Reef nutrition

Need some cycling input........

Reefatosis

Reefatosis

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So I am fish-less cycling with dead rock......definitely not as exciting as my last go with "nearly-live" rock harvested from the ocean........

Q1. Should I run the lights so that I can get an algae succession going?

Q2. I was thinking of dumping in a small amount of mulm from my freshwater tank to augment the nitrogen cycle via nutrient and bacterial introduction.

Q3. Does anyone know if the RealReefRock had any previous saltwater exposure. I know it is artificially colored purple. But there was some settled debris that I cleaned off exposing several patches of purple that I would loosely describes as coralline. If the consensus is that it is not coralline, I might ask around for a couple of hunks of coralline from a BAR member so that I can seed the system.
 
A1: not really necessary, algae will grow eventually, but it won't help your cycle specifically. I left my lights off during cycling, only turning it on to see how pretty it all was. There's enough natural light to eventually grow some algae.

A2: I used controlled amounts of ammonia (I used Dr. Tim's) so I could test it and not overdose. But I just like getting super scientific about it all.

A3: No idea about that kind of rock.
 
I am dosing ammonia and closely monitoring.....10 cc clear ammonia is getting me to 3 ppm.
I figured whats the difference between my mulm and the bacteria-in-a-bottle options available these days
And I am not considering algae as any part of my cycle process.
 
You want lights out during cycle.
During the cycle you are growing the bacteria you need for denitrification.
Algae will compete, and disrupt that process .... a bit.
But only a tiny bit, it does not really matter that much.

Also, after cycle, when lights go on, you get the brown-crud diatom phase.
Some people do low-lights for a while during that. And manually siphon it out.
Supposedly it reduces chance of har algae getting established. Ehh...
 
I am to start up a new tank. Plan to pump a good poetion of salt water in my other running setup to the new tank.

I think this means I can skip cycling of new tank. Any issues with this approach?

I plan to move livevrocks from the running setup to the new tank a week into it.
 
I followed this method from BRS using dead Marco rocks and it seems good so far. I dosed with pure ammonia and used Dr Tims bacteria. I've since finished the cycle and added my fish followed by the clean up crew. I would add the cheato later in the cycle if you use it.

 
Agree with @rygh that you should keep the lights off to allow bacteria to populate as much surface as possible. Then only turn the lights on when you have a good CUC in place so that you can head off the algae before it gets out of control. I never got diatoms and not sure why people think they are a given for new tanks. If your starting water is good quality RODI with low silicates why would diatoms be very noticeable?
 
Julius Chen said:
I am to start up a new tank. Plan to pump a good poetion of salt water in my other running setup to the new tank.

I think this means I can skip cycling of new tank. Any issues with this approach?

I plan to move livevrocks from the running setup to the new tank a week into it.
Click to expand...

You may see a tiny short cycle.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
tonga_cycling.jpg


Tonga rocks, with Marinepure brick, and one small piece of rock from established tank to seed. 2 drops of ammonia was added to the bin daily for a period of 7 days. Ammonia was checked daily and the rocks went into the tank and the block into the sump. 2L of siporax, a Marinepure plate, 2 cups of sand, and the zoa/paly rocks were transferred over from the old tank. All fish and corals went into the tank immediately afterwards.
 
Thanks everyone.

Rygh / Chromis.....I think that is the best insight. And the plan I may follow.

J. Chen...... I would consider all at once.....the water column itself has little to no biological filtration properties.
 
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