Pico Reef Cycling Questions

[D_Yurik]

Hello everyone! After many years of owning FW Aquariums and always wanting to jump into reefing, I decided to jump all in a go difficult right away! I have a 4 gallon tank that sits on my desk for that ocean vibe. Its been running for a total of 5 days with live sand and live rock. I'm currently waiting for my test kit to get here from amazon but meanwhile, I've notice in the last day and a half an algae bloom that has begun on a section of rock and it has allot of bubble forming and raising to the top of the tank (see photos below). Is this normal during the cycle? I haven't added any inverts yet as I want to be sure all of my levels are spot on. I'm a very patient person, so there is no rush unless someone thinks otherwise. I have also noticed a handful of extremely small micro-organisms on the glass which I'm assuming is a good thing. Is anyone able to confirm the algae bloom and bubbles being part of the cycle and confirm the small micro-organisms are in fact a good thing? Thank you all in advance, and I'm looking forward to this long awaited adventure in reefing.

 

[Spare time]

Is that live rock or just carib sea "life" rock?

 

[D_Yurik]

Is that live rock or just carib sea "life" rock?

My understanding from the aquarium shop i bought it at is that its cured live rock.

 

[Tired]

As in, rock that came from the ocean and has been allowed to finish any die-off that wanted to happen, or rock that was dumped in some water for a bit until bacteria grew on it? You might want to give them a call and find out. If it's cured ocean live rock, that tank is cycled.

Algae blooms are a normal part of a new tank. The small organisms are probably copepods- tiny white dots that move in twitchy patterns on the glass. They'll hide when/if you add a fish.

(Make sure it's a suitable fish. A trimma goby, clown goby, or maybe a barnacle blenny. Something tiny, that perches in one spot most of the time.)

 

[brandon429]

This is a skip cycle setup per pics. No testing required, it's a zero cycle, running as stable within 1 minute of tank setup as it will be running on day 1000, a skip cycle. Example is back edited into this collection:

A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

This is a testless cycling thread, we don't want ammonia testing here for any job if possible, because we are teaching reefers/readers that moving live rocks system to system does not restart the cycle: many in our community don't understand that rule and feel that any tank being setup simply...

www.reef2reef.com

The pics show exact curing to aquarium level matching the known history of the rock along with absence of sponges, tunicates, large stands of algae to rot. We can see by looking, with no other detail provided, this is a skip cycle setup.

 

[D_Yurik]

As in, rock that came from the ocean and has been allowed to finish any die-off that wanted to happen, or rock that was dumped in some water for a bit until bacteria grew on it? You might want to give them a call and find out. If it's cured ocean live rock, that tank is cycled.

Algae blooms are a normal part of a new tank. The small organisms are probably copepods- tiny white dots that move in twitchy patterns on the glass. They'll hide when/if you add a fish.

(Make sure it's a suitable fish. A trimma goby, clown goby, or maybe a barnacle blenny. Something tiny, that perches in one spot most of the time.)

As far as the rock, the later is correct according to the store. Rock dumped in water and let bacteria grow on it.. Wasn't planning any fish, just some inverts. Really wanted just a coral planted tank.

 

[D_Yurik]

This is a skip cycle setup per pics. No testing required, it's a zero cycle, running as stable within 1 minute of tank setup as it will be running on day 1000, a skip cycle. Example is back edited into this collection:

A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

This is a testless cycling thread, we don't want ammonia testing here for any job if possible, because we are teaching reefers/readers that moving live rocks system to system does not restart the cycle: many in our community don't understand that rule and feel that any tank being setup simply...

www.reef2reef.com

The pics show exact curing to aquarium level matching the known history of the rock along with absence of sponges, tunicates, large stands of algae to rot. We can see by looking, with no other detail provided, this is a skip cycle setup.

So does this mean I'm ready to add corals? just planning a small frag here and there for a while.

 

[D_Yurik]

As in, rock that came from the ocean and has been allowed to finish any die-off that wanted to happen, or rock that was dumped in some water for a bit until bacteria grew on it? You might want to give them a call and find out. If it's cured ocean live rock, that tank is cycled.

Algae blooms are a normal part of a new tank. The small organisms are probably copepods- tiny white dots that move in twitchy patterns on the glass. They'll hide when/if you add a fish.

(Make sure it's a suitable fish. A trimma goby, clown goby, or maybe a barnacle blenny. Something tiny, that perches in one spot most of the time.)

With the Algae bloom, does that go away on its own, or only with inverts/chemicals?

 

[Katrina71]

Time. There will be many changes.

 

[Cell]

Time for a little snail!

 

[Tired]

Algae blooms in new tanks because the fast-growing pest algaes are having fun with the lack of competition. You should stock an appropriate cleanup crew to eat the algae. Given time and reasonable nutrients, not too high and not too low, slower-growing beneficial algae will get the upper hand and the pest algae will fade out.

 

[Spare time]

My understanding from the aquarium shop i bought it at is that its cured live rock.

Ah ok so you bought it wet. Algae is normal if the lights are already on. You can add some ammonia to the tank to test things out if you'd like

 

[brandon429]

no further cycle verification needed, pics sealed the deal.


Habit in play: not all cycles involve ammonia and bottle bac, some are skip cycles. We are trained to simply add ammonia to everything, we're trained some rocks covered in coralline and algae aren't ready to reef.


The link is nine pages of pics teaching how to visually ID a tank that was skip cycled




Doubt has no place in skip cycling or no reef conventions could ever be ran for thirty years where all the demo tanks start on the same day