Is it a myth that tanks need to be cycled for corals?

[BeanAnimal]

About 10-15 years ago when I was starting out I was told by MULTIPLE older reefers to wrap my tank in newspaper paper for 6-12 months. I recall speaking with “newer” reefers at the time and being told that was “old school.”

My first SW tank was in the mid 80s - a 120 with UGF driven by a piston air pump... I wish I could remember the pump name/model.

I have never heard of 6-12 months wrapped in newspaper thing. You sure somebody wasn't puling your leg

We are seemingly diametrically opposed on the subject of fauna and micro fauna. I would call it my biggest point of stability and success. Obviously managing fish bioload is key but all the creatures in my tank are in balance and populations rise and fall naturally. They account for and balance for the remainder in a very complicated equation.

I don't know what makes you think we are opposed? A mature system is exactly that, stable with the ability for things to stay in balance and adapt to the bio-load.

We would also disagree that this hobby has gotten more complicated. We have made it more complicated as we have sought more control over something that intrinsically balances itself.

The advice being flung in these forums leads people to think reef keeping must be complicated. I have done this 20+ years and scratch my head at the "must do" advice that is given. We have new reefers buying and dumping phosphate and nitrate into their tanks in a panic that everything will die and the dino's will take over if they don't while at the very same time growing bushels of algae because if they don't their phosphate will explode and their pH will nuke everything... and of course dumping in handles of vodka and running 7 different reactors in the middle of all of it.. to balance things out.

I’m looking at a beautiful tank that gets bi-yearly water changes and filtration is provided by an IM filter sock roller I just installed and a bag of chemipure I needed to change 2 months ago. I have no idea what the NO3, calcium, Ph, or even salinity is.

Again - I am not sure that we disagree.
I have not done in a water change in 7+ years.
I went 5+ years without feeding the fish more than 1 or 2 times a year or dosing a single element or running a single water test.
To that end RO/DI was exhausted for the last 2+ years and TDS into the tank was 100+ for sure.
Scopas Tang - Coral Beauty, fat and happy all that time.
Salinity dropped to hypo levels over that time (I never checked) and the LPS and Softies lived through it all, including a brain and a blue ridge. The blue ridge plated the entire front glass and grew a mesa out of the water that weighed several pounds (4-5).

Recently decided to get back into SPS - initial tests were 10 Nitrate and .25 Phosphate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I see what you did there...
According to the late JA, you do not have to cycle your tank for corals because corals are not affected by ammonia like fish are. ( but there was a time when we would use certain fish to actually help cycle a tank.)

The operative word there might be "like".

While I do not know how much ammonia negatively impacts corals, in the only actual study I found, it is not "no effect".

This is a copy and paste from another thread:

The fact that corals utilize ammonia says nothing about its toxicity at unnaturally high levels. We keep lots and lots of corals, and few have been studied for ammonia toxicity.

But here's an example of how it may impact zoox in Pocillopora damicornis:

Population Dynamics of Symbiotic Zooxanthellae in the Coral Pocillopora damicornis Exposed to Elevated Ammonium [(NH4)2 SO4] Concentrations

Division synchrony and growth rate of symbiotic zooxanthellae was investigated for populations living in colonies of the reef-building coral Pocillopora damicornis (Linnaeus) exposed to different concentrations of ammonium [(NH4)2S04] in seawater. Presence of low concentrations of ammonium (0.2...

scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu

These data support the conclusion that the population dynamics of symbiotic zooxanthellae within P. damicornis are affected by concentrations of ammonium in seawater that are equal to or higher than 20 uM and that 50 uM ammonium concentrations may be toxic to some extent.

FWIW, 50 uM ammonia = 850 ug/L ~ 0.85 ppm

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

The operative word there might be "like".

While I do not know how much ammonia negatively impacts corals, in the only actual study I found, it is not "no effect".

This is a copy and paste from another thread:

The fact that corals utilize ammonia says nothing about its toxicity at unnaturally high levels. We keep lots and lots of corals, and few have been studied for ammonia toxicity.

But here's an example of how it may impact zoox in Pocillopora damicornis:

Population Dynamics of Symbiotic Zooxanthellae in the Coral Pocillopora damicornis Exposed to Elevated Ammonium [(NH4)2 SO4] Concentrations

Division synchrony and growth rate of symbiotic zooxanthellae was investigated for populations living in colonies of the reef-building coral Pocillopora damicornis (Linnaeus) exposed to different concentrations of ammonium [(NH4)2S04] in seawater. Presence of low concentrations of ammonium (0.2...

scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu

These data support the conclusion that the population dynamics of symbiotic zooxanthellae within P. damicornis are affected by concentrations of ammonium in seawater that are equal to or higher than 20 uM and that 50 uM ammonium concentrations may be toxic to some extent.

FWIW, 50 uM ammonia = 850 ug/L ~ 0.85 ppm

Very interesting! Thanks for the clarification.

