- Cycling with starter fish
- Cycling using ammonia
- Cycle using fish food
- Cycling with raw fish or shrimp
- Accelerated cycling with commercial products
- Cycle using only live rock
- Soft cycle
- Other methods
I really appreciate the answers!
Which Method You use and recommend for Cycling a New Tank?!
- Thread starter rolandoK
- Start date
I really appreciate the answers!
- Location
- Rockland County NY
I did LR x 5 weeks.
Last edited:
OzoneParkGuy
Advanced Reefer
- Location
- Ozone Park
- Location
- Huntington
All you need is live rock and sand to cycle a tank and maybe patience depending on how cured the rock is. If you are using live rock and sand there is no need for starter fish, it isn't going to make the rock cure any faster and you can't kill rocks or sand so you don't have to waste any money. I see more people have ongoing issues when they start dumping all sorts of stuff in their tanks trying to speed up the cycle. Nature was doing it long before you came along just keep your hands off it and it will be fine on it's own for a few weeks.
Thank you guys!
I really appreciate all your votes and information!
I just start my tank today!
During this week I'll try make to some variations of aquascape, for now I just put the rocks in the tank without a concept.
I want to start a tank thread, witch forum is proper to do that?
I really appreciate all your votes and information!
I just start my tank today!
During this week I'll try make to some variations of aquascape, for now I just put the rocks in the tank without a concept.
I want to start a tank thread, witch forum is proper to do that?
Just keep in mind that after the cycle is completed you still have a very fragile environment. It is not what you would call 'established'. It is a starting point and you have to be careful as to how you introduce new life to that environment. The amount and timing depends on the bio load that you are adding to your environment. Good luck.
By the way, I used live rock. I tested it after the cycle completed, by adding ammonia, just to see how well it handled it.
By the way, I used live rock. I tested it after the cycle completed, by adding ammonia, just to see how well it handled it.
- Location
- Southampton UK
hats off to you guys, I absolutely love this thread becouse its a subject thats very very close to my heart.
Ive allways cycled my tanks the same way....
Set up with water and set the chemistry first (alk/Ca/Mg) then add new sand (I dont bother with live sand initially)...run for a week or so and monitor the Alk and Mg (adjust as you go to account for early precipitation into the sand), then once happy that its stable, I add the rock and a good seeding of crud from a live rock vat to the sand bed..
From this point forward I run it as i would if it were fully stocked...ie normal lighting regime, circulation, skimming, Carbon, and phosphate media.
I let the system run for 1 week like this to use up any ammonia from initial die off, then add a healthy number of snails and hermits to get a head start on whats about to follow..
I then let (expect) the system to go through various stages, Diatoms, Cyano and a bit of filamentous algae as the nutrients released from initial die off on the live rock and various nutrients introduced in the new salt mix go to fuel these phases...Throughout all this i keep up normal water changes and change the media out to starve out any algae and force nutrient levels down towards NSW as a start point, so that when its time to start adding stock, I'm adding it to an environment that isnt already swimming in exess, and has a relatively stable chemistry.
This stage can take anywhere from just 3-4 weeks on a small tank to a few months on a larger system of 500 gallons or more. Either way the main focus is to let the system go through all the natural settlement and colonisation phases that all new or disturbed substrates go through before i start placing any load on it or adding yet more nutrients.
From that point onwards i place no limit on the rate of coral and other invert stocking, but i keep fish stocking to a very slow pace (average being a two-three yr stock plan), letting the system adapt over time to each and every addition (and the subsequent need for increased feeding)...on that note though I do try to encorage as much microfauna diversity as possible by feeding as much food such as rotifers, cyclops, and occasionally phyto as the system will allow via testing...basically I always aim to feed as much as possible whilst keeping No3 below 1.0ppm, and Po4 below 0.015ppm...if levels rise, I hold back on adding anthing else untill the system has stabalised again..if it doesnt I find out where the shortfall is in the system and sort that before progressing further..
Ive used this basic method of initial cycling and long term stocking for many years now, over several systems, and never had issues with Po4 or No3 above the levels quoted. (well at least not what was atainable using the test kits of old).
Im a firm believer in the idea that the early phases of a tanks life dictate the successes further on down the line. im also a firm believer in logic,,
ie why add even more nutrient (in the way of addatives etc)to a system in the very early stages (first few weeks) in the belief it will fuel a good bacterial population, when there is more than enough nutrient (die off) initially released from the rock becouse its been shifted from one set of water chemistry (dealers tank) to another (your own tank).
let these initial low level nutrients fuel the cycling process, and strat feeding once that nutrient runs out..at least that way you can learn how much food a system can and cant handle.
