Cycling Question

[muhnandr]

Hello,

Been out to the hobby for years and am now cycling my new tank. Going with dry rock and live sand. About to dose BioSpira. Question is how I should run my skimmer (if at all) and lighting schedule after adding the bacteria? Thanks

 

[Tahoe61]

It's a personal preference really.

Some leave the lights out hoping that the initial algae, and diatoms stage is less severe.
Some leave the skimmer off to prevent removal of the product and organics that help initiate the cycle.

With dry rock the system is going to take a couple weeks at least to cycle enough to handle any bio-load so I would just leave everything off but flow for now.

There really is no right or wrong way.

Welcome back to the hobby.