Should I Cycle if I have Premixed Saltwater, Live Rock, and Sand?

[kxnji]

I recently bought the Red Sea Nano max Perninsula along with Premixed Saltwater from my local store, live rock, live sand, and a heater. Should I be adding anything extra to the water?? Should I be letting it cycle??? Or am I good to go?? I am soooo new to this and have done a good amount of research but am confused on how I should approach this, I would really appreciate some help. Thanks!

 

[SlugSnorter]

I recently bought the Red Sea Nano max Perninsula along with Premixed Saltwater from my local store, live rock, live sand, and a heater. Should I be adding anything extra to the water?? Should I be letting it cycle??? Or am I good to go?? I am soooo new to this and have done a good amount of research but am confused on how I should approach this, I would really appreciate some help. Thanks!

if you don't have it already, some sort of mechanical filter media (filter sock, filter floss).

Tests for at least Ammonia and Nitrates. (NOT API as they tend to be faulty)

Do you have live rock, dry "live" rock, or liferock? (wet live rock with algae and such on it pulled from a farm somewhere is the real "live" rock. The other two aren't bad, they just aren't really "live")

Most people cycle nowadays without fish, using bottled bacteria. You can find some online or in stores (Dr. Tims, Microbactr, Etc.)

 

[brandon429]

all we have to do to name your cycle close date is define live rock

was it wet, from a pet store holding tank, that looked like this:

that is a vat of 100% skip cycle live rock from a pet store, when anyone buys that and moves it to their home, the new tank is instantly aged and cycled. with no further help

there is no mini cycle

nothing dies off in the transfer

all bacteria ride to the other home just fine, because they're tough not weak

no bottle bac is used

no ammonia testing using non digital gear is used in the assessment, we don't test these types of cycles for a reason, we trust the process. this rock transfer technique runs every reef convention ever made for forty years, where hundreds of ready reefs are all ready by the convention start date, because they skipped the common wait cycled used by dry rock setups.

eight pages of instantly skip cycled reefs:

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

that's a thread dedicated to tracking tanks that are set up in one day, because the cycle was skipped.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Yes the tank needs to cycle before you can add fish, unless you used true live rock (was it wet or dry when you bought it?)

you will also need some test kits if you don't already have them (not API test kit)

 

[Lavey29]

Don't add fish until the tank is fully cycled. There are tons of threads explaining how to cycle a tank properly.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I agree with everyone else, wait to add fish until you have cycled the tank. There are a lot of different ways to cycle a tank. Best of luck!!

 

[Dburr1014]

As said, actual live rock that is pulled from water is good to go.

Dry rock that is labeled "live" is not live and will need to be cycled.

Live sand is more hype than anything. So if you used live sand and dry rock, you need to cycle the tank.

Premixed water will do nothing. Will need to cycle of used dry rock and live or dead sand.

So the question all lies in the rock. Which was used?

 

[Tired]

"Live sand" is generally sand that's had some bottled bacteria type cultures added. It may or may not get your tank to being cycled, and it's safe to assume it won't. Pre-mixed saltwater will have little to no useful bacteria, so that's out. Now, the rock, depending on what that was, might have given you an instant cycle.

What does the rock look like? What's on it? Green algae, purple algae, any other critters? How did the LFS store it?

 

[brandon429]

we can't move fwd in the thread until the op responds with his rock sourcing. his cycle will be 100% wrapped up when we know the sourcing.

 

[anthonygf]

Hello. Seven years ago I started my reef with tank matured live rock from Petco. I bought some live rock and 2 clowns at the same time and it did not cycle. No amonia problem. Then a week later bought more rock and a new fish. Did this until I was fully stocked in my 46 gallon bowfront. After 2 years I had coral growing and all fish survived and still had them 7 years later until I sold everything just last week. You can do it. This is my 46 after 2 years 5 years ago.

 

[brandon429]

hey nice one Anthony, that's a reef convention skip cycle indeed. nice one, that's updated cycling science in action.

