cycling with corals

[annanymous]

i bought some of my LR [show pieces] for my soon to be 90g reef from a guy who took apart his 8 year ols SPS tank. he sold it for $1.50/lb, but with everything on the rocks. mushrooms, zoos, polyps, even a encrusting digi and a sea cucumber. i got around 40-45 lb of that good by the pound stuff, but now i have a problem...
my tank will be going through a cycle, and is completely unready for any corals, but i have nowhere to keep them, is there any chance they will survive the cycle or not?
i put some small pieces in my 20g ref that i have now, but the huge pieces will never fit even in an empty 20L, and mine is fully stocked!!!
please help...,
im still filling up it up with water, and expecting 70lb more of LR any day now.

 

[reefnut]

Can a LFS keep them for you for a while?? If you are forced to cycle with the corals then keep a close eye on your ammonia and nitrites and make sure they do not spike to high. You can run the skimmer and do water changes to help keep the levels down. In addition do not push the cycle to hard... also to help keep the levels down. You never know, with the rock being so mature the cycle may be minimal anyway. Then you will have to stock the tank with fish extra slow to insure you do not get another cycle.

 

[annanymous]

my LFS wont do anyting unless there is something in it for them [ i know i should look for another LFS ]
so i will try to do often water changes and keep my skimmer on.
btw how do i keep the ammonia down and not push my cycle to hard?
when i set up my first tank [and i didint know much then] i just let it run for 3 months never checking anything, and then i assumed the cycle was over. im no expert at cycling

 

[reefnut]

What I meant by not pushing it to hard is do not give it a large bio load ie. adding a cocktail shrimp. I would put all the rock in and test the water every few days w/o adding anything else. If the ammonia and nitrites & nitrates do not rise then add something small to kick the cycle off... something like a little fish food or a small shrimp.

 

[treystang]

how many lbs of this rock do you have and how big is you tank?? If you put in 70+ lbs of already cured LR.. your probably wont see anymore the a .25 or .5 spike on ammonia.. and that probably wont last for more then a day or two.

 

[annanymous]

i purchased the LR at the famous auction site, which said "fully cured", but im not so sure about that. my tank is a 90g RR. i already have 60lb of base rock in it,
LS as follows:20lb of Southdown, 20lb of established araga-live from my other tank, 40+ lb of Araga live sand from the guy i got the rock from [8 years of establishing].
i wonr add anything else, bedides i think i saw few dead pods and bristle worms moving in the current, so i think there is enough to kick off the cycle.
at which point do you think an encrusting SPS cap is considered a goner? im not sure of its name, so far it has a slight florescent green/lime hue on it, but otherwise pretty white. im hoping it will some around. the LR guy gave me some of the left over SPS frags from his broken down tank. they were without light for more then a week, so they look terrible, but some are still a bit alive. i have my fingers crossed.
one more thing...when will i need to add a calcium reactor to my system? now, or when bio-load gets too big. im planning to make it 50/50 Softies & LPS/SPS.
thanx