Added live rock during cycle broken cycle?

[tony47nv]

My question is if I added live rock during cycling of my tank about 30lbs during day 20 and 24 did I just restart the cycle?

[kurt_n]

Depends on if it's cured rock, or if there ends up being a bunch of die off on it. If cured, then no. If not, you probably didn't set it back to zero but you probably prolonged it.

[thegrun]

If you have a lot of die-off on the new rock it will extend the duration of the cycle, if not things should progress normally.

[tony47nv]

Have major diatom problem when light came on that's why I asked hate the look of a dirty tank

[Staisman]

My tank is 5 weeks old and I have diatoms bloom also for about a week now. It is seems like it goes down a bit though. I f it grows a lot I turn my light off for a day and my CUC will clean everything up, then I leave my lights on until it grows again.

[crusoe]

I also added more live rock mid cycle, nothing substantial has happened so far, but I'm crossing my fingers, doing water tests every other day and water changes as needed.

[Lucky Lefty]

My tank is 5 weeks old and I have diatoms bloom also for about a week now. It is seems like it goes down a bit though. I f it grows a lot I turn my light off for a day and my CUC will clean everything up, then I leave my lights on until it grows again.

Im going through something similar, just wanted to share with you that it may not be the lights that are the direct cause of this, at least i think thats what im learning.
You may want to look into your parameters, such as phosphates. Someone was telling me that you shouldnt have to go lights out to keep a clean tank, if something is growing when the lights are on, you need to eliminate the source, not the light.
Im trying to figure out whats going on with mine now, attempting to lower phosphate to achieve crispy clean tank (no diatoms or cyano).

[wooden_reefer]

My question is if I added live rock during cycling of my tank about 30lbs during day 20 and 24 did I just restart the cycle?

If the new rock does not have decayable material to yield ammonia then nothing much has happened. The new rock will not have many bacteria on it and the new rock should not be regarded as cycled medium. The tank's ammonia processing capability would not have been enhanced but may still be quite enough.

If the new rock has a lot of decayable material, then all the rock would be cycled or more cycled.

If the new rock has just a small bit of decayable material, then the ammonia generated will be mostly processed by the bacteria on the old rock, mostly, with little growth on the new rock.

When there is a sudden increase in bioload after a long period of equilibrium, there will be a "cycle" of some sort.

There is not much to cycling. It is the population of two major types of bacteria (ammonia processing and nitrite processing) in response to ammonia. Lead and lag of population due to the presence of excess ammonia and nitrite, nothing much.

[Dan_P]

My question is if I added live rock during cycling of my tank about 30lbs during day 20 and 24 did I just restart the cycle?

Cycling means developing a bacterial community to consume ammonia. Adding material to the system does not restart the process. If the new material is sterile, the bacteria will grow on it over time. If the new material is live, the bacteria on it will add to the bacterial community. If the live material has dead things on it, they will be consumed by the bacterial community. If the dead material is considerably more than the bacterial community can process, ammonia might accumulate until the bacterial community increases in size to handle it. In this last case, it may seem like the cycle is restarting but really the young biofilter is just being overwhelmed.

[tony47nv]

Update after 35 days my 75 gal tank protein skimmer 50 lbs rock 50 lbs live sand . tested water and have .25 ammonia 0 nitrates 0 nitrites . worried about the pair of clown fish I added after day 26 when I thought the tank cycled. Will test again tonight to see if I still have ammonia reading. Have done water changes biweekly of 10 gals.