New tank Cycling

[Luckyduck]

Hello fellow reefers. I am setting up a new tank. 5 gallon nano. I still have a couple days before setup so hopefully I can find my answer before hand. I have Aragalive sand which contains natural bacteria. I have two different avenues I can take for speeding up my cycle. I have the Red Sea Reef Mature kit & I also have the Brightwell Aquatics Starter XLM along with the Brightwell QuikCycl. I believe I'm going to go with the Brightwell products but wanted my peers opinions. Also it says on Brightwell's website that you do not want to mix products as the bacteria likley being different strands would fight each other and that would make the products worthless. I'm sure that is true so I'm also afraid with the Aragalive sand having bacteria already in it I might have that problem using either of the starters. Not sure....

 

[Copingwithpods]

You won't have any trouble with either product and your live sand just remember slow is good in this hobby. Don't rush your cycle it's a very delicate time for your tank. Extra time spent here can save you tons of time later down the road.

 

[Reeffragger]

Unless you tripple dose the recomended bacteria on a good name brand of bacteria.. itll still take weeks to fully cycle.. All you can do is wait. Just make sure you add some kind of ammonia to the tank via flake food or some other food

 

[Luckyduck]

You won't have any trouble with either product and your live sand just remember slow is good in this hobby. Don't rush your cycle it's a very delicate time for your tank. Extra time spent here can save you tons of time later down the road.

Oh that makes me so happy to hear! I'm not new to the hobby; just took a break so I'm aware of slow going in the beginning. And time... Hmmm let me see... Well thanks to NYS quarantine I have nothing but time! Lol I am a bartender so I'm not going back to work anytime soon so I'll be able to give my tank plenty of TLC in the beginning. Thanks for the good news my friend!

 

[Luckyduck]

Unless you tripple dose the recomended bacteria on a good name brand of bacteria.. itll still take weeks to fully cycle.. All you can do is wait. Just make sure you add some kind of ammonia to the tank via flake food or some other food

Okay, I have some prime reef left over from my last tanks (took a 7 year break from reefing). I will be monitoring all my levels very closely in the cycling stage. I spent almost $200 on test kits! I had a bad habit of not testing before. I will be much more on top of things this time. I always kept beautiful tanks; maybe just dumb luck but this time I want to bring out the full potential in my corals. Thanks for the info friend.

 

[brandon429]

Top option above all:

skip the cycle. Buy live rock that has coralline on it, from a current reef system at the lfs

not a live rock holding bin, from a tank. The # it takes to fill a 5 g nano can be found in many places. You aren’t skipping the cycle to be a rogue rule breaker, for street cred lol it’s because moving existing live rock to your home keeps all its maturity in place. This arrangement is least likely to get you dinos, which is the worst invasion currently in reefing. Find already working live rock and transport to your home, and your reef tank will be as old as the rock you just moved. Nobody counts the glass portion of a reef as the functional surface area, your live rock sets your reef age. Make a very old, new reef. Secret of the old order picos.

if that’s not ideal, then dry rock cycle it works like this: buy fritz or biospira marine tank cycling bac, add half the bottle. Put in several drops of ammonia and a pinch of fish food (I took notes on your study Dr Reef well done) and then wait two weeks as that all stews.


change out your water. Begin, its cycled. It can’t not be cycled, testing doesn’t apply due to wait time and boosters added. Live rock skip cycle transfers are also testless moves, we already know how ammonia will turn out in both types of cycle.

 

[Luckyduck]

I did not want to use Live Rock as I will then transport all of the unwanted pests into my new clean pest free aquarium. I like the idea but already have the cycle starts purchased. I have never heard anything bad about the Brightwell products in fact have heard they're the best of the market. I will keep close eye on the dinos and if I need to hault the cycle and black out the tank I will. As always testing to know where I'm at will help in the process. I have 8 different tests I can do and can always run to my local reef store if I need further testing. I have been doing Saltwater tanks for almost 10 years I just took a break for a few but am dying to get back into it! Thanks for all the info. I feel Reef 2 Reef is going to be a great community to be a part of!