Help on cycling.

[NanaReefer]

Neither one of us said flow doesn't matter. But we are challenging your statement that, " more flow means faster cycle" as for us being the only ones who think this is not so, can be easily remedied.
Take a poll!

 

[juggalogentry]

you can do quite a few things to help the cycling process go along well. remember the first golden rule of reef keeping (everything good happens slow, everything bad happens fast) so note how i said help it along, and did not say speed things up. first, the live rock and sand will have dead and decaying matter on and in it unless you go thru a rigorous cure phase for it. This alone will start your cycle but you can also "feed your tank" and just throw a pinch of food in every once n a while. Test every few days. There are some really good bacteria suppliments out there too if you do your research you can find the right one, and when you get the bacteria remember, you cannot overdose the tank with it Yes you can (but should not) cycle with fish, even though they may "Look" fine, their internal organs are almost positively being damaged. Not cool

 

[ReeferRookie]

I heard the more flow story and ive never put it to use but i would think it would ve slower ? Wouldn't it be harder for bacteria to settle

 

[Xbreakxitxdownx]

So I have allege growing on my sand it's brown also small green hair allege on my tank how much more should I go with out a CUC. My levels are still high.

 

[ReeferRookie]

Welcome to the sport. Green hair algae happens when u have nutients like i.did. itll be around for awhile. Dont be scared. Get ur tank cycled add a cuc and ull he good

 

[Xbreakxitxdownx]

What kind of CUC should I get

 

[tyler1503]

Wait till ammonia and nitrite hold at 0 for a few days then add a small CUC.
For algae I recommend turbo snails and astraea snails. For fresh uneaten food I recommend nassarius snails and for detritus and older food the nassarius don't like I recommend ceriths. Hermits are good for uneaten food too, but some people have issues with them. A personal favourite of mine are the sea urchins, but they need a large and well established tank.
Start out with a small CUC and add more if you need to. For example, in my 120 I plan to have 2 turbos, 10 nassarius, 2 hermits and about 10 ceriths.
A lot of people are adding hundreds of snails to their tanks and wondering why they last a few weeks then die. They don't realise there was only enough food for a few weeks then they starved to death. If you start slow you can adjust the numbers of each species to find a balance between how fast the food supply is being eaten and how fast it can grow.
Best case scenario would be to add your carnivorous CUC during week one of the tank being able to support life. That way you can feed them and develop a small amount of algae so when you add your herbivores during week 2 or 3 there's already a supply of food for them. But this isn't always a realistic plan.
The brown stuff is probably the diatom bloom. This usually happens at around 3-6 months into a new tank but can happen earlier. It should die off on it's own.
The green hair algae will need to be cleaned up by a mixture of the CUC, water changes and manual removal.
Good luck!

 

[Xbreakxitxdownx]