Cycling a New System with Uncured Live Rock

"Cycling" a New System with Uncured Live Rock
Introduce the live rock after the tank has been up about a week, and use it to cycle the tank. Wait at least two months before introducing the first fish.

Advantages

• You don't stress (or kill) any fish, and do not have to add fish that you will have to remove at a later stage.
• You don't need to buy fully cured live rock In fact, the cheaper, uncured live rock causes a better cycle, and usually have more diverse life forms in/on them.
• You can introduce all the rock at once, do your "rockscaping", and have the tank completely set up when introducing the first fish.
• You will have amazing growth of whatever comes on the live rock - with no fish to eat them, you will get all kinds of macro algae, featherduster worms, soft polyps, even some corals, growing.
• You will also enable the "small life", such as copepods and amphipods, to establish and multiply to such an extent that they should survive predation by your fish. Obviously, if you only have 2 or 3 of a species to start off with, and they're eaten by a fish on the very first day, none will multiply after that.

Disadvantages

• You will have to wait before you introduce any fish.
• Because the initial bio load was smaller, you will have to add your fish at a much slower tempo to avoid causing another ammonia/nitrite spike.
• You might have some algae growing on the live rock.
• This is usually not a problem, though, as you start off with a nutrient poor set-up, which can be easily maintained, as there are no fish to feed. Also, the growing macro algae compete for nutrients, thereby restricting the growth of nuisance algae.

You’ll find everything you need in our on-line store or stop into our Issaquah, Washington store.

Next, follow these Ten Easy Steps to Successful Freshwater Aquarium Installation to get your tank setup and ready for fish.

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