not a good idea. even cured live rock will cycle, and there is no reason to treat the damsels so poorly. especially, since you will probably want to remove the damsel anyway.
Can you ever have too much live rock and live sand?
- Thread starter jayuws
- Start date
not a good idea. even cured live rock will cycle, and there is no reason to treat the damsels so poorly. especially, since you will probably want to remove the damsel anyway.
If you are going to establish a reef tank, the lights play a big part in it. Coralline algae, as well as other photosynthetic animals that you just payed good money for, will need the Light. Also light and the algae in your tank, play a role in the PH of your tank and as a result your PH fluctuates throughout the day. Growing coralline will start to deplete calcium and alkalinity. If he is leaving the tank fallow in order to learn his water chemistry he will want the lights on their normal schedule in order to learn how to maintain his tank.
I disagree. IF you are running a deep sand bed, it really should be at least 4" in order to provide an oxygen free area at depth for anaerobic bacteria to breakdown nitrates. If you have less than 4", I don't think it really matters if it is 2", 1" or less.
We recently started to cure LR and we were told by several people no lights. Should we be having them on at this point? We are just a few days into the process. We had lights on at first and were told to shut them off because the lights on would cause more die off. :help: I'm so confused. There is so much contradicting information out there. :frown:
you should just buy cured rock
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Never do this, it's cruel to the damsels. Even with cured LR there is still going to be some kind of cycle, due to transporting the rock. It's a really bad habit to practice.
Don't add fish for at least a month IMO.
-Kris
Thanks. We have a pretty good relationship with the LFS near us, but at times we go with what we think will work for us. But this is completely different from the FO we did for so long.
As for the buying already cured rock... too late for that one.
lights are not going to cause die off on your rock, just the opposite. Now curring live rock is different than what this poster is doing. If you have your rocks in your tank, and your a cycling the tank, I.E. establishing your water parameters.. I say lights on.
If your curing your live rock (because you purchased uncured live rock, i.e it has allot of die off on it), having the lights on will help those things that may be still alive and on your rock that are photosynthetic. Most people do not bother with lights at this point, as it is not worth the expense of running expensive lighting and lighting may not be practical and useful due to the way the rock is being curred (i.e. in a garbage can, where the light will only be useful to the top most rock)
If your curing your live rock (because you purchased uncured live rock, i.e it has allot of die off on it), having the lights on will help those things that may be still alive and on your rock that are photosynthetic. Most people do not bother with lights at this point, as it is not worth the expense of running expensive lighting and lighting may not be practical and useful due to the way the rock is being curred (i.e. in a garbage can, where the light will only be useful to the top most rock)
Your obviously too cool for me. Perhaps you would like to enlighten us with the science and reasoning behind your advice.
We did purchase uncured live rock. It is in the tank. New tank, just started out. So we saw no reason to not cure it in the tank. Just an FYI I am too new here to know who is new and who isn't. So I am just taking it all in at this point. I appreciate everyones input.
There is no reason why you can't cure it in tank. Remember that when you cure the rock, that you need to be doing allot of water changes, daily. There is going to be allot of die off, releasing nutrients into the water. You need to remove this as much as possible.
First, there is no gurantee that your tank will cycle in 24 hours. It's just not that simple. Is it possible, in theory yes... but not practically.
Second, if you add a significant amount of live rock to an already established system you will have a significant cycle again.
I feel bad for Jayuws and pinkheine. They are getting such bad...BAD advice
First off, at least a month to cycle. Period. You will find that all reputable reefers agree with this.
Its sad really, damsels are used for this but its torture, no fish should be used for cycling, I waited a week in my first tank, I added four damsel,within the week 2 were dead.
Second and perhaps more important, don't rely on info from a pet store, many will just use you for cash and don't give a $hit about you,your money or your livestock. It won't take to long to search this site to find stories where people trusted a fish store and ended up spending thousands on a tank that crashed. The vendors here are reputable(thats why they are allowed to sell here) but your best bet in getting a problem solved the best way is to ask, see the advice of various reefers, and see what they all generally agree on, this is the best advice to follow IMO.
edit:I trust meschaefer here, run it with the lights, I had no idea lights affected pH =O
First off, at least a month to cycle. Period. You will find that all reputable reefers agree with this.
Its sad really, damsels are used for this but its torture, no fish should be used for cycling, I waited a week in my first tank, I added four damsel,within the week 2 were dead.
Second and perhaps more important, don't rely on info from a pet store, many will just use you for cash and don't give a $hit about you,your money or your livestock. It won't take to long to search this site to find stories where people trusted a fish store and ended up spending thousands on a tank that crashed. The vendors here are reputable(thats why they are allowed to sell here) but your best bet in getting a problem solved the best way is to ask, see the advice of various reefers, and see what they all generally agree on, this is the best advice to follow IMO.
edit:I trust meschaefer here, run it with the lights, I had no idea lights affected pH =O
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Some clarification is needed. The lights do not directly affect the PH. Photosynthesis does affect PH through the use and depletion CO2. Excess C02 will lower your PH, as your photosynthetic animals use CO2 during photosynthesis the PH rises. When the lights are off and CO2 rises (either through respiration or absorption from the atmosphere), the Co2 will lower the PH of your tank.
I only mention this as important, as the original poster was waiting to put livestock in the tank until he had learned to manage his water parameters. If that is the goal, then you want to make the system as dynamic as possible.
There is an argument to be made for not running the lights during curing, but I believe that the benefits outweigh the negatives if it is done right, and if lighting the rock is practical. The argument against running lights is that there is allot of excess nutrients available during curing which could be used by undesirable algae. By providing the lights you will allow the undesirable algae to grow, causing it to get a foothold in your system and run rampant.
On the other hand, if you are doing the necessary things to export nutrients (usually lots of water changes) then this should be a minor problem. Furthermore, in most cases -especially brand new tanks- the tank is going to go through an algae cycle (diatoms, green algae, cyano .. etc. etc.). Using the lights from the get go, will give you a jump start on this.
In terms of who to trust on these sites, it is very hard. You get a allot of different opinions on what you should do. Most, but not all LFS, are not good places to get info (there are some very, very good ones, butt his is rare) . Their priorities are different then ours, we are not here to make money off of you, they are.
My one fast rule, is don't listen to people who go around calling people noob. They are probably little better themselves. As Alexander Pope wrote:
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain
And drinking largely sobers us again.
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But don't people usually advise against water changes during cycle because this rids the water of the wastes that essentially get the cycle going.And yes it is inevitable, we all have to go through it:tired:
To the rest of the post. Thanks
Your confusing cycling with curing. The post you quoted from is talking about curing. Live rock that has not been handled properly, will have alot of die off on it. This rock needs to be cured, by which you allow all of that die off to decompose. This will foul the water pretty nasty with nutrients, which needs to be removed.
Cycling is what you do once you have cured live rock, which is when the necessary bacteria colonies establish themselves.
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