To seed or not to seed.

[JPergamo]

After 4 days of making RO water painfully slow, my 180 system is once again up and running and ready to cycle. I gave my old rock a good acid bath so I'm starting as fresh as can be. I wanted to get some opinions from veterans as to whether or not I should seed the tank with a piece of rock or 2 after the cycle for coraline, pods, etc. I am torn and reading a lot on the subject so I figured I would get some conversation going. Thanks!

 

[michaelstevenbrice]

Without going into depth; I like to have all of the biodiversity that I can get. So seeding with live rock is a great way to get different strains and colonies off to the right start. I also like using things like bio-spira at the end of the cycle for a quick population boost to keep nutrients low without a population lag.

 

[sbash]

I agree with Michael. When I started my 220G, I gathered live rock from many different tanks/systems. From several established tanks, a couple different LFS's, etc...

 

[McMullen]

As long as your sure the live rock contains no pests. I've seeded my tank a few times with Garg grunge too just to replace/add bio diversity

 

[JPergamo]

Yea, in my last system a few years back I just loved the diversity from the fresh live rock, I will probably want that again, but I want to be in total control of this system this time so I am concerned about pests