Live Rock Cycling Advice Wanted

[norite]

I am setting up a Nano FOWLR tommorow hopefully and I was wondering about cycling with Live Rock and using it as a filter....
so here's my understanding

1: Buy Uncured rock OR cured rock but leave it out of water for a period
Buy either, but do NOT leave it out of the water! This will kill off the usefull bacteria that filter the water! Rock that's been sitting in your LFS tanks for a few weeks is already well on its way to being cured
2a: let it sit in a tank and cycle..
yes
2b: Do you have live sand in with the cycling rock??
No. Plain aragonite will do
3: Use power heads to create water flow to allow the LR to be used as a filter
yes
4: Do you need a reflector for the live rock while it cycles?
what do you mean by a reflector???
5: once all the Live rock has become cured is it safe to put fish in if powerheads and a heater is there plus the correct salinity
Put in the water and salt, about enough to get it to the correct SG. Then switch on the powerheads and heater, and get the water circulating. If you are mixing salt directly into the tank, let it sit for a few days to make sure all the salt has dissolved. I left mine circulating for a week before adding my first bit of live rock. This gave me time to check all the equipment was working, and allowed me to get the SG to the correct level.
6: If you buy Cured rock will it be pretty much a mature filter medium and automatically cycle the tank or if there are no fish to supply ammonia will the tank "uncycle"
Probably, yes, but if the live rock had been out of the water for any length of time, the bacteria will die off, and you will have to recure it. The safest way is to monitor the water with a series of test kits: ammonia, nitrite. When ammonia and nitrite are at zero for at least a week, the tank should be considered cycled, and it should be safe to introduce your first fish. Choose hardy ones, like clownfish.
I know they are pretty newbie q's but I want to make sure about this process
No problem - we were all newbies at some point; I'm learning new stuff nearly every day in this hobby! Just read, read and read some more. And please be patient!

 

[QuotheRaven]

Thanks for the help

A final question.... Is it possible to get the LR in the tank the day you add the Saltwater if you follow the directions by the manufacturer OR Buy saltwater from the aquarium......

 

[kkyyllee]

if you buy water from the store sure, if your mixing your own have it mixed at least a few hours before you add the the live rock, and its att right temperature

 

[QuotheRaven]

Is it safe to keep the live rock bagged in water for a few hours before in the tank??

 

[kkyyllee]

yeah that should be fine just dont let it cool off too much

 

[QuotheRaven]

Thanks for everyone's help the aquarium where im going in an hour are buying red Horse Face, Firemouth, Pictus, Syno Eupterus and a Festivum off me at wholesale prices converted to store credit

 

[SkiFletch]

I'd like to challenge that you should get the rock that looks "most alive"... Simple I know, but rock that appears to have more life on it probably does, and will be better for your tank longterm, cured or not

 

[andywg]

i wasnt talking about the LR, ive been always told always by cured LR, as with the cycle. The water cycle you cant just fill up your tank with water and add rock and your good to add live stock, you have to let your water cycle for the set amount of time.

...

read the original post before you tell someone they are wrong, thats why theres so much confusion in this hobby.
it stats that he is going to start a new salt water nano tomorrow....

Perhaps you should do more research before makins such definitive posts as "every tank has to go through a cycle"

I did exactly what you say you cannot do, I bought cured live rock, put it in the tank and within an hour I had a frogfish in there. I then did exactly the sme in my reef. Do you know how many fish showed any signs of stress or problems? None.

It is the same process as cloning a freshwater tank, you put in media (in this case LR) that has all the necessary bacteria and then provide them with a food source (fish) and away you go. This is how I have set up 4 SW tanks and 6 FW tanks.

correct if im wrong someone but thats a lie i was told by everyone i have every talked to about salt water tanks and you have to cycle your water for atleast four weeks before adding fish

this is what happens when someone doesnt know and they tell ppl to do something and then when all there fish die they cant figure it out

please if im wrong on this topic i appologize but everyone told me about cycling the water first, my LFS wouldnt sell me any fish untill after 4 weeks of my tank being set up

Consider yourself corrected by the below:

Live rock comse in with all the bacteria we want on it, but in slightly smaller quantities than we need. Live Rock also comes in with a number of organisms on it that will not survive the journey from collection to the tank. The process of curing is to allow these organisms to die off and prevent any possible ammonia spike upsetting the livestock.

When you buy cured live rock it will have had its die off. Ideally a curing tank should have a fish in it, or be fed every so often to keep the bactreria levels optimal.

Remember, you are never cycling a tank, or its water, but the filtration process; be it a wet dry, sponge filter or live rock.

Also, marine salt will mix quite swiftly into the water. leaving water for weeks or days before adding is just not necessary.. So long as you have an airstone or powerhead to aid mixing, 24 hours is the absolute most you will have to leave it, and 1-3 hours is cool at a pinch.

if you get cured rock your tank will still go through a cycle when you add anything that produces amonia

Exactly the same amount of mini cycle that will occur if you cure uncured rock and then add an ammonia source. Indeed, our tanks have a mini cycle every time we feed. The bacteria population is in equilibrium with the bioload of the tank, every time we affect that, the tank goes through minor changes.


