New tank never "cycled"

Jsusisaliv · Mar 13, 2016

I just had to post this to brag a little bit. I purchased myself a 75 gallon aquarium a little over a month ago. I put 80 lbs of live sand in it and filled it with treated water. I treated it with aquarium life Activate aquarium starter and cleaner. They claim it quickly cycles new aquariums, reduces dangerous ammonia spikes, accelerates bio filter performance etc etc. any how I scored big by finding 100lbs of established live rock from a guy who was moving. It even had some mushrooms and other soft corals growing on it so it was very well established. I put it all in 5 gallon buckets of the original water and drove 30 minutes and dropped it in my tank. It flourished! Then a few days later I went and bought a couple clown fish, mandarin, one skunk shrimp and believe it or not a large Maxima Clam! I also established a 12 gallon refugium with a big ball of chaeto I got from a friend and deep sea mud and some of that live rock I scored. So now it's been almost one month since I added the fish and clam and my water has always tested perfect. I tested it every day for the first week while changing roughly 20 gallons of the water. I dropped the water changes to about 10 gallon a week and testing the water about every other day. Everything stayed absolutely perfect. No nitrate or ammonia spikes. My PH was way low at first but finally leveled out at around 8.2-8.3 and had stayed there. My nitrates were also at zero for the longest time but have slightly risen now to 5.0. I now do about 5 gal water changes per week and yes I do feed my clam. Picked up a emerald clam today because I do have a little hair algae growing. Now I know many of you are thinking my mandarin will starve but I bought him for a reason. My tank is absolutely swarming with copepods, amphipods and zooplankton, you would not believe the amount I have in the tank! There would be people kill to have the amount I have already. I knew a Mandarin would be fat and happy. I took a picture of the small copepods, zooplankton but I can't catch the amphipods. They stay in the rock at night. But if I wait an hour or so after the lights are out and shine a light on the rocks they look like roaches running everywhere scrambling back into the Rock. They are pretty large too. Well anyhow I'll try to post some pics. I'm extremely happy on how my tank is doing. It's acting like a well established aquarium! Maybe later I'll eat my words but I doubt it. I think it is possible to set up an aquarium without the dangerous cycling if you do everything correct. Of course my LFS told me it was mostly due to my established live rock. Anyhow regardless it is possible to have a saltwater tank set up without the dangerous cycling. But I think the key is established live rock. Maybe the Activate helped a lot also, who's to know but obviously I did everything right. I also did not dump a crap load of fish all at once. I have only roughly 6 inches of fish! Of course I'll be adding more "slowly" anyone else have the luck I have had with their new aquarium?

shoelaceike · Mar 13, 2016

Yes this has everything to do with live rock. The rock is what people cycle when they talk of cycling a tank. Assuming there was no die off, your tank is now as old and established as the guy you bought your rock from (alomost)

I personally think this way is much better then cycling as you get a ton of live critters and such as well as much more bacteria. Of course you risk pests which is why a lot of people start with dry or cured rock.

Jsusisaliv · Mar 13, 2016

Guess you are confirming what I've heard. Guess that makes perfect sense. Good news for me though! I'm tickled at my score of the established live rock.

pondman · Mar 14, 2016

Nice looking tank you have. Just keep up on maintenance and you'll be good.

brandon429 · Mar 14, 2016

I will link this to my thread about skip cycling. I have skip cycled every marine tank ive ever owned, cycles are optional and fully controllable. the cycling additive was optional, same outcome without it. there are reasons to go slow that include verifying hardware integrity, giving time for beneficial food chains to develop that's for sure. but biologically yes a cycle can be skipped, and in some cases its required such as broken tank seals and emergency hospital setups to prevent total loss. I skipped my cycles because in my pico reefs I don't use fish, didn't need a food web beyond what retail feeds provide to be successful.

Duke4Life · Mar 14, 2016

My 125g didn't take long, bought the rock off someone who's tank broke. I'd still be patient as rushing can get you into trouble in this hobby.

