Cycling new tank

[BlackBorre]

Hello people, im new to this forum and new into the saltwater hobby as well; I just set up a 30 gallon tank with about 32 pounds of dry (base) rock and 30 pounds of live sand (caribesea arag-alive), there's also a 10 gallon sump tank with about 5 pounds of same dry rock and 10 pounds of same live sand, the tank is been up and running since yesterday, October 11 first time in the morning, im doing a no fish cycle, adding a bit of Start Smart additive for bacteria colonization and also been feeding the tank fish food pellets... Some of my questions are? (and I know patience is a BIG key in this hobby)... What else can I do to help and to speed up the nitrogen cycle? If there's anything I can do besides sit there, watch and test the water, also, for your experience, roughly how long will the entire cycle take?

Don't get me wrong guys, I'm pretty much ok with just sit and wait and let it do its own for a few weeks and take a little break and recover from spending money, lol, but i just wanna make sure I'm doing everything alright and wanna make sure at least the cycle begins.
If you need more info please don't hesitate asking me and pictures as well, please share your knowledge with me and what ever piece of advice you can give me is appreciated.

Have a good day folks.

 

[BlackBorre]

I forgot to mention; I'm thinking about going to fish store and buy a small piece (one pound or so) of live rock and place it into the refugium, would this help with the process? Would it make it faster? Should I be aware of adding pests even with such a small piece of rock? Or its just not worth it?

Thanks a lot.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Welcome to ReefCentral! I think that what you're doing is great already. I know that raising the temperature to a certain degree can help speed up beneficial bacteria growth. Just remember what it takes to get those bacteria growing: oxygen for cellular respiration, and nutrients to let them grow. Since the bacteria are temperature dependent, raise the temperature up to a certain temperature (that I don't know off the top of my head). Add something to increase gas exchange so that more oxygen diffuses through the tank. That should speed up the cycling time by at least a little bit. For the live rock, just chuck it into a bucket of carbonated water to get rid of any undesirable organisms. You can just pick all the good ones out of the bucket after they've vacated the premises.

 

[Timfish]

Did you check your ammonia after 24 hours to see what it was? It's possible you may not have had any with the live sand, anyway once the ammonia and nitrite are gone I would start adding hardy animals.

 

[BlackBorre]

Thank you for the fast response...

@Ichthyogeek: I did not mention it but I did raise the temp. up to 83 F I heard about higher temperatures are good for bacteria population but I don't know neither what would be the best temperature for this scenario, and also I will certainly trow the rock in carbonated water, thats a good idea.

@Timfish: like I said before, the fish tank was up and running yesterday early morning, (October 11) and I added fish food into the tank... Anyways I tested the water at the end of the day (at around 11 pm) and my nitrites and nitrates readings were 0 (not surpricing) but my ammonia levels were 0.50 ppm, i cant wait to test the water tonight again, as I'm gonna b doing it at night time everytime, and see a darker color for the ammonia and an increase of it in the tank.

Cheers fellas.

 

[DannyTC]

I'm pretty new as well and recently started my tank and supplemented my dry rock with LFS cured live rock and here are some things that I found out so far (the hard way).

1. The dry rock needs to be soaked and cleaned. If you haven't soaked and cleaned it, now would be a good time to pull it out and blow the crap out of the holes with a power head or turkey baster. Do it in a Brute can or somewhere else away from your display tank. It won't hurt too much if you don't do this but I am struggling with lots of light particulate matter blowing out of my rocks when my flow changes. About 1 week after I filled my tank with unsoaked dry rock, I could put a turkey baster in any rock and blow bubbles out of it along with dusty sandy stuff.

2. Seeding your cycle with already stocked and cured live rock will cut your initial cycle down to about 2 weeks, at which point your algae/diatom bloom will begin. The problem I'm having is that the rock came with VERY large fireworms. Not just your average bristleworms but the big fat kind that REALLY FREAKING HURT when you touch their rock with bare hands. I named the big one Bernice and I have a video of her playing tug-o-war with my 2" skunk shrimp for his dinner. I also have a hydroid problem that I inherited from the LFS and some aiptasia. (Google hydroids now...) It's going to be a process to fix but I did get TONS of brittle starfish, snails and many types of coralline algae.

3.) you're going to get a phosphate spike. You will then get a hair algae bloom followed by a die-off if you remove the phosphate with a refugium and/or GFO. I added a pair of clowns and a pair of skunk shrimp at this phase and wish I would have waited. It's not dangerous for them but it was difficult dealing with the algae around the needs of the fish. I ended up using Chaetomorpha and "Dragon's Breath" algae in a HOB refugium. It worked great! but my pretty, expensive, "Dragon's Breath" algae starved before my hair algae did. Don't spend money on fancy algae for your refugium unless you plan to ADD nutrients to keep it display-quality; Chaeto is great and cheap.

4.) 2 months seems like FOREVER when you just dropped a fortune on a new tank but I'm going to guess that is how long you should probably wait. Seeding with cured LR will speed it up and make it safe for fish quickly but it won't be pretty. Throw an uncooked table shrimp in your tank and run your lights and everything like you have prized coral and fishes. You should test and stuff but you could theoretically wait to spend money on tests until after your hair algae bloom. At that point, it's safe for fish but you really need to work on your phosphates. If you have a refugium with macro algae, your phosphates will go to almost zero. They are still there however, inside the algae. You need to get rid of the nutrients and fight the hair algae by scraping the glass and adding a cleanup crew. Keep in mind some turbo snails will push things over, hermits will fight each other and pick at brain corals and other crabs will eat your corals. After your phosphates are zero and the hair algae is gone and nutrients have been exported, THEN your tank will be "ready." Some days I wish I would have waited but sometimes I like the challenge of seeing nature work itself and working to fix what I don't like. It's totally up to you what kind of experience you want.