Nano Barebottom Tank Cycle

Victor Felix · Jul 12, 2023

I´m building my first reef tank!

It's a 10g barebottom tank, using dry rock, HOB filter, Radion XR15 and a gyro for flow.

For cycling I intend to use a small piece of live rock inside the HOB, some bio media and Microbacter7.

I see a lot of people failing to set barebottom tanks. Do you have any tips to help me succeed with mine?

brandon429 · Jul 12, 2023

yes there's a perfect way to make that planned arrangement work, without any testing, and you'll be cycled by determining a known number of wait days. since you're using slow mb7 as opposed to ten day bacteria: Dr. Tims, fritz, or biospira, do this:

set up all that together along with heated/reef salinity water and add in one pinch of fish food that you ground to powder in your hand, add it in day one.

wait 30 days, change out most of the water for new, and you're cycled. there's a reason we're waiting thirty days and its the perfect wait time for a testless cycle to complete. have rocks stacked in the display to house the attached bacteria.

brandon429 · Jul 12, 2023

being bare bottom has no bearing on the cycle. if you have rocks in the display to take on the bacteria that will produce over the 30 day's time, that rock will be cycled along with the media in the water loop. the live rock added is already cycled and doesn't matter. interesting factors in your cycle decoding:

waiting 30 days with just the live rock alone would cycle the whole system. it's bacteria transmit off the surfaces and are cast around to the rest of the tank

that setup minus the live rock, with just the mb7 and fish feed, would equally cycle by day 30 of wait time, testing for nothing.

if you did fish food only, no live rock, no mb7, you'd still have the same cycle at day 30 wait. so the combination of those three cycle boosts 100% means you'll be ready by day 30. theres nothing to test: assemble the stuff, wait the time, begin reefing day 30 after a big water change.

X-37B · Jul 12, 2023

That small of a system I would use all live rock for the scape. No need to put any in the hob. This will be your cycle and you can avoid the heavy ugly phase you get with dead.