Cycling new tank - a few questions.

[Richard ML]

Hello,

I'm cycling a new tank right now as of about 3 days ago, and I was wondering how best to proceed with regards to a few different things:

- There are a couple of neat looking zoa polyps that I'd like to keep if possible. I'm keeping the lights off to hopefully keep algae at bay, but is there a way to make sure the zoas get enough nutrition to live for a month or two before lights come on? Is it OK to maybe give them 30 minutes a day just for bare-minimum subsistence, or would that be enough to let nuisance algae take hold?

- There are also some brittle stars I'd like to keep. Will they have enough to eat with just the stuff growing on the liverock, or should I add some flake food or something? I'd rather not add extra nutrients if I can avoid it.

- There are a few amphipods that have emerged dying from the live rock and proceeded to die over about a day. They're sitting on the sand right now, and no bristleworms or anything have come out to chow down yet. It's a 90G tank so I'm not too worried about tiny amphipods polluting it very quickly, but would you leave em in or take em out?

- I've found one tiny aiptasia (which means there are likely many more) - should I just cover it in superglue and hope for the best? Or will the lights-out treatment keep it at bay? I guess if I have lights on briefly to feed the zoas, the aiptasia would probably be kept up as well.

- I have a Tunze Osmolator 3155 - what's the best way to keep bubbles off the dang sensor? I've got it positioned on the opposite wall from where water falls into the return pump chamber and it still gets a few now and then which triggers the pump.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Oscar47f]

Probably not they get most of their nutrition from lights and would require a good photoperiod... if you have nothing but corals you shouldn’t get a lot of algae, it would depend how much nutrients leech from the rocks.... and your ATO should be in the return chamber where the pump is that pumps the water up to the aquarium....

 

[Richard ML]

Probably not they get most of their nutrition from lights and would require a good photoperiod... if you have nothing but corals you shouldn’t get a lot of algae, it would depend how much nutrients leech from the rocks....

There's nothing in the tank except rock and whatever came in on it right now but I guess I'll just leave the lights off and hope the zoas make it. If not, oh well, it's unlikely they were a rare variety anyway.

and your ATO should be in the return chamber where the pump is that pumps the water up to the aquarium....

It is:

It's just that the "waterfall" makes a bubble now and then that sometimes finds its way onto the sensor. Was wondering if there was something I could use as a baffle or whatever to keep the bubbles from reaching it.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[Oscar47f]

There's nothing in the tank except rock and whatever came in on it right now but I guess I'll just leave the lights off and hope the zoas make it. If not, oh well, it's unlikely they were a rare variety anyway.



It is:

It's just that the "waterfall" makes a bubble now and then that sometimes finds its way onto the sensor. Was wondering if there was something I could use as a baffle or whatever to keep the bubbles from reaching it.

Thanks for the reply!

The zoa will not survive a month or two without light and if it does it’s gonna be in bad shape but you can try giving it like an hour here or there... like I said as long as there’s no nutrients to feed the algae it won’t grow even with lights... and maybe try making an egg rate baffle with some filter floss and that should work ! So that when the water flows over the baffle it gets broken up by the floss and won’t make bubbles

 

[Richard ML]

There are also some brittle stars I'd like to keep. Will they have enough to eat with just the stuff growing on the liverock, or should I add some flake food or something? I'd rather not add extra nutrients if I can avoid it.

- There are a few amphipods that have emerged dying from the live rock and proceeded to die over about a day. They're sitting on the sand right now, and no bristleworms or anything have come out to chow down yet. It's a 90G tank so I'm not too worried about tiny amphipods polluting it very quickly, but would you leave em in or take em out? (note there are a bunch of HUGE worms in there so I guess they'd get eaten eventually)

- I've found one tiny aiptasia (which means there are likely many more) - should I just cover it in superglue and hope for the best? Or will the lights-out treatment keep it at bay? I guess if I have lights on briefly to feed the zoas, the aiptasia would probably be kept up as well.

Bump for the remaining questions

 

[ReefBeta]

There's nothing in the tank except rock and whatever came in on it right now but I guess I'll just leave the lights off and hope the zoas make it. If not, oh well, it's unlikely they were a rare variety anyway.



It is:

It's just that the "waterfall" makes a bubble now and then that sometimes finds its way onto the sensor. Was wondering if there was something I could use as a baffle or whatever to keep the bubbles from reaching it.

Thanks for the reply!

Run your return chamber with higher water level. The shorter the water need to fall over the baffle, the less bubbles it make.

Regarding zoanthids. If you can wait, wait a month before adding them to the tank. If you can't wait, then just start running your light in normal schedule. Get some cleanup crew to control algae (after nitrogen cycle completes). Since you don't have fish to feed, there won't be much algae grow anyway.

 

[Richard ML]

Run your return chamber with higher water level. The shorter the water need to fall over the baffle, the less bubbles it make.

Regarding zoanthids. If you can wait, wait a month before adding them to the tank. If you can't wait, then just start running your light in normal schedule. Get some cleanup crew to control algae (after nitrogen cycle completes). Since you don't have fish to feed, there won't be much algae grow anyway.

They just hitchhiked with the rock but I kinda like em. Should I maybe take them off the rock (using PPE of course haha) and put them in a bucket with an air stone and a light or something?

 

[ReefBeta]

They just hitchhiked with the rock but I kinda like em. Should I maybe take them off the rock (using PPE of course haha) and put them in a bucket with an air stone and a light or something?

What light do you have? A possibility is to put them on a frag mount at the top corner of the tank, and light it with a small light focusing on it. So the rest of the tank can remain dark. Put them in a bucket with a small pump for circulation can also work, if you can keep water parameter stable there as well. It will essentially be a reef in a jar.

 

[Richard ML]

What light do you have? A possibility is to put them on a frag mount at the top corner of the tank, and light it with a small light focusing on it. So the rest of the tank can remain dark. Put them in a bucket with a small pump for circulation can also work, if you can keep water parameter stable there as well. It will essentially be a reef in a jar.

I have kessils on goosenecks which I should be able to easily point to an isolated corner. I'll try to rig something up with egg crate. Great idea, thanks!

 

[brandon429]

Live rock is already cycled and doesn’t need recycling. You are past cycling, run this as a reef not a cycling one. When we move live rock among tanks it doesn’t recycle

 

[brandon429]

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

www.reef2reef.com

this explains skip cycle rock, which you have Richard. Any attached life forms take longer than thirty days to adhere, and all cycling charts show 30 as the working timeframe. Moving rocks from a pet store tank to home changes nothing, they just move. The only way to undo a cycle from rocks is drying freezing boiling or antibiotics. Freezing might not even pull it off, after all koi ponds freeze routinely