Another consideration imo, (if your interested in running more natural systems rather than the more cosmetic sterile deco setups) is that the whole aim of the game is to 'preseve' as much diversity as you can on the rock from day one, (hence the reason for setting the chemistry prior to adding the rock) so its pretty poinless adding a whole prawn strait afterwards if all its going to do is fuel a large ammonia spike that will kill off some of the fauna you are trying to save.....sacrificing diversity for higher initial bacterial populations is imo the wrong line to go down...bacteria will populate rapidly with even background nutrient food traces...they are well adapted to this kind of life after all and will populate at a much faster rate than other fauna so theres no need to rush it imo.
sorry, went on a bit of a ramble there beyond the initial cycle but it all counts imo towards a long term successful reef.
As a great hobbyist said to me once....if your not happy about your No3 being at 50ppm, what you realy need to do is ask yourself what you were doing whilst it was going from 0-5-10-20-30-40-50..?
a very logical response imo to an all to common question..
Regards
Ive allways cycled my tanks the same way....
Set up with water and set the chemistry first (alk/Ca/Mg) then add new sand (I dont bother with live sand initially)...run for a week or so and monitor the Alk and Mg (adjust as you go to account for early precipitation into the sand), then once happy that its stable, I add the rock and a good seeding of crud from a live rock vat to the sand bed..
From this point forward I run it as i would if it were fully stocked...ie normal lighting regime, circulation, skimming, Carbon, and phosphate media.
I let the system run for 1 week like this to use up any ammonia from initial die off, then add a healthy number of snails and hermits to get a head start on whats about to follow..
I then let (expect) the system to go through various stages, Diatoms, Cyano and a bit of filamentous algae as the nutrients released from initial die off on the live rock and various nutrients introduced in the new salt mix go to fuel these phases...Throughout all this i keep up normal water changes and change the media out to starve out any algae and force nutrient levels down towards NSW as a start point, so that when its time to start adding stock, I'm adding it to an environment that isnt already swimming in exess, and has a relatively stable chemistry.
This stage can take anywhere from just 3-4 weeks on a small tank to a few months on a larger system of 500 gallons or more. Either way the main focus is to let the system go through all the natural settlement and colonisation phases that all new or disturbed substrates go through before i start placing any load on it or adding yet more nutrients.
From that point onwards i place no limit on the rate of coral and other invert stocking, but i keep fish stocking to a very slow pace (average being a two-three yr stock plan), letting the system adapt over time to each and every addition (and the subsequent need for increased feeding)...on that note though I do try to encorage as much microfauna diversity as possible by feeding as much food such as rotifers, cyclops, and occasionally phyto as the system will allow via testing...basically I always aim to feed as much as possible whilst keeping No3 below 1.0ppm, and Po4 below 0.015ppm...if levels rise, I hold back on adding anthing else untill the system has stabalised again..if it doesnt I find out where the shortfall is in the system and sort that before progressing further..
Ive used this basic method of initial cycling and long term stocking for many years now, over several systems, and never had issues with Po4 or No3 above the levels quoted. (well at least not what was atainable using the test kits of old).
Im a firm believer in the idea that the early phases of a tanks life dictate the successes further on down the line. im also a firm believer in logic,,
ie why add even more nutrient (in the way of addatives etc)to a system in the very early stages (first few weeks) in the belief it will fuel a good bacterial population, when there is more than enough nutrient (die off) initially released from the rock becouse its been shifted from one set of water chemistry (dealers tank) to another (your own tank).
let these initial low level nutrients fuel the cycling process, and strat feeding once that nutrient runs out..at least that way you can learn how much food a system can and cant handle.
Another consideration imo, (if your interested in running more natural systems rather than the more cosmetic sterile deco setups) is that the whole aim of the game is to 'preseve' as much diversity as you can on the rock from day one, (hence the reason for setting the chemistry prior to adding the rock) so its pretty poinless adding a whole prawn strait afterwards if all its going to do is fuel a large ammonia spike that will kill off some of the fauna you are trying to save.....sacrificing diversity for higher initial bacterial populations is imo the wrong line to go down...bacteria will populate rapidly with even background nutrient food traces...they are well adapted to this kind of life after all and will populate at a much faster rate than other fauna so theres no need to rush it imo.
sorry, went on a bit of a ramble there beyond the initial cycle but it all counts imo towards a long term successful reef.
As a great hobbyist said to me once....if your not happy about your No3 being at 50ppm, what you realy need to do is ask yourself what you were doing whilst it was going from 0-5-10-20-30-40-50..?
a very logical response imo to an all to common question..
Regards
Last edited:
- Location
- Southampton UK
Hi Roland. I'm planning a major revamp of the site by the end of this year...to be truthfull I got halfway through the last one, got sidetracked, got realy busy, and since then its just been hard to find time to actually get stuck into it. So i'm planning on spending a solid week in Oct/Nov this year chucking out some of the old stuff, adding a load of new bits including a new tank write up on the intertidal system and putting in loads of new images. plus im planning on adding in loads of articles that were only ever published here in the UK that are now no longer available in print..still very relevent stuff though, even if the articles are 12months or so old.
regards and many thanks for the compliments.
regards and many thanks for the compliments.
Sponsor Reefs
We're a FREE website, and we exist because of hobbyists like YOU who help us run this community.
Click here to sponsor $10:
