Cycling, Curing, when to change water?

Jay · 09-15-2004, 07:32 PM

Well...heres what I have. I have filled my new 55 with RO/DI seawater and added a hanfull of coctail shrimp in a ziplock bag with holes punched in it..as I am not married and dont wear womens stockings. I asume the ziplock will suffice as opposed to stockings. My question is when do I pull the shrimp and did I use too muck? It has this fuzzy looking stuff on it so I know its getting ripe.

I also have 90 pounds live rock curing in a 35 gallon rubber made can with 2 powerheads (1 near the top and the other powering a tube that is stuffed to the bottom the can. Also I bought a new AquaC Remora
hang on skimmer and it is on the can also. The skimmer was very productive right out of the box, very black, smelly skimmate. About 2.5 inches in the cup a day till after I changed the water monday night. I put them in Friday afternoon and swapped water monday. I checked the trites and they are still blood red. I figure friday they should start clearing up as the rock was precured and very good shape after shipping. Oh yea....
the rock is awesome. Its so full of holes...I held a piece half in the water and moved it up and down and water was pumping out of the holes on top. I got alot of rock for the money...very light rocks. One more question.

With there being 90 pounds liverock in that trash can when I changed the water I hust stuck a hose to the bottom of the tank and sucked out the water. I did not unload the rock and dump out the stuff on the bottom or clean off any of the rock with a brush. I think you said last time if I wanted to clean the rock I could but it is not required. Do I need to take out the rocks on the next water change?....and when would you change the water next. I pulled some of the rock from the middle of the pile to take the photo and when it was out of the water it did smell a bit.

Thanks so much for everyones time helping me.. If you guys were here I would happily buy rounds for the everyone.

Jay

JohnO · 09-15-2004, 09:19 PM

Jay,

Ok, here's a fact for you, if you put an tank of new salt water in the middle of the Sahara desert, it will start to cycle without any help.

By adding the shrimp you are in fact feeding the bacteria and causing the cycle to continue. Anything, a piece of meat, a shrimp, raw Ammonia, even urine will feed that cycle and that is what we are trying to achieve. Once you see the Ammonia levels drop you know that you have bacteria in you tank that are consuming the Ammonia, same goes for Nitrite. What you are doing by adding the shrimp is giving the bacteria food to populate and multiply. For that reason, don't be too concerned about the state of the shrimp, the decay that you are seeing is in fact what you want.

Now, IMHO I would let the tank just cycle, as it is for about a week while testing for ammonia levels, once you see them decline, put a coule of the rocks in the tank and after a few days test for ammonia again. Wait again for the decline and when it happens ( and it will ) put in the rest of the rock.

In the meantime, I would also be testing the water than the rock is immersed in, you should be seeing some huge levels there too.

Personally, I can see no real benefit in changing the water the the rock is immersed in at this stage. Sure take the rocks out, examine them and scrub them if you want and put them back into fresh water but I'm not convinced that this will make much difference.

Just a word of caution now, because you have so much live rock you will probably have a fairly fierce algal bloom. This wont be a problem in the long term, but might require some further patience and a little more maintenance in the shorter term.

AND if nothing else, HAVE FUN, it's important :-)

John

Jay · 09-15-2004, 09:38 PM

Thanks again Jhono.....will follow your advice. I would just as well keep those salt crystals than wast them on my live rock. Also I dont see any benifit in scrubbing the rocks either...may as well leave it alone and what will live will live...why remove what may actually come back to live again on your rock.

Thanks Again Johno.

Jay

shawnz28 · 09-16-2004, 04:34 PM

Looks like nice light rock like Bali rock

Ice · 09-16-2004, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Just a word of caution now, because you have so much live rock you will probably have a fairly fierce algal bloom. This wont be a problem in the long term, but might require some further patience and a little more maintenance in the shorter term.

Hi Johno

So what your saying is if you add rock all at once or maybe over a peroid of a week you will get an alge bloom?

with the tank that i'm setting up i'm adding rock very slowly (cause it's so expensive and i'm waiting for my diy rock to cure)then i shouldn't really get much of an alge bloom? because i really have not had that much alge

thanks

Peter

Jay · 09-18-2004, 09:08 PM

JohnO:

Good day everyone!

Just a update. I took your advice and waited. You said wait a week and add a few pieces.....well I waited as long as I could...about 4.5 days and added some rock. This is less than half the rock so I should wait till when to add the rest? I transfered the rest of the rock to another can with fresj sea water cleaning very lightly mostly just shook the bajesus out of each piece while holding it under water to shake off the sand and dead stuff. I did find a few crevases that had blackish white filmy dead stuff that was rotting and I removed all of that...really smelled while removing. Anyway, should have been here to see all the stuff on the bottom of the can.
Sure glad I did not cycle my tank with it as all that junk would be in my sand. Think I should just add the rest of the rock?

That is Figi rock from liveaquaria Shawn great stuff. I looked today and it went on sale again for $109 for 45 pounds. You get a lot.

Jay

Heres a pic

Jay · 09-18-2004, 09:10 PM

whoops,, heres the pic I wanted

JohnO · 09-19-2004, 05:35 PM

Peter,

I guess what I am saying is there is more chance of an early algal bloom if you put a large quantity of rock in the tank straight away. :-)

IMHO it's better, if you must have all live rock, that you do it slowly, and in small sections.

There are many people who don't use 'live' rock at all, or at least only a very small percentage of 'live'rock as compare to 'dead' rock. It all works, there are just down sides to both methods and I think the down side to using all live rock is worse than the alternative.

John

[quote author=Ice link=board=Newbie;num=1095312735;start=0#4 date=09/16/04 at 20:44:30]

Hi Johno

So what your saying is if you add rock all at once or maybe over a peroid of a week you will get an alge bloom?

with the tank that i'm setting up i'm adding rock very slowly (cause it's so expensive and i'm waiting for my diy rock to cure)then i shouldn't really get much of an alge bloom? *because i really have not had that much alge

thanks

Peter[/quote]

JohnO · 09-19-2004, 05:38 PM

Jay,

From what I can see the rock looks pretty clean :-) Now you need to get a fresh ( dead ) shrimp or something and throw it in the tan so the bacteria can populate.

John

Jay · 09-19-2004, 07:07 PM

I put in the shrimp last tuesday. It turned to mush and mostly disolved. Then I took it out and added the rock.

Guess I should have not bought 90 pounds right away huh.

Jay