cycling 180 with live rock

[puffer200]

just finished getting the 180 built into the wall. started cycling 2 weeks ago with shrimp. just added 160 lbs of live rock. great rock i had ordered from the lfs. some wonderful 20-25 pound show pieces. lots of different algaes, worms, clams, etc. when i got it, it stunk incredibly bad. cleaned all the black stuff off and tossed it in the tank two days ago. just checked the ammonia and it was 4ppm. very high. my question is... when should i do the water change and is everything on the rock going to die. if so, what can i expect to "come back". when i figure out how to post pics, ill get some up.

 

[peckhead]

doing a water change right now will only help everything stay alive

 

[puffer200]

another question.... will the high ammonia levels kill all the different types of algaes. a few of these rocks have a lot of orange and green algae along with the purple corraline. i figure most of the life is spent regardless of what i do at this point. just wondering if the algae is susceptible to spiking ammonia levels as well

 

[peckhead]

i dont think that you will loose everything in the rocks. im not sure about the coraline but i too let the amm. get high when i cycled my live rock. that was almost a year ago. to this day, i am still finding new things in my tank and i havent got any new live rock....you should be fine, just change some water...

 

[1journeyman]

Change a lot of water and remove shrimp if you haven't already,
Ammonia above 1 can kill even your bacteria. Get it below 1.

 

[essop3]

Agreed. Ammonia of 1 is more than enough to cycle. Higher than that your just killing off stuff you want. 0.5 is even enough.