Starting to cycle 29 gal

[HermitFish]

I seeded the 29gal with Fritz Turbo Start. It has dry rock and dry sand in it as well as two clown fish.
My question is that the bottle states to turn off protein skimmers. My HOB filter has a surface skimmer but doesn’t remove skimmate, can I leave it on or turn it off?
If I need to keep it off how does the filter media in the HOB get bacteria introduced?

Thanks!

 

[brandon429]

it doesn't matter if you do or don't run the skimmer, same outcome.

toss in a pinch of fish food grinded up firmly. in three days you are cycled no testing needed. its why that brand costs the most, certain to work fast.

its nice to know you can't mess up your cycle, and no fritz cycle on this forum has ever failed to meet a start date. that's about a thousand or more fritz cycles in 2020, then the ones before that etc...

 

[brandon429]

here's how the distribution works: extra filter surface area isn't needed in reefing its just something random 100,000 people do, its a carry over habit from freshwater keeping. without it, your reefing params run the same as with it, its neutral.

your rocks and sand are the primary action zone.

so if your filter was on the whole time, it'd pick up bac in excess of what the system needs to run.


and if it was off, that doesn't matter as filters aren't needed in saltwater. See how that works

and then when you turn the filter on, the water circulates between the uncycled filter and the cycled main tank, and the filter is now cycled in three days just the same.

the helpful thing your filter does is move water.

if you ran it totally empty, you'll have the same reefing parameters as if you ran it packed with various high surface area media. some choose to put phosphate controlling media in them, but that's unrelated to cycling. they're not needed in that regard.

just in case I didn't make the case well enough about filter neutrality in reefing, take any reef tank on this entire forum. We can remove its whole sandbed at once, and all the filtration surface area they use in a sump. Gone, immediately, leaving only the live rocks and the same fish.

It all works the same. no cycle...we have a fifty page thread already doing exactly this work. It will help you to know ahead of time your filter isn't some integral link to the reef's life, its merely a water pump mover.
this means you are free to cycle how you want

or hook up and try any other device, they're all expendable. your live rocks are the core source of heartbeat, we keep those safe in our work threads while robbing all the other areas to be cleaned or just made tidier and changed to bare bottom etc.

 

[HermitFish]

here's how the distribution works: extra filter surface area isn't needed in reefing its just something random 100,000 people do, its a carry over habit from freshwater keeping. without it, your reefing params run the same as with it, its neutral.

your rocks and sand are the primary action zone.

so if your filter was on the whole time, it'd pick up bac in excess of what the system needs to run.


and if it was off, that doesn't matter as filters aren't needed in saltwater. See how that works

and then when you turn the filter on, the water circulates between the uncycled filter and the cycled main tank, and the filter is now cycled in three days just the same.

the helpful thing your filter does is move water.

if you ran it totally empty, you'll have the same reefing parameters as if you ran it packed with various high surface area media. some choose to put phosphate controlling media in them, but that's unrelated to cycling. they're not needed in that regard.

just in case I didn't make the case well enough about filter neutrality in reefing, take any reef tank on this entire forum. We can remove its whole sandbed at once, and all the filtration surface area they use in a sump. Gone, immediately, leaving only the live rocks and the same fish.

It all works the same. no cycle...we have a fifty page thread already doing exactly this work. It will help you to know ahead of time your filter isn't some integral link to the reef's life, its merely a water pump mover.
this means you are free to cycle how you want

or hook up and try any other device, they're all expendable. your live rocks are the core source of heartbeat, we keep those safe in our work threads while robbing all the other areas to be cleaned or just made tidier and changed to bare bottom etc.

Awesome thank you for taking the time for that response!

 

[brandon429]

Hey wanted to follow up on this tenet above being useful at highly critical times:

HURRY

Might be a dumb question but, how do you rinse sand without killing beneficial bacteria? Swapping aquariums and wanted to use my sand from previous tank. Putting it together now. I saved a 5 gallon bucket of the aquarium water and have the sand in the bottom of the tank outside with about 2...

www.reef2reef.com

see how her tank is mid surgery, it’s taken apart and a new one awaits. See the hesitation about sandbed bacteria, and in essence it’s a concern about how much bac and surface area we need to be safe


Well the rule is any live rock we use is enough bacteria and surface area for the whole reef...it’s that powerful. We have fifty page work threads making use of this core rule so we can move reefs safely, or remove their sandbeds as they sit and not kill them. By being thorough quick and decisive her investment can be preserved and ironically by being hesitant and partial-acting the reef is in the most risk.


just to show the power of this rule being upscaled here’s half a mil in other people’s reef tanks moving homes, or changing beds, but always rinsing the sandbed in tap water every time so that we eject contaminating waste, at the cost of bacteria being expelled, because they were never needed anyway per post #3

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

clues in those posts can give you total control over your reef and you’ll never need bottle bac again that’s for sure, we didn’t use it there because the rule of live rock is enough. There is no better tank transfer method known, this is the only work thread for moves on any forum.