Cycling a tank, adding fish and corals

ErinCahir said:
I am. What about the other questions I asked?
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I am not sure on the method names. I am running the tank without any stock, after 2 weeks, if the levels are positive, I will introduce about 5 inverts.
The live rock was possibly out of water for under an hour during transport.
 
You should drop in a table shrimp to make certain you have cycled. It is entirely plausible that you skipped one with the rock not being out of the water for very long, but it never hurts to make sure.
 
The rocks should not be placed on top of the sand. They should be sitting on the glass. There are lots of animals that burrow in the sand -- fish, snails, starfish, etc. If the rocks are sitting on top of the sand, these animals can dig in the sand, cause the rocks to become unstable, and cause a rockslide. This could even break your glass. Also, powerheads will move the sand around the tank.
 
Hey Biff, i am upgrading to a 75 but i dont want my lr to die. How should i place my lr on the glass without killing it off?. Should i just have 20% of water in the tank before i place the sand?
 
Live rock will be fine out of water for a short period of time. You can add a bit of water to the tank to start, then add the rocks, then the sand though too.
 
How much live rock should I have to get the cycle going good in my 10 gallon? I have around 6lbs of dry rock now. I have not started my cycle yet, I'm still getting all the stuff for my tank set up. I will probably have everything I need to finally start cycling next month. Gosh it's so expensive but I'm still so excited!
 
You want 1 to 2 lbs of rock per gallon total, and that can be a mix of live and dry rock. The more live rock you use, the shorter length of time it will take to seed the rest of the dry rock. So I would put in at least 4 lbs of live rock, just to bump it up to 1 lb per gallon. You can always add more later on if funds are short and you want to buy rock gradually instead of all at once.
 
I put my live rock in on Saturday, dropped a piece of shrimp in on Sunday. Got home from work today and the entire house stunk like dead fish. Is this normal? I don't remember any of my freshwater tanks smelling so bad when cycling.
 
It's not common, but it has happened. Especially if your live rock was really "fresh". What are your water parameters testing at?
 
ammonia .5
nitrite .5
nitrate 1
I couldn't stand it and removed the shrimp last night. when I got home today the water was almost back to smelling normal.
 
Quick question for everyone. I have been cycling my tank for 3 weeks now and all of a sudden I have brown algae all over my rocks and sand alot of people have been telling me that its just part of the cycling process but I didn't think so much algae would grow in a matter of days.

I'm currently cycling the tank with half the amount of rock I need. I have 15 pound of live rock but I really need about 30 to 40 pounds. Is it possible their is not enough bacteria to consume nutrients becvuase I don't have enough rock.

I also do not have any macro algae/live rubble in the refugium or protein skimmer but I was told that I don't need to have it during the cycling process.
 
The brown algae is probably diatoms, which is completely normal. Diatoms feed off of silicates, which come in the sand or water. You can make them go away faster by using RODI (not tap) water. Otherwise you just have to wait them out, unfortunately. It's okay to not have enough rock in the beginning. Lots of people add the rock they need over time to spread out their budget.
 

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