Lights On or off during cycle...?

[Uscanga2311]

Hi R2R family:

what are you guys, I'm going to start cycling with my tank, I'll use the mature pro kit from Red Sea, my question is this: in the kit manual it says to keep a cycle of 10 hours of light, but I've heard many recommendations from Do not occupy light to prevent the creation of algae inside the tank. what do you recommend doing?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Lights do not need to be on during your cycle

 

[vertigo01]

I cycled my 150 without light and all was fine. No algea of any kind.
As soon as I installed and turned the lights on, guess what showed Up?
The diatom bloom.

I honestly don' think it matters 1 way or the other. The new tank uglies are still going to rear their ugly head.

 

[Uscanga2311]

Lights do not need to be on during your cycle

could affect the process of the Mature Pro Kit of Redsea?

 

[Uscanga2311]

I cycled my 150 without light and all was fine. No algea of any kind.
As soon as I installed and turned the lights on, guess what showed Up?
The diatom bloom.

I honestly don' think it matters 1 way or the other. The new tank uglies are still going to rear their ugly head.

could affect the process of the Mature Pro Kit of Redsea

 

[Crabs McJones]

could affect the process of the Mature Pro Kit of Redsea?

That's a good question as it does say in the instructions to set lighting period for 10 hours a day. Just to be safe, and not mess up the test kit, turn the lights on. But generally they're not required.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I say no lights, but if you are cycling with live rock and want to keep stuff on the rock intact, a short photoperiod of low blue light might be beneficial. For my own tank when I cycle with live rock, I plan on a week dark and then 10-20% blues after for 3-4 hours a day until the cycle is complete. Of course, with live rock obtained locally, one might not have much of a protracted cycle either.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I’d follow the Red Sea reccomendations.
What they are doing is allowing the possible photosynthesic organisms time to bloom and fade, or establish. Diatoms and corraline beingng two exaplnles.

No, you don’t need lights on for bacteria. But the term “cycle “ is often blurred, and confused with the ugly phase.

 

[Uscanga2311]

I’d follow the Red Sea reccomendations.
What they are doing is allowing the possible photosynthesic organisms time to bloom and fade, or establish. Diatoms and corraline beingng two exaplnles.

No, you don’t need lights on for bacteria. But the term “cycle “ is often blurred, and confused with the ugly phase.

o right! So you've used the Mature Pro kit, and at the end of it all the algae disappear? As your personal advice, should I follow the instructions to the letter?

 

[Uscanga2311]

I say no lights, but if you are cycling with live rock and want to keep stuff on the rock intact, a short photoperiod of low blue light might be beneficial. For my own tank when I cycle with live rock, I plan on a week dark and then 10-20% blues after for 3-4 hours a day until the cycle is complete. Of course, with live rock obtained locally, one might not have much of a protracted cycle either.

i will use dry rock, but my question its more for the Mature Pro kit, instructions. 10 hours of light

 

[Uscanga2311]

That's a good question as it does say in the instructions to set lighting period for 10 hours a day. Just to be safe, and not mess up the test kit, turn the lights on. But generally they're not required.

i will do that bro, thank You!

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

o right! So you've used the Mature Pro kit, and at the end of it all the algae disappear? As your personal advice, should I follow the instructions to the letter?

No I just did a lot of the research on it and did a lot of the comparisons to other methods. Honestly, they are all the same and just have different levels of complexity.

So it’s a very good , pretty easily understandable method IMO. I actually reccomend to folks looking at other methods to read the Red Sea stuff.

And yea, try to follow it. It’s good stuff and you’ll not mix methods.
As you keep going and reading I think you’ll find the similarities and understand a lot of the sciences.

 

[mcarroll]

mature pro kit from Red Sea

To answer the question in the title directly: Until you have photosynthetic critters you want to grow in there. (you know with your eyeballs)

Can anyone explain what the kit is in a little more detail? I'm not sure how may folks have heard of it.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

To answer the question in the title directly: Until you have photosynthetic critters you want to grow in there. (you know with your eyeballs)

Can anyone explain what the kit is in a little more detail? I'm not sure how may folks have heard of it.

Check out the Red Sea web site. It’s an easy read. You’ll like it.
All the Kiss principals laid out pretty well.
Only a few head scratchers.

 

[grassy_noel]

I realize your cycle may be complete by now, but...

