cycle on my 240

[kzoo]

This is my first big tank (240gall) well big in my book some of you may think it is small, anyway I am starting my cycle with about 60 pounds of live rock uncured and a guy at the lfs gave me about 2lbs of of rubble and sand out of there fudge. I guess I have started the cycle, my nitrates and nitrites are very high. How long does a larger tank take to cycle? my reading have been high for about 3 days is this normal? My smaller tanks showed some drop in this time. Thanks for any help.

 

[seaguy7]

I think you should allow at least three weeks and preferably longer. I let my new rock cure for about a month.

On a bit of a sidetrack, if you have substrate in your tank, you should consider changing much of it before adding your livestock.

I'm sure there are lots of different opinions and experiences, but I found curing rock outside my display tank is a much better way to start a tank. Or if you are curing in the tank, do it barebottom or change most of your substrate before adding livestock. In my first two tanks, I cured the rock in my display on top of my sand. I never really noticed but my sand was full of gunk and I always thought it was normal. I wrestled with algae levels, in my first tank, I lost the battle (before I had a fuge) and in my second tank, I managed to keep it under control with a thriving big ball of Chaeto in my sump. There was something feeding the Chaeto lots of nutrients.

In my new tank, I cured the rock in a separate rubbermaid bin for about a month. I then added the water/sand to my display tank and then added nice clean, cured rock from my old tank and the rubbermaid. After 5 weeks, my sand is sparkling white and clean, and I am struggling to get enough algae growth so my grazers will have something to eat. My Chaeto has shrunk to almost nothing and I have 0 nitrates and phospates. This may also be the result of putting healthy flow under my live rock. But visually my sand looks great and I am now convinced that getting the live rock gunk out of our displays will help keep the tank cleaner and algae levels will be easier to manage in the long run.

Not that you asked my opinion on this, but I needed another post to get my count over 100. :dance:

-Greg

 

[kzoo]

Thanks, but I have read that curing live rock in the cycle will help with the build up of more diverse micros, yes the die off will give more food to algae. I still feel that algae will only grow if it has food and I hope after the cycle the small amout of die off I had will be eatten up. Also plan on doing a 50% water change.