Protein skimmer necessary while cycling dead rock?

[Joeballz]

Protein skimmer necessary while cycling dead rock?

 

[Awibrandy]

It won't hurt! It would actually be helpful in speeding up the process.

 

[artie1209]

If the rock is dead what are you cycling?

 

[Awibrandy]

If the rock is dead what are you cycling?

Have you ever dealt with dead rock? Live rock does not need to be cycled, dead rock does.

To me dead rock has to be cleaned out, the way to make sure you get all the dead stuff from all the nooks & crannies is to cure it. Depending on how long the rock has been laying around, and how much living matter it once had within it will determine the length of time it will take to cure. Which is why you will continue to test the water until all your test result fall to 0 falues.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

i think it would be more effective not to use the skimmer so all the nitrates penetrate, and feed the bacterial colonizing the rocks. Skimming cleans the water, and keeps the bioload down, and you want to keep it up and have lots of nitrogen in there to feed the cycle.

 

[mray]

I agree with homegrown, cycle your tank without light or skimmer. Towards the end of the cycle but before you place livestock in there, run your skimmer and do a water change. You can avoid the algae cycle most people run into by doing this.

 

[beerfish]

Have you ever dealt with dead rock? Live rock does not need to be cycled, dead rock does.

This is not a very accurate statement.

When setting up a new tank, the goal of the cycle is to provide an adequate amount of beneficial bacteria to maintain a stable system. You are not cycling rock, and in fact do not require rock for a tank to cycle, as the bacteria will colonize anywhere it can. The live rock, in it's porous nature, assists greatly in this process by providing large amounts of surface area for the bacterial population.

The misconception that live rock does not need to be cycled comes from the idea that beneficial bacteria is already present on the rock. While this may be true, there is no guarantee that the amount of bacteria will be adequate for your system. There is also the possibility of die off on live rock if it has been out of water, or exposed to temperature changes, pH swings, etc. There is nearly always some die off on rock that has been moved from one system to another.

Now that that's been clarified...

There is some debate on skimming during a cycle. Some people say it's beneficial, others say that it will prolong the cycle. Here's my take on it:

Run the skimmer. Run your lights. Operate your system as you normally plan to once all of your livestock has been introduced. My reasoning for this is simple. Once I put livestock into my system, I want to know that it's running properly. I don't want to have to fine tune my skimmer, or realize that my lighting time needs to be adjusted. In addition, you'll learn a lot about your tank during the cycle, and the knowledge will do nothing but benefit you once you add livestock.

Hope this helps.

 

[basiab]

Need some definitions here as to what you mean by live rock and dead rock.
There is live rock that gets shipped to you. That must be cyled. It just was pulled from the ocean and by the time you get it most life has died or is in the process of dying. So it is called live because there will usually be some life left. But it needs the cycling process to get rid of the dead and decaying matter. This is true even if the source says they cycled it because once it is out of water there is going to be more die off.
If you get live rock locally and it has already been cycled then there should be little if any die off unless it is out of water for a 'long' time. I got some cycled rock from an MR member and just put it in my tank after a 20 minute ride and there was no spike in ammonia.

 

[beerfish]

I got some cycled rock from an MR member and just put it in my tank after a 20 minute ride and there was no spike in ammonia.

Lack of ammonia spike doesn't mean that the bacterial population was stable and able to support any sort of bioload. It simply means that there wasn't enough die off to cause a rise in ammonia.

I can't stress this enough...

A tank cycle happens independently of your rock. It can and will happen with or without rock, with "live" rock, "dead" rock, "dry" rock... hell it'll hapen if you put sheetrock in the tank (don't do this).

While rock with a bacterial population on it can help, rock alone does not mean your tank is cycled. Bacteria colonizes on sand, in your overflow, and anywhere else it can. A tank is cycled when the population is stable and able to support it's current bioload. Not before this, regardless of what type of rock you put in.