Soft Cycle

[walla2butterfly]

Hi Olaf,
Did you cycle the tank? If so did you use cured or uncured. I am kind of scared of using uncured because of what might come in on the rock. I would freak if all those crabs where in my tank. As it is I know all those bristle worms were in my tank, did not bother me. But since the power went out, and I found out just how many, I am a little leary of putting my hands in the tank. IF I decide to move some of the sand to my new tank to seed it, will probably become Greg's job. LOL

 

[walla2butterfly]

Subject:cycling/sump
I have thought about using my current tank as a sump for my larger tank. Have thought a lot about using it as part of the cycle of the larger one. So, how would I do that? Use two pumps and slowly add water to the larger tank? Similar to doing water changes? At what rate/speed would be safe doing that way? At what point would it be okay to transfer LR from old tank to new? Just some thoughts........Tami

 

[wade1]

If the conditions in the new tank are acceptable (salinity, temp, alk/ca) then you can transfer it at any time. If you add rock or occupants slowly, you won't see any cycling as the bioload is brought up slowly to match waste inputs. Using the water is not necessary, but using some of the old sand will help.

I've moved entire big tanks (150 gallons+) into new tanks using mostly old components with no issues. Just be aware that if you add new rock, you should do it piecemeal after you've moved the rest in... or just cycle as per normal for a new tank first.

 

[olaf1]

The rock was taken out of the ocean liverock farm. Which is an area in the ocean that they have a pile of rock for culturing. After a while they pull it out and send it over here. The rock, by the time I got it from Bali, was three days. Two of those days it sat in a live rock tank. Which is 3 feet deep 3 feet wide and about 50 feet long. I had to reach down and pull my own rock. It was scary since I could not see into the water because this tank is in a green house and it was an over cast day late in the afternoon.
A friend of mine came along to help. He actually got stung by something on the inside of his arm above the elbow. It made a red ring about the size of a quarter. There were rock anemones up to 4" wide, long spine urchins and other types of urchins. Saw and heard mantis shrimp.
I have also gotten a few sharp things stuck in my hands and fingers reaching into the liverock tank and recently digging into the sand bad and rearranging the live rock. I have found that wearing thick rubber gloves usually prevents that itching and burning feeling from getting stuck by something. There are always this to bewarey about. I tell every one that they should not pick up anything unless they are willing to deal with the results. Who would know... something that you have no idea is in the rock could come crawling out, like some flower urchin, rockfish, fire worm or even a jelly that was trapped in the rock. So always be careful what ever you do with uncured rock.

 

[walla2butterfly]

mmm, well that has got me to " really" thinking twice LOL
Just not a bug , "thing" person

 

[olaf1]

I would like to setup my next aquarium using either aquaroche (http://www.aquaroche.fr/gb/produits/familles.php) or Riffkeramik(http://www.riffkeramik.de/) and seed those with a few pieces of uncured live rock "pest free". Set it up sorta like the article on "Live Framing" in Marine Fish & Reef USA, 2008 Annual pg. 108 (http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-magazines/marine-and-reef-usa/08-marine-and-reef-usa.aspx).
This way it could be setup a certain way and if taken down for major maintenance or repair it could be put back together without any issues.
I would like to know how this type of ceramic is made.

I setup my 24-gallon nano 1.5 years ago with the Riffkeramik background and put uncured plate Bali liverock into the cupped areas and I have never added any coral but I have many corals from what came in on the rock. I have Mushrooms, Evergreen Star Polyps, really nice Yellow Sponge, Black Sun Polyps, etc. I had a few crabs here and there but all were very small and were picked off by my fish Six Line Wrasse and Yellow Striped Clingfish. I have watched the Clingfish pick off a crab before.