Question About Cycling

[icedearth15324]

I tried to search but couldn't find my exact situation.

I'm in the process of building a 75 gallon mixed reef.

I am buying 80-100 pounds of live sand (I can get it pretty cheap).

I was also intending on buying 50-100 pounds of dry rock.


My question is, what is the best way to cycle it? And how long can I expect it to take?

Since I am going to have live sand, would I be better off buying like 10 pounds of live rock as well and just let it run for a couple weeks?

Or would I be better off just dosing large amounts of ammonia for 1-2 weeks?


This will be my first time setting up a large reef tank so I'm not entirely sure what to do. For my nanos, I just bought enough live rock to handle everything, this time I am getting dry rock though.

 

[justgotwet]

A cycle on saltwater tanks run six to eight weeks. I would buy some live rock rubble to seed your dry rock it a lot cheaper that way .

 

[Reefing Madness]

Throw it all in at the same time, you rlooking at roughly 6 weeks to cycle, even with using Live Sand. The bacteria needs to take hold on the Rock, where the majority of it is. No worries, take it slow, let er roll. I'm not a fan of Dosing Ammonia, i've seen to many get it messed up and the cycling takes actually longer than normal.

 

[harley]

But they need an ammonia source or the bacteria will die! There are 2 methods I like. Drop in a raw shrimp after everything is added and let it rot, or dose the same amount of ammonia each day until the cycle completes. You can speed it up using prdoucts like Dr Tims one and only, microbacter7, Instant Ocean Bio Spira, etc etc. You can even use a small amount of fish food every day to create the ammonia, but remember that the food takes a few days to rot and create the cycle. If you use one of the products I mentioned, you can cycle in a week or so, but then GO REALLY SLOW when adding livestock, 1 per week or so and watch for new tank syndrome.

 

[Reefing Madness]

The bacteria will start on its own. May be a small bloom but it will happen. Ever not see Diatoms in a new tank? After the initial cycle a CUC and a fish will help build up the bacteria. And after a few more weeks, more fish can be added.