tank.

But there are also products that legitimately add strains of bacteria in the water that are found in mature reef tanks. This is why I bought the ocean direct live sand to use instead of just dry sand. In total for the 40lbs of ocean direct substrate it cost me an extra $7 over 40lbs of dry substrate. Sure theres some volume difference, but i had a 40lb bag of dry substrate to compare it to and there wasnt a huge difference. Will it help? Maybe, but for $7 its certainly worth a shot.

This bacteria and micro organisms have to come from somewhere anyways. In the old days we bought live rock, thats what i did for my first tank and it was great, never had a single cyano or algae issue. But i cant really afford $20 per lb of maricultured live rock and shipping it from florida to michigan is a nightmare. A few pounds of maricultured live sand however? Thats completely doable. It'll seed the tank with bacteria and copepods and ideally enable it to get through the ugly phase faster which will increase retention in the hobby.

I have only been on this forum a fraction of the time you have and already ive seen too many "I am frustrated with my 6 month old tank because I cant get rid of these dinos and am ready to tear it down, HELP!" Threads