Lights off during cycle and other questions

[janakaybravo]

My tank is set up 3 weeks now. I have DSB that's dead, but seeded from another person's tank. I have 1/3 live rock that's been kept truly alive and 2/3 rock that I killed last summer because I had to (long story). My new tank is a 290 and there has been no spikes of amonia or nitrite. I have added two lps under a low light and they are fine. I have added a pinch of fish food every few days.

Question: Should I keep lights off? Should I not add the fish food? There is no algae yet except for what's on the live rock, and the dead rock still looks dead. Should I add some snails? There's not much for them to eat yet. I haven't cycled a tank in years and am kind of lost. It's been 5 days and the lps look fine. I turn on a low light for them for a few hours a day.

Thank you for any advice.

[Michael]

hi-kay, no need to have the lights on, however i always do so for an hour or 2 due to excitement in seeing the water move etc haha, also as you adding a pinch of flake keep monitoring ammonia, it may rear its ugly head, please dont add anything else until your sure the media is live, as ammonia is very bad for all livestock, nice size tank too, id love to see some photos sometime, good luck kay.

mike

[kmonl]

Light's wont matter any way if ya want to run up the light bill have at it but seriously you should be seing some spike in levels by now I would think, maybe I am wrong and somebody else with more experience can help there, but i would do as stated and hold off any more stocking good luck can't wait to see pic's

[janakaybravo]

The reason I asked, the last time I cycled a tank the LFS said no lights during the cycle, and the reasoning is to avoid bad algae outbreaks when your levels spike. But this time it's a little different since I have started with some truly cycled rock. I will keep watching for spikes and thank you for your opinion. My lights are halides and my tank will be sps dominant eventually. The pictures won't look good for a while (you know how slow some of those sps grow.)

[wooden_reefer]

My tank is set up 3 weeks now. I have DSB that's dead, but seeded from another person's tank. I have 1/3 live rock that's been kept truly alive and 2/3 rock that I killed last summer because I had to (long story). My new tank is a 290 and there has been no spikes of amonia or nitrite. I have added two lps under a low light and they are fine. I have added a pinch of fish food every few days.

Question: Should I keep lights off? Should I not add the fish food? There is no algae yet except for what's on the live rock, and the dead rock still looks dead. Should I add some snails? There's not much for them to eat yet. I haven't cycled a tank in years and am kind of lost. It's been 5 days and the lps look fine. I turn on a low light for them for a few hours a day.

Thank you for any advice.

Whether you should have light on depends on whether there are lives on the live rock to save, lives that need light.

No ammonia can mean very good or very bad, rock cycled or cycle has not even started. I would err on the safe side and add a source of ammonia.

You are also needlessly complicating basically an extremely simple and easy process of cycling.

You should have cycled the dead rock first using just bacterial seed and ammonia. Cycling is the intense cultivation of nitrification bacteria onto a medium of filtration, which is the dead rock in your case.

After you have cycled the dead rock in a container, (which can be but need not be the DT tank itself), in darkness or with some light, you then buy and introduce the live rock into a tank with the cycled dead rock, now live rock but only with bacteria.

Light and algae are not a part of cycling per se, but you may have done all you can to complicate a simple process and made them a part of cycling.

[janakaybravo]

I did have the dead rock cooking in a trash can for about a year but did not add ammonia. Well, I'm good at complicating just about everything. Maybe that's why I'm successful with sps though.

I have had enough GHA and bubble and other horrors that I'm trying to make sure that there's not going to be that problem in this big tank. I know, slow, slow, slow is the best way to go.

[wooden_reefer]

I did have the dead rock cooking in a trash can for about a year but did not add ammonia.

You likely will also need aeration and circulation as well. Warmth as well. You likely already have the bacterial seed. Still very easy I'd say.

[reeftanker10]

When do you want to start adding light? I was going to wait to even order my light untill like 2 weeks from after i started cycling

[wooden_reefer]

When do you want to start adding light? I was going to wait to even order my light untill like 2 weeks from after i started cycling

If you had already decide to save as much lives on the live rock before the cycle starts, you may want light on ASAP.

You then may want to monitor and maintain a moderate level of ammonia, not too high and not too low.

If you had cycled the dead rock in advance, you save more lives but may be more pests.