Tautog · Mar 14, 2016

My tank never cycled either. And I was told it may not, and never did. I started with 100 lbs. Bermuda pink, 60 lbs. live sand, and 85 lbs. Tonga stick. I'm running since May . My sump contains my Reef Octopus, refuge, ChemiPure, return pump. I add a gallon of R/O everyday

Nick92515 · Mar 14, 2016

Only thing I would worry about is as your nutrient levels start to drop so will your pod population. Good to have a big fuge.

larangcon · Mar 14, 2016

Good job!!! that's the benefit of placing a well established live rock in a new tank, but keep an eye on the tank, you'll never know what might trigger an algae bloom.

brandon429 · Mar 14, 2016

agreed to that. I think after running this cycling thread below for a while this has become apparent:
http://reef2reef.com/threads/new-ta...d-cocktail-shrimp-live-rock-no-shrimp.214618/

cycling as the collective term is being applied to the actions we take with live rock, and the same actions being applied to cycling dry rock, and I claim them actually to be fully opposite. You cycle when you have to

adding food webs and making sure hardware works is not cycling its prudent though

cycling is about bacteria, and basic bioload support. all else is maturation.

a good aquarist is nimble when needed or to benefit the enjoyment process

people think we are trying to cause reef anarchy with skip cycling and its not the case, its for the biological ability to do so, the ability to call it ahead of time and run it then look back on it as success. it shouldn't be done in all cases, choose cases accordingly. if I was moving a giant old reef between homes id surely want to skip a recycle.

briancarterkc · Mar 14, 2016

I started with all Tampa Bay Saltwater Liverock and never had a cycle either. They ship it in water right after taking it from the floor of their free-range rock farm in the ocean. So there's no die off and it's ready to go.

The one thing I think that needs to be added to this thread for posterity though...you really shouldn't jump straight to fish until you verify your tank's ability to handle a bio load. Easiest way to do this is to get some pure ammonia, add a little at a time (about 2 mg/L would do it) until you can see about 2ppm on your test kit (remind me again why we never adopted the metric system in the US?). It should cycle through testable amounts of ammonia, then to zero as you get testable amounts of nitrite, then to zero as you read nitrates. All that should take less than 12 hours. If you can test 3ppm of ammonia and get 0ppm 12 hours later, you are ready.

Tautog · Mar 17, 2016

I started a local fish tank with local everything. Bay water, sand, mud, fish, shrimp, crabs. I'm still doing water changes every 3 weeks with bay water. 25% . Tank is running almost 4 months, and haven't lost a fish. I did have about 20 shrimp, but someone got hungry, I'm down to 9.

brandon429 · Mar 17, 2016

Chimono it's ok to critique us

Skip cycles are askin for it. Science emerges in repeatability and under strong skepticism

There is an instant demand factor in electronics, and reefing now, that used to be touted bad but meeting that demand repeatably is fun emerging science. There are certain retail dosers and feeds and home biohacks that simply have changed the rules. sometimes an instant demand reef is due to a move, or broken seals main tank...legit reasons. Sometimes it's for mere on demand reef, I for one am ok with that and do opt for it exclusively after watching the slow, etching torture in online posts of waiting for white base rock to become purple. In other posts ammonia is dosed here or there again with no trust in live rock biology or transfer technique that avoids benthic life loss.

If it wasn't for skip cycling I would absolutely not be reefing I've no patience for curing. I'd rather watch molasses drip in the winter

These tanks I'd never skip cycle without testing accurately:
Uses uncured live ocean rock
Uses uncured dry base rock or rock shipped with dried beef jerky organics in and on it
Rocks I just got shipped online, I'd watch them a bit first

Tanks I would skip cycle:
Any reef tank using the purple cured live rock sitting mos and mos at my lfs. I will place it in a stack in my trunk in the air, drive home, and set up a ten year reef w frags as soon as it has water in it.