 

[brandon429]

Wallace

why experiment with your cash as a first go, using a method you've heard about but not seen

if we search out ways to run a pico reef, you get 20 years of examples showing tanks start to finish packed in corals. the losses, the wins, you literally have the roadmap available for a million examples showing them cycled

try and find one where no cycling was done using corals, link that here. you wouldn't want to risk wasting your money if you can't find and link maybe ten examples, not just one, since the million+ examples you can certainly find were cycled either by live rock inclusion (skip cycled, still loaded with bacteria at the start though) or by bottled bacteria on dry rocks. link an example of what you're wanting

the issue isn't ammonia, corals don't produce much to concern over. think large scope: show such a system working to grow corals, start to finish in a common work thread we can find for all the other examples of pico reefing

setting $250 in frags among uncycled dry rock in a tank isn't going to kill frags by ammonia buildup, they die for other reasons/post a thread example you've seen where they didnt die

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There's more ammonia toxicity data for corals here:

https://cdn.coastalscience.noaa.gov/sdi-f-and-ecp-program-review/19_KSB_5_Ammonia_Corals_Urchins_Woodley.pdf

 

[WallaceGrover]

Wallace

why experiment with your cash as a first go, using a method you've heard about but not seen

if we search out ways to run a pico reef, you get 20 years of examples showing tanks start to finish packed in corals. the losses, the wins, you literally have the roadmap available for a million examples showing them cycled

try and find one where no cycling was done using corals, link that here. you wouldn't want to risk wasting your money if you can't find and link maybe ten examples, not just one, since the million+ examples you can certainly find were cycled either by live rock inclusion (skip cycled, still loaded with bacteria at the start though) or by bottled bacteria on dry rocks. link an example of what you're wanting

the issue isn't ammonia, corals don't produce much to concern over. think large scope: show such a system working to grow corals, start to finish in a common work thread we can find for all the other examples of pico reefing

setting $250 in frags among uncycled dry rock in a tank isn't going to kill frags by ammonia buildup, they die for other reasons/post a thread example you've seen where they didnt die

I 100% agree with you. Fortunately I didn't pay for the frags and wanted to do a proper cycle for a month or two but my roommate paid for most of it so it's his call at the end of the day. I'm saving up for a 50g that I can do properly.

 

[Propane]

2 bakers making one batch of cookies.

 

[Rmckoy]

Recently I set up a small pico tank with my roommate. We had some disagreements over it but I insisted it needed to be cycled before adding any sort of livestock including corals. My roommate disagreed and has had a tank before that he never cycled and he says his corals did just fine (he doesn't like fish and never added any to the tank). On this tank he okayed me adding a thumbnail amount of raw shrimp to the tank to jumpstart the cycle, along with some "bacteria in a bottle" since we started with dry everything.

The ammonia today (second day after being set up and after shrimp was added) was 0.5; nitrites and nitrates were both zero. He decided he doesn't want to wait for a cycle so he took the little piece of shrimp out and ordered some coral (super hardy softies and zoanthids, a mushroom or two). Is it okay to do a coral only tank without cycling? And since I already sort of started the cycle process should we be okay with some water changes before the coral get here later this week?

Thanks!

There was another post about this not long ago .
While I believe ammonia is safe for corals . And can be beneficial to have detectable ammonia for the corals . The issue with a new not cycled system is far more than just ammonia .
Instability is the first thing that comes to mind .
To maintain stable alkalinity , calcium , ph
And with no fish … one would have to dose. Nutrients ( which would eventually be adding ammonia to cycle the tank )

I personally wouldn’t add corals to later battle with importing nutrients .

 

[LPS Bum]

I’ve always believed that you can add beginner corals (polyps, mushrooms, etc) as soon as you get temp and salinity right. No ammonia too of course. So no long cycling period required.

I just wouldn’t add stony corals until you get calcium, alkalinity, magnesium and nitrate and phosphate pretty stable.

 

[-XENOMORPH-]

Can't ya just wait 30 days???? Lol

 

[esb14]

You definitely can add coral before the cycle is finished. I put water in my tank a month and a half ago. Started adding coral once ammonia dropped but during the nitrite spike. Right now I have close to 30 SPS, a couple LPS, a clam, and an anemone. I lost two SPS that were in the first batch, but the other four from that batch are encrusting and growing along with the 30+ SPS I have added since then. Doing what I did isn’t something I would recommend to anyone but can be done if you have a good idea what you’re doing and don’t mind testing more than usual. Alkalinity was the hardest to keep stable because it dropped quite a bit during the cycle.

In my opinion the things you just need to be mindful of and try to avoid are any swings in parameters and/or something like a Dino outbreak that could smother the coral. If you feel equipped with the knowledge to manage this stuff (with a little luck) then it definitely can be done. In general I would say to wait through the uglies to throw a bunch of money in there just because to a new reefer that wasn’t able to deal with the roadblocks losing a bunch of coral (and money) in the first 6 months could definitely be a deterrent to the hobby and continuing with it.

 

[AcroNem]

Establishing a stable and mature system is much more than just ammonia. As has been stated, corals may (within a small range as data suggests) tolerate ammonia in a new system to some degree. Ammonia is not the only concern though, as there are other unstable parameters that are not favorable in a new system.

 

[bushdoc]

This is an interesting discussion, but a bit over intellectualized.
It does seem that fish are more prone to ammonia toxicity, either because high level is neurotoxic or it changes pH of their blood and shifts hemoglobin dissociation curve leftwards Which causes oxygen to be more tightly bind to hemoglobin, but it cannot be easily released, hence causing cellular hypoxia- oxygen cannot be transferred easily to target cells.
Corals don’t have nervous system nor blood vessels, so they can be exposed to higher levels of ammonia than fish.
Would I put corals into uncycled tank? Big NOT. What about “ugly faze“ , which would negatively effects most corals?
Eventually, if I wanted to introduce fish into my tank, I would have to cycle it, which possibly would increase ammonia levels above what even corals can withstand. And what about nitrates? Are coral immune to extremely high and fluctuating levels as in newly cycled tank?
So I will cycle my tank, introduce fish first and then corals weeks or months after.