Needing cycle advice

[KMCA]

I bought a live rock for a tank I was starting and have discovered 4 tiny feather dusters living on it (about 1cm across when feathers are extended on the largest)
This is my first tank so aside from the live sand and rock it hasn't had a chance to establish itself, I'd rather not lose them but I'm not sure if they need special care while the tank cycles.

Bonus question: how/can you move them without hurting them, 2 of them are right beside each other and almost touching.

 

[brandon429]

That cycle is already done consider this update on the matter:

A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

THE GOLDEN EXAMPLE OF A SKIP CYCLE DAY 1 REEF https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/ read that entire thread before you read ours. that's the heart of skip cycling. Everything we do going forward in this thread reflects on that ability above, in the #1...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Timfish]

Moving them will be very difficult. They should survive the cycling without problems. Have you been checking your ammonia? It's possible you're speeded up or completly bypassed the initial cycling with the live rock.

 

[brandon429]

Also a potential until we get any details or pics: 80% dry rocks 20% live

depending on ratios of live to dry we pick the appropriate stocking wait time, the system doesn’t need bottle bac though KMCA dont get tricked into adding some. If you have mostly dry rock, wait another twenty days to add life and if it’s all live rock, ready now.


your cycle is not about dosing ammonia, it’s about a predetermined wait time ranging from zero days if it’s all live rock transferred, up to 20 days max wait if live rock is only a chunk among many dry rocks. It commutes the bacteria we need, dont use bottle bac in live rock cycles.

don’t add one single fish until you get a self- directed AA degree of initial fish disease prevention by reading in this forum for a minimum four hours…specifically you can’t add fish from a pet store right to your new reef, even though it can carry some. Per fallow guidelines you’ll read, you can at least stock up on corals and cuc and then begin fallow after a decent initial stocking.

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

before adding a single fish you’ll be able to converse about and define tomonts, fallow, quarantine, cupramine levels, quarantine, 45 vs 90 day fallow nuances, brooklynella, uronema, why tangs are the disease scourge of the earth etc

the key to blended rock /live dry cycling is the ratio about to be shown in pics directly tells us how long to wait from the timescale on a cycling chart for all surfaces to pick up bacteria and be ready to carry fish. It’s not a test kit based cycle, this is updated cycling science. Old cycling science in 1983 used to write about the dark days coming— forewarning the days when cheap test kits won’t be the decider of reef tank starts, alleys and byways littered with tiny 3x3” pamphlets of warning and dire consequence cartoons for nontesting cyclers. That time is now here lol

 

[KMCA]

Also a potential until we get any details or pics: 80% dry rocks 20% live

Good guess!

Rock on the right, there's a bit of algae and lots of pretty purple. Mass wise it's probably about a third of the tank but it's pretty solid in comparison. The tank also has a decent live sandbed.

As for testing... yeah, I ended up with an API kit before I knew better at the suggestion of my LFS, I was going to use it the first month then swap to Salifert for testing.