Cycling with live rock

[Dombake]

Hi all, I've had my kit running for 7 days now. 90l with 40l sump. Within 24 hours I had 0.3 reading for ammonia, 0 for nitrite and 5 for nitrate. This stayed the same with exception of ammonia rising to 0.4 and now dropped to 0 today, nitrite still 0 and nitrate down to around 2. I've no intention of adding anything yet, but is a cycle this quickly possible?

I have just over 12kg of live rock and 5kg (around 1inch) sandbed. There are a good number of fan worms active in tank as well as a few small white stars and I've noticed what looks like a couple of tiny shrimp in sand. I also have a crab (yet to identify) so the live rock was very much live!

Thanks in advance.

 

[gone fishin]

It sounds like you got some good quality LR. If it was kept wet during transport and until it went into the tank then, it is very possible you will have a minimal cycle. Good luck

 

[Martini5788]

Agreed. I would still test it by adding pure ammonia and dosing it to 2ppm and then see how fast it processes that just to be sure. But good quality liverock will cycle a lot faster than dry rock

 

[Dombake]

Thanks both. I only live 5 mins drive from LFS, the rock was probably out of water for maybe 15 mins max. Only a very small area of the coralline alge that was on it has turned white, I still have lots of lovely purples on most pieces.

I will monitor for a few more days and then look at adding some ammonia as you suggest and see how fast it processes it.

Cheers

 

[Dombake]

So I added some ammonia and got reading to 2ppm, 12 hours on its dropped to about 1.6, so looks like the tank could deal with low levels of ammonia but needs longer to build up and deal with 2ppm. Is this an accurate observation? Once it gets to 0 again, should I keep dosing/feeding until I get cuc in there and if so, to what level should I dose/feed? 2ppm again?

Thanks for you advice.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

It has to process the ammonia down to 0 in 24 hours. I would wait until the ammonia is 0 as well as nitrites are 0, then wait a week and then dose the ammonia to 2ppm and see if it then cycles the ammonia to 0 in 24 hours along with no nitrites in the same 24 hrs.

Doing this will insure that you have a healthy bacteria population before adding any livestock.

 

[Dombake]

Thank you.

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1:If he used a high quality live rock, then there is no reason to keep dosing ammonia, all you are doing is harming any life you may have acquired with the live rock. Their is plenty of bacteria on the rock now, to add a small clean up crew. Please don't add any more ammonia to your system. Give it a month or two to further stabilize, and then add your clean up crew. When you add a high quality live tock to a system, it already contains the beneficial bacteria you need for your system, so in reality if you need to you could add a few creatures to your system after only a few days or until your system stabilizes. :fish1:

 

[Dombake]

Ok, so I'll not dose again, but leave for a few days after all returns to zero before starting cuc slowly? Or are you saying wait a month after it returns to zero? I'm in no rush to add fish.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

:fish1:If he used a high quality live rock, then there is no reason to keep dosing ammonia, all you are doing is harming any life you may have acquired with the live rock. Their is plenty of bacteria on the rock now, to add a small clean up crew. Please don't add any more ammonia to your system. Give it a month or two to further stabilize, and then add your clean up crew. When you add a high quality live tock to a system, it already contains the beneficial bacteria you need for your system, so in reality if you need to you could add a few creatures to your system after only a few days or until your system stabilizes. :fish1:

You obviously need to learn the reason for dosing pure ammonia and why a second addition of it is necessary. The second ammonia will not hurt anything in the tank as long as there's no live critters in there. This means no cuc and no fish, corals etc.

The second addition of ammonia will only strengthen the live bacteria that is in the rock and sand. The ammonia is the food for those bacteria that are all part of the nitrogen cycle. It's very safe and a good thing to do the second dose of ammonia for these reasons.

I wouldn't add any live critters to the tank until one week after the second dose of ammonia as long as it went to 0 in 24 hours as well as having 0 nitrites in the same 24 hrs. The first I would add to the tank would be cuc but only after you start to get algae outbreaks. This proves that your bacteria is sufficient to handle the ammonia that is waste from fish and cuc.

 

[gone fishin]

In the original post the OP said he/she had some inverts in the tank from the LR. I think it would depend on the status of these inverts if I would add any more ammonia to the tank. good luck just my 2 cents.

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1:Hi Dkuhlmann, I know the cycles pretty well by now, when you use a high quality live rock to cycle a tank, it contains all the bacteria you will ever need, plus all the extra organisms that come with a high quality rock. By adding ammonia you will be harming all those extra organisms that come on the rock and are very beneficial to your system. Have you ever setup a system using high quality live rock? I use a very high quality live rock in all my systems and have never needed to add ammonia or anything else to cycle my systems. I have even added fish to a system the next day after we set the system up, with no ill effects, but I don't recommend this to anyone unless you really know what you are doing. I also use live sand collected from the local offshore reefs and NSW from the very beginning of the setup. When you setup a system with dead rock and sand you need to have a source of ammonia to start your cycle, and thus get the beneficial bacteria going in your system. :fish1:

 

[Dombake]

Thank you everyone (although I'm a little confused).

Just to clarify, the live rock had many (I've counted 10 that I can easily see) worms (the sort with feathers that pop out, green, white, brown feathers), at least 5 small white stars, a crab (hitchhiker not added by me) that is hiding (I've seen him twice). And there is a small amount of alge growing on one rock (grassy looking stuff).

The initial reading of 0.3 after 24 hours of rock being in the water was with no ghost feeding or anything similar. Only thing to go in tank was rock, sand and ready mixed RO from LFS, I I presume that had to have come from the rock? I've never had a reading for nitrite, but have had reading for nitrate, so something is producing nitrate and I thought that had to be the bacteria processing nitrite.

Other parameters are ph8.3, temp 26c, salinity 0.025. I'm running skimmer in sump and have left lights off.

 

[gone fishin]

Yes the bit of ammonia you got was from the rock. Probably a little die off from transporting the rock and getting it into the tank. If you have nitrate then yes, bacteria converted it from nitrite. I hope that cleared up any confusion.

 

[SouthFla]

To the OP, YES you can have a quick (or no) cycle! I did a similar thing with uncured LR but never saw a trace of NH4 or NO2. I have THOROUGHLY enjoyed setting up a tank this way :fun2:

My uncured live rock tank 90 days in:

 

[Dombake]

Thanks for all your comments on this. So i think I'm cycled now, ammonia 0 nitrites 0 (after a small spike). I have a nitrate reading of 10 now, so is water change required now?

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: Yes, now is a good time for a water change. :fish1:

 

[Dombake]

Right, I'm happy that I'm 100% cycled now. in addition to the hitchhikers (crab caught and sumped) mentioned before, I have a mussle of some sort appear on sand, bristle worms (many) and there are some small sponges so plenty of stuff living.

There has been no alge outbreak (as I've seen in some tanks) but the lights have been off most of time and nitrate was only above 10 for short time before I did 25% water change and I've since done another 25%.

the auto top off is working well and I've maintained 1.025sg throughout. Ph dropped during cycle but back to 8.2 now and stable. Nitrate hanging around the 3-4 mark.

So, what should I add next? I don't have much there for the cuc to feed on, but should I still start with that?

Welcome your ideas and experience.

 

[Dombake]

Here is a picture

 

[Dombake]

So, 4 months in and I'm really enjoying things. I have to say I was a little daunted to begin with but found it easier (not easy) than I thought it would be - although I am not getting complacent and still learning.

Here is my tank today.

A couple of new corals added yesterday.