Adding crabs and corals before cycle is done

[brandon429]

nice follow up that's so cool. someone will use that same visual cue system and be sure of theirs now

 

[bacc2bacc]

Send it!

 

[Goose91]

nice follow up that's so cool. someone will use that same visual cue system and be sure of theirs now

One more little piece of info to add, i had also dropped a piece of frozen shrimp in at the begining to start the cycle, after it was in there for a week and now ammonia spike i took it out, figured what i had purchased was correct and already had the necessary bacteria to consome the ammonia, confirmed a week later when i added 6 snails, 2 hermits, a fire shrimp, 1 coral beauty and 1 spotted dotty. Again never got a reading from ammonia.

But i certainly appareciate the help from everyone here, learned an incredible amount in a super short time from starting with the knoweldge of reef tanks are cool alreading craving that big 300gallon
Thanks again everyone, yall rock! Cheers!

 

[brandon429]

HELP NEEDED ! has my tank cycled?

hi , can anyone advise me on cycling as this is my first tank,125litres, 15 days in with live rock , testing jbl ; ammonia 0,6 , nitrate 10, nitrite 0,6 ,it says on the jbl test chart that my ammonia and nitrite are not good, not sure if the algae should be there, i would appreciate any imput.

www.reef2reef.com

that thread is a carbon copy to yours. Its neat how these similar actions and items always have the same tie-in

while that live rock wasn't nearly as coralline capped as yours + worms etc, it has algae bearding and that's the exact same indicator of submersion time.

Its not possible to have algae adhered to a wet rock and that rock not be cycled pretty neat trick for identifying cycles. of course if someone takes time to apply antibiotics to the rock and sustain it X number of months lol it might go sterile, but who does that

algae/coralline/fanworms/sponges = whatever they're attached to is cycled.

 

[Goose91]

Ah that is an interesting tidbit of info i didnt stop to think about. The light i purchased for my tank arrived a couple days after i had it setup and running. After a day of the light running i already had algea growing. It was definitely an indicator that i didnt know about at the time.

I imagen these posts will always continue with newbies to the hobby, as there is just so much info to take in when you first start, and rather overwhelming till your hands have been wet for a month or so.

 

[brandon429]

and you know the best part is that we don't have to use that info to rush anything. the benefit in knowing when a tank is a skip cycle tank is merely knowing that 1st date bacteria can be relied upon to do a task, not die, while moving into our new home

and it also directly saves $. Universally people want to buy bottle bacteria, just in case.

But in 16 pages of skip cycle calls/works there's never been a case we needed it. Bottle bac is used solely for group A rock cycling (dry rocks not live) we simply don't need it for live rock tank transfers.

Understanding what bacteria do literally saves you money across the board- no unneeded retail waste, and no loss from your system when you know how cycles work independent of testers. you can clean, move, upgrade, downgrade etc and not lose $ when you are certain of how bacteria work. You will not have to own an ammonia test kit, because with a tank picture or an in-person glance at the tank that too can be discerned.

 

[Nighthawk]

IMO again depending on what your 'live rock is' - and especially if you add a bacteria supplement such as Fritz 900 - you shoudl be safe to add crabs, snails after 2 weeks. I would not add corals for a longer period. I would get some fish in and thriving first (start small and build your fish population). IME - snails and crabs, hermits, etc - can survive in harsh conditions as compared to corals and fish.

Thanks for sharing your personal advice. The information that you provided is what I had been seeking.