 

[brandon429]

mini cycles don't happen in reefing.

extended ammonia noncontrol events outside of dead fish killed by disease or hardware or acclimation issues don't happen in display tank reefing (ammonia never rises first, to kill the fish)

anything we read to the contrary is simply an owner of a non digital test kit, believing the reading, and reefing peers supporting that misbelief.

 

[brandon429]

the specific mechanism in reefing displays that prevents mini cycles:

surface area + swirling water. all of us have that in a reef display. the rebound time for ammonia test loading added is already charted for thirty straight pages in seneye digital nh3 threads, and at no time did it take longer than 15 minutes.

there is no possible mechanism in a normal-running reef display that allows for .25 or .5 ammonia to be uncontrolled for days on end; that's a common misread from a cheap test kit and our readers have believed this notion was possible for 30 years because we've barely got digital nh3 meters on the market 9 years ago to undo the false learning.

you either have a tank that can control ammonia and follows the 15 mins resolve pathway, or you don't have a cycled tank and the ammonia can't be resolved at all and kills everything added, which I've never seen posted to the internet before. there is no middle ground cycle, we all have too much swirl + rock area to allow for that. no calibrated seneye owner in the history of the device has ever posted an extended mini cycle event, they don't occur.

quarantine setups can get cycles and mini cycles because they don't use live rock. they run low surface area compared to a display.

any small worm that may die on a live rock transfer (1) is merely the same test loading at a fractional rate that the seneye users were adding here (it's instantly resolved, 15 mins delays are for real tangible test loads)

Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

So, after an interesting discussion on nitrate dosing and looking at my Walt Disney coral and seeing it slightly less colorful than I have seen it in others tanks, I have decided I want to learn about and then try dosing ammonia instead of buying 20 damsels. Nitrate additives I see abound and...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Rmckoy]

I recently bought the Red Sea Nano max Perninsula along with Premixed Saltwater from my local store, live rock, live sand, and a heater. Should I be adding anything extra to the water?? Should I be letting it cycle??? Or am I good to go?? I am soooo new to this and have done a good amount of research but am confused on how I should approach this, I would really appreciate some help. Thanks!

First thing is to identify where the rocks come from .
even the wet rocks most lfs sell are not necessarily live ( living bacteria )
Has there been any nitrifying bacteria dosed it was an ammonia source added to the running system ?
is there any algae or diatoms growing ?

 

[anthonygf]

hey nice one Anthony, that's a reef convention skip cycle indeed. nice one, that's updated cycling science in action.

Thanks Brandon. Unfortunately I had problems with keeping coral alive, algae and dinos growing out of control. I tried everything that was suggested by experienced reefers here and nothing helped, tried for 8 months. I upgraded my 46 to a 75 three years ago and I have arthritis so bad and tired of all the work, just gave up and sold all fish and rock. Fish I have no problems with keeping. I now turned my 75 into an African Malawi Cichlid tank, I have 30 one inch babies now.

 

[brandon429]

that must have been a really virulent strain to overtake real live rock/that's the worst invasion in reefing so far/evil dinos

 

[anthonygf]

that must have been a really virulent strain to overtake real live rock/that's the worst invasion in reefing so far/evil dinos

This pic was 2 years ago, one year after upgrade. Started off going well, free of nuisance algae. Nothing was added or changed and then 2 years after the upgrade my reef started to die off, dinos and algae started to take over covering the rocks and sand smothering my corals. I don't know if I have recent pics, too depressing to look at.

 

[anthonygf]

I recently bought the Red Sea Nano max Perninsula along with Premixed Saltwater from my local store, live rock, live sand, and a heater. Should I be adding anything extra to the water?? Should I be letting it cycle??? Or am I good to go?? I am soooo new to this and have done a good amount of research but am confused on how I should approach this, I would really appreciate some help. Thanks!

I hope you have good success with what ever you decide. But I do believe using any type of live rock is better than dry rock. Good for you to ask questions here before you do anything, do not rush into anything. good luck. I have enjoyed my reefing for close to seven years but in my condition I cannot keep up with the required maintenance.

 

[brandon429]

its hilarious when the OP in threads takes so long to respond, six pages of completely opposing instructions have built up for them heh. maybe chatgpt can give him the answer when he responds.

 

[brandon429]

asks chatgpt right now, brb