Dry start?

[Readywriter]

Never thought Id ever say this but... Im considering a dry start. I was pricing out live rock for this build and with air freight, not factoring in tax. Id be looking at $1600 for rock that doesnt even come close to looking like fiji base rock. And fiji isnt setting a high bar. thats a hard pill to swallow.

What Im thinking now is just going all dry with marco rock and a 2" sandbed and maybe after the initial cycle throwing like 15 or 20 lbs of kp premium in. So, how does a dry cycle work?

If I did it right now without asking for advice this is how I would do it:
-aquascape
-fill with saltwater
-no lights since biome is a vacuum at this point
-dose phos until stable
-dose ammonia to 1ppm
-dose bacteria
-watch nitrites and dose more ammonia as nitrites start to move toward zero and continue dosing bacteria

Close?

 

[Naekuh]

I had a dry start...

So aqua scape outside.... and do what you want.
Set Aquascape so its in large pieces which won't collapse when picked up.
(optional but might as well... use the marco powder + glue method they use in NSA scaping)

Once you decided on how things look.

Wash sand... and Wash again... and wash even more until your entire driveway turns white from the dust.
Remember the more you wash out, the less you need to filter out inside the tank.
I washed the sand in a basion and did it in 15lb portions, almost 10 times.... I had about 150lbs of sand.
But even when i thought i washed enough, my water was till partially white and needed filter socks to pull out whatever was in the water collumn.

Add some supports for the rocks on the floor and then lay rocks first.
Then scoup all that sand inside the tank.

Then add water.... and let filters run for a day to see if you can clear up some of the white calcium deposits.

When the tank cleared up a bit, pulled all my filters out, i then started the fishless cycle.
While in the cycle mod i ran salinity at 1.018-1.021 a little lower then normal.... ramped temp to 84F.
Idea conditions for bacteria.

Leave lights completely OFF during cycle... turn skimmer OFF... the only thing u should do is test Ammonia / Nitrite / Nitrate / Alk. My Apex showed my Alk being leeched away during cycle, and needed Alk boosts here and there.

Total time to cycle.... VERY LONG... even using bottled bacteria, and seeded cermaic bricks from my existing tank i was upgrading from.

Id say it took me 8 weeks. Your Millage May Vary....

Once all cycled, did a 40% water change, corrected salinity, and lowered temp to 78F, and started moving stuff over from old tank to new tank, but did it slowly to see if the live stock would settle in, or if i needed to do something more with water chemistry.

 

[Katrina71]

Dry starts aren't a big deal. Bottled bacteria and a piece of shrimp. Take shrimp out after 24hrs.

 

[Naekuh]

Dont like shrimp... just buy bottled ammonium Chloride.

You have better control of 2ppm.

 

[TX_REEF]

I'd seriously advise you to build your scape with dry rock and seed with a bit of quality live, you'll avoid a lot of headache with lack of bacterial diversity down the road.

 

[Spare time]

If you want some little critters, consider getting a small amount of ocean live sand with the dry rock. I've shifted away from the "diversity" argument a bit because it's a guess without any direct evidence to say that bacteria is doing anything outside of ammonia control.