To cycle or not to cycle

[Julius]

If I lived in Fiji and collected rlive rock from the ocean and live sand and the water from the ocean. Could I set up a reef tank immediately with no cycle? Ofcourse there would be some die off, but would the tank need to cycle with all the nitrifying bacteria already in place?

 

[Len]

If you can transport the rock well aereated and at the proper temperature, I doubt you'll experience much die off. It would still be advisable to wait a couple of weeks to let the bacterial population settle in and find balance in the new closed system.

 

[Charlesr1958]

Yes, the tank/system will still need to set up and balance out, which only comes with age. I also did just as you did by collecting all of my own live rock and sand but still had to wait a couple of months for the biological systems to establish.

Chuck

 

[Anonymous]

In my (limited) experience, self collected LR will always cycle some, even if you bring it home under near perfect conditions, but the cycles are not as extreme. I have found that there is always some growth on it that will not survive in closed system that inevitably dies off, over here its a orange phosporecent algae type stuff that is a common dieoff. Dunno why it dies either (?) I have been adding collected LR in stages to my tank and testing 3 times a week and have observed a small cycle every time, ie just detectable ammonia and nitrates up to around 20 for a week or so, nowhere near the lethal levels of a 'normal' cycle. Be careful on the LS collection too, its not as simple as just shovelling any old natural seasand...

 

[Julius]

Why cant i just collect sand that has always been wet?? Is there a specific location on a reef to get the live sand

 

[Anonymous]

Rightly or (more likely) wrongly, here's what I did. I dived my LS out about 3 miles offshore in 50 ft of water. The usual riders about pollution, water quality apply just as to collecting natural sea water for water changes. (Search for threads on using NSW). The area I found the sand in is dense reef with lots of life and growth, the sand was in a recess in the reef. This means that its likely to have been settled and stable for some time as open ocean currents move normal sandy sea bed around daily. When collecting the sand it is important not to disturb it too much as the life will end up 'washing away' in the water. I kept it with water and got it into my sump within 90 mins of collecting it.There will inevitably be some loss of LS bacterial potential because it was disturbed, and I let mine cycle in my sump for 6 weeks to replace the lost bacteria, but the main plus was the huge number of worms and starfish that I inherited in the process. I'm not sure, but I would imagine that it is unlikely that the bacteria would have survived so i treated the sand as such (I seem to remember that that bacteria exists only in darkness.) Worked for me, but then it is very dependant on your circumstances...