Cycling Tank with LR

Hey Guys,

Quick background, I use to have a tank years ago a 55 gallon fish tank and didn't really know what I was doing so after months of reading, reading, and more reading. I am now the owner of a modded 29gl Oceanic Biocube. I am now going purchase about 15-20lbs of base LR and about 5-10lbs of some nice LR with some nice purple coralline algae on it. My question to you guys...

I have someone else that has a pretty nice rock polyps for pretty cheap but they're going to be gone by Friday.. If I grab the live rock today is it safe to put the rock polyps in there during the cycle. I understand I may have some die off when the ammonia spike comes but was curious as to others opinions. I filled the entire tank with RO water, I plan on using a half a bottle of Bio Spira from IO to speed up the cycling process in addition to the LR...

Thanks in advance!

 

Welcome to 3reef,

Since you're using a seeding product and live rock you may not see such a spike that it would kill off the polyps. When you say polyps are you referring to zoanthids? Do not add any other live stock until you're sure the tank is completely cycled that way you will not have to feed anything thereby contributing to an ammonia spike. If you do see a rise in ammonia you can do a simple water change to preserve the polyps, the tank will still cycle, perhaps not as quickly but it will get there in a couple weeks if you use cured live rock.

 

@Corailline great, thanks for the speedy response! I am referring to zoanthids.. It's actually these guys in particular (see attached), she said they were closed because she had just got done feeding them. I will be cautious when I go to look at them before purchasing.

I will also take your advice on this, one thing I have learned thus far is stability and patience are key in this hobby. Also thanks for the advice in order to preserve the polyps You rock, bad pun.. sorry.

 

LOL, you're welcome and congrats on the Bio-Cube, they are versatile little tanks.

 

Just curious, what mods did you preform? I had a 14 I modded pretty heavily.

 

Sounds like a good plan.

 

@Corailline How soon can I expect my ammonia to start to spike? Here are my parameters from today I also added the rest of the bottle of Bio Spira

 

looks as though you are in Nitrite cycle. The ammonia hits fast. Did you use some type of bacteria? The LR may have been able to handle the ammonia quickly as well.

 

@mdbostwick no, nothing at all.. I was assuming I would and then add my clean up crew but my tank is spotless!

 

Sometimes if you have enough live rock you do not see an ammonia spike.