I recently cycled a tank using the Red Sea Reef Mature Pro Kit. I also used dry rock and after some deliberation decided to cycle with the lights off. This did not cause any problems at all. I will say that my cycle took closer to 40 days, but I think that's because of the dry rock and not the lack of lights. I believe Red Sea recommends using lights during the cycle because they assume you're starting with live rock which would have coralline algae, and perhaps beneficial macro algae, which you wouldn't want to die during the cycle due to lack of lights. Because I used dry rock, I also didn't use the KH Coralline grow much at all, because nothing was lowering my alkalinity during the cycle. It hovered right around 10 during the whole cycle.

Red Sea's recommendation to use lights may also have to do with "getting the uglies out" as some have already mentioned. Sure enough a couple weeks after I turned the lights on I did get a diatom bloom on my substrate.

I was really happy with how my cycle went using the Red Sea Reef Mature Pro kit, and I was glad I waited to turn the lights on.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I realize your cycle may be complete by now, but...

I recently cycled a tank using the Red Sea Reef Mature Pro Kit. I also used dry rock and after some deliberation decided to cycle with the lights off. This did not cause any problems at all. I will say that my cycle took closer to 40 days, but I think that's because of the dry rock and not the lack of lights. I believe Red Sea recommends using lights during the cycle because they assume you're starting with live rock which would have coralline algae, and perhaps beneficial macro algae, which you wouldn't want to die during the cycle due to lack of lights. Because I used dry rock, I also didn't use the KH Coralline grow much at all, because nothing was lowering my alkalinity during the cycle. It hovered right around 10 during the whole cycle.

Red Sea's recommendation to use lights may also have to do with "getting the uglies out" as some have already mentioned. Sure enough a couple weeks after I turned the lights on I did get a diatom bloom on my substrate.

I was really happy with how my cycle went using the Red Sea Reef Mature Pro kit, and I was glad I waited to turn the lights on.

The nitrogen cycle took 40 days?

 

[grassy_noel]

The nitrogen cycle took 40 days?

I guess I should qualify...

The Red Sea Reef Mature Pro program took ~40 days. The instructions in the program include the following stages of the cycle: 1) the ammonia spike occurs, 2) the nitrite spike occurs, 3) the nitrate level rises (this might technically be when the cycle is complete, which took about 2-3 weeks), and 4) the nitrate level falls below 10ppm using NoPoX carbon dosing. For me, it took approximately 40 days with dry rock for the nitrate level to fall from over 50ppm to below 10ppm.

 

[mcarroll]

So they have you carbon dosing during the break in period? Can't agree with that.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

So they have you carbon dosing during the break in period? Can't agree with that.

Forced maturation. Increasing the good bacterial populations. Also controlled under the program by closely monitoring nutints. So it’s not a Willy nilly dosing.

I guess I should qualify...

The Red Sea Reef Mature Pro program took ~40 days. The instructions in the program include the following stages of the cycle: 1) the ammonia spike occurs, 2) the nitrite spike occurs, 3) the nitrate level rises (this might technically be when the cycle is complete, which took about 2-3 weeks), and 4) the nitrate level falls below 10ppm using NoPoX carbon dosing. For me, it took approximately 40 days with dry rock for the nitrate level to fall from over 50ppm to below 10ppm.

Ah got it. So it wasn’t the cycle at all but a possibility of just having higher organics on your rock leading to higher no3 levels.
In all lilkley hood under the program the carbon dose would have been increased or water changes Reccomended.

And nothing to do with Light.

I also don’t belive the RS is based on live rock use. A real live rock needs no forced maturation , B although it’s been a while since I’ve read it , I would assume there are contingency for the use of live , wild , or dry rock in the instructions, C live rock refers to the bacterial component. I can make dry (mined) rock live in a bucket and have zero photosynthetic organisms. Those need to be introduced.

 

[mcarroll]

I'm definitely off track if the question is still about whether the lights should be on...so apologies to the OP if needed...hopefully this is all interesting! It is to me!

Increasing the good bacterial populations.

Unless you're starting with a sterile medium and pure culture, that seems like a roll of the dice.

In real life cases, carbon dosing itself seems to be ecologically destabilizing. Reefs are carbon limited and apparently kinda depend on that to allow the dominance of the proper photosynthetics (which make their own carbon).

In absence of that domination (say...due to carbon source dosing; or pollution), you get domination by an alternate set of characters (so-called harmful algae or "HAB's") and consequent health issues among the higher animals. This trend holds in the wild across many different pest species and aquatic environments and seems well-represented in reef aquariums as well.