Thoughts on new set up

JEP1024 · Oct 7, 2023

So when I upgraded from my Red Sea 200xl I intended on selling it, but now I am thinking of setting it back up in the home office which is not being used at this time. I was thinking to do a bare bottom. I wanted to set up the scape using my extra dry rock and then purchasing some live rock from my LFS and adding one of my bio rocks from my current sump to build up this new system. I was going to let it sit this way running for about 8 months before adding any fish or corals. This will be about the time of us using the office for work. My questions are:

1. Should I add any type of turbo start as well?

2. Do I need to run any lights during this 8 month period?

3. Do I need to do weekly or bi weekly water changes?

4. Do I feed anything during this time?

Troylee · Oct 7, 2023

8 months is a really long time to cycle a tank.. if you put any live rock you don’t need to cycle it, no… if you don’t have any fish at least, the bacteria would die off if you didn’t feed.. I mean it’s kinda pointless to feed a empty tank that long just to keep bacteria alive honestly.. if it were me personally I’d wait to set the tank up or set it up with some fish at least and use a cheap light for now until you’re ready.

JEP1024 · Oct 7, 2023

I was trying to give the time for the bio to build up.

Boehmtown · Oct 7, 2023

JEP1024 said:
So when I upgraded from my Red Sea 200xl I intended on selling it, but now I am thinking of setting it back up in the home office which is not being used at this time. I was thinking to do a bare bottom. I wanted to set up the scape using my extra dry rock and then purchasing some live rock from my LFS and adding one of my bio rocks from my current sump to build up this new system. I was going to let it sit this way running for about 8 months before adding any fish or corals. This will be about the time of us using the office for work. My questions are:

1. Should I add any type of turbo start as well?

2. Do I need to run any lights during this 8 month period?

3. Do I need to do weekly or bi weekly water changes?

4. Do I feed anything during this time?

I more or less did this. Yes on the light, but very dim, like 25 par at the bottom, and I fed phyto daily and water changed an amount, I just did it when I felt like it. I also added soft or very low light corals. It ended up just being an attractive pod culture for a while.