So to conclude, buying cured live rock is the same as getting hold of cycled filter media in FW, it allows you to stock immediately, in deed, if you buy cured live rock and do not give it a food source (remember there is no more die off) then you are actually grqadually killing off the live rock.

 

[bambam]

Consider yourself corrected by the below:

Live rock comse in with all the bacteria we want on it, but in slightly smaller quantities than we need. Live Rock also comes in with a number of organisms on it that will not survive the journey from collection to the tank. The process of curing is to allow these organisms to die off and prevent any possible ammonia spike upsetting the livestock.

When you buy cured live rock it will have had its die off. Ideally a curing tank should have a fish in it, or be fed every so often to keep the bactreria levels optimal.

Remember, you are never cycling a tank, or its water, but the filtration process; be it a wet dry, sponge filter or live rock.

Also, marine salt will mix quite swiftly into the water. leaving water for weeks or days before adding is just not necessary.. So long as you have an airstone or powerhead to aid mixing, 24 hours is the absolute most you will have to leave it, and 1-3 hours is cool at a pinch.

i guess all the LFS around here are wrong and i guess i should tell them that they are wrong, unless the water is different in england then it is over here in america

 

[SkiFletch]

i guess all the LFS around here are wrong and i guess i should tell them that they are wrong, unless the water is different in england then it is over here in america

What the LFS' are trying to do is to prevent people from making costly mistakes. While everything Andy said was true, it implies that the transit time between the LFS and the home aquarium needs to be low, if possible, even done in water. If its out of water too long, there will be extra dieoff which may or may not be enough to lead to a significant mini cycle event. Ultimately each individual's tank, location, and experience are different, and reccomendations to wait is an attempt to safeguard the beginner aquarist.

I will agree though with Andy. My LFS setup their 180gal display tank and had corals and fish in it 5 hours after the first aquascaping was begun. Of course the owers had pre-cured rock in the next room and 30 years of experience between the two of them...

 

[bambam]

exactly i like how skifletch explains how it can be done other then just saying thats how it it, thank you for clearifing that for me skifletch. i see know how it can be done

 

[steelhealr]

OK...there are several ways to do things:
-the right way
-the wrong way
-the safe way.

As andywg said, fully cured live rock is just that...cured...contains bacteria....and doesn't need cycling per se.

HOWEVER.....you can 'PLOP' things in your tank and ride off into the sunset, or, you can do things with caution and do things with care. If waiting one day or even one week to BE SURE that your system is OK...spares the rare chance of having a small mini 'recycle', then why rush? Why risk anything in our hobby? Why risk a fish? A coral?

Don't be PLOPPER.

Just say NO! to PLOP.

SH

 

[bambam]

yeah congrats to that thanks steelhealr

 

[Miss Wiggle]

lol SH

to my mind adding cured LR to your new SW tank puts you at the stage when you've just finished a fishless cycle. theoretically you can stock straight away, there is enough bacteria there to support life, however there are many factors in the tank which would not yet be perfectly stable, the tank is not yet mature.

however as with the end of fishless cycling i'd always advise people to just give it a couple of days more, double check your results are stable.

there are thousands of chemical interactions going on in your tank at this point, various things are settling down and stabilising, just give it a few days if everythigns still good then you know your good to go

 

[andywg]

If you are going to buy fully cured LR and then wait you might as well buy uncured.

Cured means there is no more die off of the organisms in transit (any fauna that has not made the trek from sea to lfs). The only thing that will start dying in the transit is going to be the bacteria that you want. Putting them in a tank without any ammonia source is going to start starving that bacteria, meaning the longer you leave the cured rock in the tank without some stock the more of the bacteria you wanted and developed in curing are going to die.

We had this discussion about two years ago and Nav pointed out that if you buy cured LR and then leave it, it is going to lose all the benefits of buying cured. Unless you are dropping food into the tank (or ammonia) to let the bacteria have something to feed on then leaving cured rock is just a waste of time and effort.

Put it in a FW context. How often would we tell people to put in fully cycled filter media, and then wait a week before adding fish? We wouldn't, because in that time the colony will have started to die off and will not be as useful to us as right at the start. MW's point on fishless cycling is slightly different as in a fishless cycle in FW one is constantly feeding the bacteria with ammonia, so the bacteria do not die from being left.

I am not just discussing the above from a theoretical side. Every one of my FW tanks is cloned from the original tank I had (now serving as a marine sump). Every one of my SW tanks was set up with LR and had stock in from day one. That's 10 tanks all set up and running with no issues or spikes from mature filter media (and let's be honest, that is all cured LR is, mature filter media).

So I am sorry SH, I am, and probably always will be, a "plopper".

I am a little upset that a mod on the SW forum feels it is appropriate to mock anyone who adopts a different way of creating their tanks to him by labelling them a humorous name. I doubt SH would like it if I named him a "cheap-skate" for not filling his tank with Tunze related goods and started adding pics like the below:

The SW forum suffers greatly from effectively only having one outlook on how to do SW tanks. Having a mod make fun of any other way does not aid the forum in bettering itself and gaining a full understanding of the SW hobby, but rather closes the minds of anyone else who comes looking down this end of the board.