|
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.
[Reef
Basics] [Setting Up a Marine Aquarium]
[How To Decide Between Setting Up A Fish
Only Aquarium & A Reef Aquarium]
|
