How long do you cycle a new tank?

[TURKLET0N]

I'm building a 150 gallon tank. I understand this question may get different answers depending on what people use in their tanks. I was wondering how long people cycle their new tanks before they add fish and coral into it. I have been told to let my tank cycle for one month before adding fish and two months before adding coral.

 

[nathan1986]

Cycle until ammonia and nitrite read zero. Nitrate might have a reading when ammonia and nitrite read zero, from what i understand nitrate goes away with water changes. Most people help boost the cycle with a piece of raw shrimp and let it decompose in the aquarium. You want the ammonia and nitrite to hold at zero for a few days before considering a fish. Maybe introduce a small clean up crew first then add a fish. Many people do it differently. Most important thing is to not rush. Let the tank do its thing, test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate regularly and wait for the cycle to break. Some tanks are faster than others concidering how much live rock and real live sand your seeding with.

 

[robthorn]

I have to agree with nathan. Very good post buddy.

Adding to that depends if you have rock wet before the tank is set up and how long. Are you adding a bacteria supplement and feeding it?

Depending on your experience level and what you do you can cut it down to a week depending on what you are adding, how much and the total water volume.

 

[nhbsab]

You can also quicken the cycle by adding bacteria and then feeding it with a carbon source. You can do the to dry rock too. I have done that with some of my more successive tanks through the years.

 

[robthorn]

^^^^^^^ yep lol

 

[Safir]

I was going to say "until it's ready" but Nathan covered it elegantly

 

[TURKLET0N]

I will have 150 gallons of water, 1-2 inches of Instant Ocean sand (about 100 lbs), 50 lbs of dry rock and 50-60 lbs of live/wet rock (Probably from TBS).

I am not sure how long that will take to cycle and what to add to it to make it go faster.

Can you provide links to what I should buy to test for the pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Alkalinity, Dissolved oxygen, Copper, Phosphate, Iodine, Calcium, Silica.....

 

[Vorog]

Patients is key to success in this hobby. My first tank I wanted the cycle to go fast. Now I don't care if it takes two months. Sounds like you have a good amount of rock you can add bacteria as mentioned and feed it, it helps get things going. As for test kits, I use Red Sea tests for Ca,Alk, and Mg, also PH. For nitrate nitrite and ammonia I use nyos. I have saliferts too just to see how close all the brands are. I don't care for API kits personally.

 

[Safir]

If you plan to go with tbs and don't already have your sand and base rock, look at "the package" - includes sand, two shipments of rock, and clean up crew. He structures the shipments to help you through your cycle.

 

[jdantunes]

If you're going to use 50/50 live / dry rock, there is no reason to use bottle bacteria. Don't buy live sand. Dry will be fine, just seed it with a cup of sand from a mature tank.

Just remember to soak dry rocks in RO/DI for a couple of weeks to remove phosphates.