Cycle before the live rock?

[Goby Angyl]

This is going to be my first salt water (a 10 gallon) and it'll start as a live rock only tank. So the live rock is my live stock.

I'm going to just stick a bunch of live rock in and see what I get so I want whatever is on the live rock to survive.

But what I need to know is about the cycling process. Should I stick in a small piece of live rock to cycle the tank?

Also, because I'm buying the live rock for the animals, would it make sense to get the rock from difference sources, just picking whatever pieces appear to have the most life from various sources and making a collection? Like if this place has a piece with mushrooms and that place has some calcareous algae growing on one of theirs.

 

[Anonymous]

Start the cycle WITH the live rock. You can put in rock from different locales. Remember that 'cycling', as far as culturing microbes, means that you'll end up with a population appropriate to the biological load.

 

[Goby Angyl]

Remember that 'cycling', as far as culturing microbes, means that you'll end up with a population appropriate to the biological load.

I've never had it explained like that before, "culturing" a large enough microbe population to keep up with the bio load. And the microbes would be coming in with the animals on the rocks so I'd be better off just throwing the rocks right in anyway. Thank you.

 

[Anonymous]

You're quite welcome. It's exactly what you're doing. Just like making yogurt or growing good soil--you're culturing microbes.