Cycling

[aquatics24]

Originally Posted by Merredeth
If the rock is uncured that means there is no bacteria in it. You can put cured LR in it, but you may have to feed the rock to get the cycle going. You can feed it with a little food or a piece of raw shrimp in a nylon stocking. Using mesh or nylon to put the shrimp in will save you the problem of chasing down a shrimp that is a royal mess.
Denise M.

Your talking about dead shrimp right?

 

[aquatics24]

I just dont want "bad" hitchhikers, which is why i rather have cured rock, but am i suppose to use uncured to cycle? I mean is it truely a necessity

 

[gen1dustin]

You can really go either way. Forget about live rock for a second. Ok fill up your tank with saltwater (whether you mix it yourself or buy premixed). Ok add a few dead shrimp, like frozen ones from a grocery store would work good. After the cycle is finished then add your cured live rock. Ok or you could add un cured live rock & no shrimp & that would have enough die off from the rock to add ammonia to the tank & start the cycle. So either way it is your choice, just remeber this both will have beneficial bacteria that will help your tank out through it's lifetime though cured live rock won't have any die off(ammonia creator) to make a tank cycle. Also if you get cured live rock from a place on the internet you still will probally have to cure it since die off happened during shipping. It would just be faster than un cured. Uncured live rock is going to be cheaper. Also hitchhikers can be present on both cured & uncured live rock. If you want to try to get rid of them put the live rock in a bucket with saltwater with a high salinity like 1.035-1.040 for one minute. This will make many nhitchhikers get off the rock. Then you can go through what you want. You can pull off any visible bristle worms with some pliers. I just got 60 lbs of Caribbean live rock uncured & I haven't found any hitchhikers besides a few bristles worms that I pulled off with some pliers.

 

[aquatics24]

Originally Posted by Gen1Dustin
You can really go either way. Forget about live rock for a second. Ok fill up your tank with saltwater (whether you mix it yourself or buy premixed). Ok add a few dead shrimp, like frozen ones from a grocery store would work good. After the cycle is finished then add your cured live rock. Ok or you could add un cured live rock & no shrimp & that would have enough die off from the rock to add ammonia to the tank & start the cycle. So either way it is your choice, just remeber this both will have beneficial bacteria that will help your tank out through it's lifetime though cured live rock won't have any die off(ammonia creator) to make a tank cycle. Also if you get cured live rock from a place on the internet you still will probally have to cure it since die off happened during shipping. It would just be faster than un cured. Uncured live rock is going to be cheaper. Also hitchhikers can be present on both cured & uncured live rock. If you want to try to get rid of them put the live rock in a bucket with saltwater with a high salinity like 1.035-1.040 for one minute. This will make many nhitchhikers get off the rock. Then you can go through what you want. You can pull off any visible bristle worms with some pliers. I just got 60 lbs of Caribbean live rock uncured & I haven't found any hitchhikers besides a few bristles worms that I pulled off with some pliers.
O ok, thank you, helps...now technically i just need die off to create ammonia, so i could put cured live rock with the cocktail shrimp too?...just curious, because i am buying the rock, sand and water all at the same time. Thank you

 

[jdragunas]

Originally Posted by Merredeth
If the rock is uncured that means there is no bacteria in it. You can put cured LR in it, but you may have to feed the rock to get the cycle going. You can feed it with a little food or a piece of raw shrimp in a nylon stocking. Using mesh or nylon to put the shrimp in will save you the problem of chasing down a shrimp that is a royal mess.
Denise M.

uncured LR doesn't mean there's no bacteria in it... it just means there's dead/dying stuff on it. There's still some live stuff on it... When there is no bacteria in it, that's considered "dead" rock.
and adding a shrimp before you add the LR doesn't do anything... The point of adding a shrimp is to establish bacteria on the rock, so cycling your tank w/o LR or anything in it is pointless.
and yes, you can add cured LR and a shrimp and that will cycle your tank.
and i don't know about getting rid of your hitchikers. That's the point of buyin LR as opposed to dead rock. Not all hitchikers are bad, and chances are you'll get some pretty good ones too. If you put cured LR in a bucket with high salinity like that, you now have uncured LR, because not only did that get rid of your hitchikers, it also killed a lot of bacteria on your LR...

 

[merredeth]

Originally Posted by aquatics24
Your talking about dead shrimp right?
Yes.
Denise M.

 

[merredeth]

Originally Posted by jdragunas
...and adding a shrimp before you add the LR doesn't do anything... The point of adding a shrimp is to establish bacteria on the rock, so cycling your tank w/o LR or anything in it is pointless.
and yes, you can add cured LR and a shrimp and that will cycle your tank.
and i don't know about getting rid of your hitchikers. That's the point of buyin LR as opposed to dead rock. Not all hitchikers are bad, and chances are you'll get some pretty good ones too. If you put cured LR in a bucket with high salinity like that, you now have uncured LR, because not only did that get rid of your hitchikers, it also killed a lot of bacteria on your LR...
I think you have me confused with the originator of the question.
Denise M.

 

[gen1dustin]

and adding a shrimp before you add the LR doesn't do anything... The point of adding a shrimp is to establish bacteria on the rock, so cycling your tank w/o LR or anything in it is pointless.

Adding shrimp to your tank before you add any liverock will to do something. Whether it is freshwater or saltwater you can start a cycle with the raw shrimp method. The point of adding a raw shrimp to a tank is to add ammonia to the tank so you can start your cycle. Your substrate & filter media will get bacteria from this & make an established tank. So how would you cycle a tank that weren't going to add live rock to & you didn't want to use live fish??? You would add a dead shrimp I've done this many times. I've even know a few people who instead of using a raw shrimp they use pure ammonia used for cleaning.

 

[jdragunas]

i was just saying that adding the shrimp before the LR was not as effective as adding after the LR, and for some reason i wasn't thinking about the filter... my bad!

 

[gen1dustin]

Originally Posted by jdragunas
i was just saying that adding the shrimp before the LR was not as effective as adding after the LR, and for some reason i wasn't thinking about the filter... my bad!
Ok I see, I didn't want anybody especially a newb to get thrown off there.