Cycling New Tank

[LeonThePeon]

So I'm about 9 months behind on where I wanted to be on setting up my 12' tank and I'm trying to encourage myself by just getting one piece of equipment in and wired each day or two.

Question - What's needed to cycle a tank? I want to fill the tank up with water and at least get the ammonium chloride in to get the cycle started. But I still have things to do under the tank (sump/APEX/UPS/etc)

Can I just fill it up, put the Ammonium chloride in, some live sand/rock, and a couple gyres/wav circulating the water (but below the overflow line)? Heater is in the sump - I guess I could move it in the tank temporarily - but the water should stay well above 74F

Thoughts?

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I think that sounds like a good idea. I don't think that would hurt anything at all. Time is your best friend in this hobby.

 

[Daniel91]

You should not be dosing ammonium with live rock.

Other wise you are good to go

 

[brandon429]

Two types of cycles:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

Only one gets ammonia good call

 

[IslandLifeReef]

You should not be dosing ammonium with live rock.

Other wise you are good to go

Yeah, I thought he said live sand and rock, meaning dry rock. If it's live rock, no ammonia.

 

[LeonThePeon]

I've got all dry rock right now - I thought about adding some live rock, but probably won't.

So if I'm doing dry rock + bottled bac + ammonium chloride, I should NOT add live sand? (I don't think I've ever seen anything but live sand in stores... Unless I drive to the beach and take home some... I wonder if that's theft...? Haha!)

 

[Daniel91]

You can definitely do live sand with ammonium dosing.

I do not know when it was decided to express it as “live” sand as it is not.

It has also been proving to have such a very very minimal effect on setting up/functioning as a biofilter. It’s more for aesthetic than anything

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I've got all dry rock right now - I thought about adding some live rock, but probably won't.

So if I'm doing dry rock + bottled bac + ammonium chloride, I should NOT add live sand? (I don't think I've ever seen anything but live sand in stores... Unless I drive to the beach and take home some... I wonder if that's theft...? Haha!)

Yes, you can use live sand and do the fishless cycle using ammonia. Make sure you rinse the sand well to avoid any issues down the road. Check out @brandon429 's post about cleaning sand.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/