Been reading up on cycling tanks. Found an interesting way that people use uncured live rock to cycle the tank. Basically it sounds like you just cure the live rock in the tank and then add the substraite after its cure, and fish. Anyone tried this or have experience with it?
Using Uncured Live Rock to cycle tank
- Thread starter Wildshot83
- Start date
I did it this way, it works great. You add the sand bed at the same time though! Just make sure you don't get too much at one time and that it dosn't have too much algae on it etc as it will die and your tank will turn septic, as did mine
yeah it basically said to prepare it as you would to cure it, then keep the ammonium under 1ppm to prevent it from totally nuking anything on the live rock.
my tank got new tank syndrome. This is when there are lots of things on the stones, like algea and coral and what not, and it all starts dying. As the ammonia builds up more and more things start dying. I got to having ammonia at about 2 and nitrite at 4! I didn't have a skimmer either which I have now learnt is absolutley essential! Once I put a skimmer in, it went away in a few days. It smellt like a sewer, and I slept in our family room because my room was not able to be slept in, stank out the whole house!
i'd keep it under .5 ppm to avoid long term damage to inverts etc. Other than that it's a great way to cycle and it will introduce some pretty neat critters for you.