Hey, I have had tanks in the past but they came with already cycled water so I've never actually done the cycling process. I just got a new tank and decided to just start completely over. So I put live sand in but the rock was dry that used to be live. I also filled the tank with saltwater with the correct salinity level. I just had a couple of question's like should I have the lights on during the cycling process? How big and often should I be doing water changes? And should I be feeding the tank even if there is nothing in it?
Cycling a new tank
- Thread starter Tekkors
- Start date
No need to feed for a while. Rock cures better in the dark or ambient light. You should definately be doing water changes just like it's a running tank. Give it a month and you can start feeding the tank a tiny bit and then add your first fish a couple weeks after that.
I would make sure to get a piece of live rock and handful of sand from a mature tank to seed everything.
I would make sure to get a piece of live rock and handful of sand from a mature tank to seed everything.
+1
you may also want to look at purchasing some bacteria to help the tank along as well. Dry rock will be a bit stinky when curing so, heads up. After you start feeding the tank a little bit, test the nitrites, nitrates and ammonia. Ammonia will sky rocket and then start to go down and nitrites/nitrates should go up and back down as well. Once everything is zero, then you can start adding fish.
Just a little clarification:
Water really isn't cycled - it is the rock and substrate that contains the bacteria that you are looking for. Live sand and bacteria in a bottle are widely regarded as "gimmicks" and will not help your cycle speed up (although I still buy the live sand because it is the consistency and color I like and the price is about the same). Getting some LR or sand from an established tank will help tremendously. I personally use filter floss (aka pillow filler) from my DT to my QT tanks to curb ammonia issues. You are welcome to have some of my filter floss
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Lights are not necessary.
Water changes, IMO, are not needed for cycling, but come in handy when curing rock. I hate curing rock. My suggestion is to take the rock and give it a muratic acid bath (10:1 ratio with water if I remember correctly) to remove dead organics. Muratic acid can be purchased from Home depot in 2 packs. A nice clean end product.
For the cycle, I like to use pure ammonia (Ace hardware) and bring to 2ppm. Test for Nitrites and then for Nitrates. Once both are @ "0", you are done. Without something to seed it, the process should take several weeks. With a seed, it will be relatively quick.
If you need more info and want to try anything mentioned here, please let me know...
Shawn
Water really isn't cycled - it is the rock and substrate that contains the bacteria that you are looking for. Live sand and bacteria in a bottle are widely regarded as "gimmicks" and will not help your cycle speed up (although I still buy the live sand because it is the consistency and color I like and the price is about the same). Getting some LR or sand from an established tank will help tremendously. I personally use filter floss (aka pillow filler) from my DT to my QT tanks to curb ammonia issues. You are welcome to have some of my filter floss
.Lights are not necessary.
Water changes, IMO, are not needed for cycling, but come in handy when curing rock. I hate curing rock. My suggestion is to take the rock and give it a muratic acid bath (10:1 ratio with water if I remember correctly) to remove dead organics. Muratic acid can be purchased from Home depot in 2 packs. A nice clean end product.
For the cycle, I like to use pure ammonia (Ace hardware) and bring to 2ppm. Test for Nitrites and then for Nitrates. Once both are @ "0", you are done. Without something to seed it, the process should take several weeks. With a seed, it will be relatively quick.
If you need more info and want to try anything mentioned here, please let me know...
Shawn
Oh - one more bonus for the Muratic Acid treatment - it will dissolve the Phosphate build up on the rocks. This means little to no phosphate leeching into your brand new system, saving even more time and money on things like Phosban or what not. Some people notice a small shrinkage of the rock, and that is the Phosphate dissolving...