really need some advice

mp32

New member
It is now week 3 of my cycle and my ammonia is now 0, my nitrites are now 0 my ph is 8.0, my nitrates are between 5 and 1. So I should be happy it looks like my cycle is over....BUT I am being told by my LFS this is not the case, and I will explain why. I cycled my tank with 2 raw shrimp, and without any live rock, I have 200lbs dead base, and I have 180lbs of sand, 80 of which is aragalive. My LFS (I am not going to name them) says that my cycle was not strong enough and that I only had a mini cycle. Now when my cycle began the ammonia spiked only to .5 and my nitrites to .25. Now as far as I know that is a cycle. Now I am planning on adding live rock but cured. they are telling me I need to add uncured rock and cycle again and let it spike higher. So what do I do? :confused:
 
Added cured, that is fine.

Want to test it? Toss in some a bunch of flake food. Dissolve it in a glass of water first, then toss it in. Test the water every day and watch.

The tank will cycle every time you add additional bio load to it. To really get a tank ready you need to feed it every day, give the bacteria something to feed on all the time. Then add a hardy fish, that you want to keep, after you see stable numbers.

Dead rock takes months to fully seed with bacteria...keep at it, keep feeding, keep testing. Live cured rock is the ideal thing to add. Uncured rock, you have no idea what is going to hitch hike on into your tank, you do not want that.
 
I was thinking the same thing, and they are insisting. I will cure the rock I get from them before I add it. The tank should be cycled though right?
 
There are stores all over that sell cured...

Curing the rock is just the process of having it in a tank with little to no light and allowing the crap on the rock that did not survive shipping to die and break down. IT is a great way to cycle a tank, because it has all that dead crap to feed bacteria, but it is a crap shoot sometimes. One bad algae can take foot and end up causing you a nightmare... I had a friend that had a brown kelp that would dominate his tank, it sucked.
 
mp,
Bryan is right..... you should listen to him.....otherwise you will be sorry later....that's pretty much inevitable. As far as LFS....if it is NEAR you "Hudson"....they really are NOT what you want to listen to.... they have a vested interest in you coming in and having to keep buying products to try and fix the problems that WILL arise due to doing it their way adding uncured LR. Bryan knows what he is doing. You have a great benefit to getting advise from other experienced Aquarium keepers. They have nothing to gain from the outcome as a LFS does. IMO.....hope this info helps, KR
 
I don't think the LFS said anything incorrect though. When you start adding things, your tank will cycle more. Just add it very very very slowly. Uncured live rock WILL give it a big cycle, lol.

I personally love uncured live rock but I'm weird. :bum: :strooper: :hmm4: :dance: I get so much fun stuff growing off of it. I have tons of different sponges and macro algaes but I like that!

g/l, live and learn, and just roll with the punches.
 
I have put uncured and cured in different tanks at different times during my 20 years of saltwater keeping. But, I agree that it is really cool to have the sponges and such...Heck....when I started out 20 years ago...I had dead coral decorations and plain old river rock with a canister filter and I thought I was jammin' ....but I have definitely evolved since then....lol ....I only have been doing reef for about 7 months now. I am still learnin' KR
 
I would not recommend adding uncured live rock. Like Bryan said, feed the bacteria in the tank. The simplest way to do that is with fish food and Vodka. In your 180 gallon tank, add 5ml of Vodka each day and a pinch of flake food (crumbled up and mixed with water). The added carbon source, Vodka, will also help feed the bacteria. With plenty of food, the bacteria will multiply.
 
Thanks for all the help, I will add some cured rock and start feeding the tank, question is when will I know the time is right to add livestock? from what my parameters are telling me the cycle should be over right?
 
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