Cycling and LR questions

Noah707 · Jan 20, 2015

Hey everyone, going to get this show on the road within a few weeks hopefully. Got the tank, most of the equipment, and some knowledge

. Just waiting on the rodi and protein skimmer. I'm considering adding dry rock to the display and DFS refugium rubble to the HOB refugium. Do you think this stuff will actually cycle the tank? Or is it just..rocks? I'm also looking at getting live sand if I do go the dry rock route. Thoughts? Also where's a good place to buy live rock from? Is DFS premium fiji any good? I know this sounds childish but I'm kinda disgusted by worms and that's why I'm pretty sure I'll go with dry rock haha... Who knows though maybe I'll end up with worm infested Florida rock, I'll keep my mind open.

Reefing Madness · Jan 20, 2015

Dry Rock won't cycle the tank, and using just Live Sand or some rubble would take you forever, what ya need to do is dose ammonia or throw a grocery store bought jumbo shrimp in a net, and lay the net in the tank, leave it there the whole cycle, that will more than cycle your tank, and be more than ready for fish when its done.
I like and have bought Marco rocks, good stuff.

Noah707 · Jan 20, 2015

I may end up just going with LR as it has so many benefits to outweigh the negatives, and it seems like a tried and true way to cycle a tank. Guess I'll just try to find some pre cured rock and do a high salinity dip before I add it to the tank, hopefully that will at least get out the sizable ones..

Thunderfan · Jan 20, 2015

I did all dry rock with live sand. I used fritz zyme turbo start 900 and then added ammonia to get it to 2ppm. I was cycled in about 6 days. Did a 10% water change and was ready to rock and roll. I added some snails and crabs and waited another week just to be safe while I decided what fish I wanted to add. Checked water a few times that week and everything was still good. I added 2 fish and some coral this weekend and everything is doing great. I didn't want to use love rock because what I've seen locally didn't look that good, is 3 times the cost of dry, and I did not want the hitchhiker problems that seems to always come with it.

Loves2Reef · Feb 1, 2015

Three times now ive cycled my tank with live rock, live sand, some water fron another cycled tank and smartstart (or biostart or some kind of live bacteria) works really well and tank can be used few days after putting it all in. Most of the bacteria bottles say overnight but wouldnt chance it that much.