help, not sure what to do.

[harial]

:help: :help: :help: I seem to be at a loss. I am not sure what I should do. I got premixed salt water from my lfs and I got completely cured rock and I am about to get live sand. do I need to cycle this? and for how long?
Also I got the rock (50 lb) for about 10 bucks from a guy in my city because he was getting out of the hobby and so I took everything that I could off of some of the other rocks and put them on the rocks I was going to use and as I was putting the rock in I noticed a crag in one of the rocks had something reddish in it. I will admit that I kinda freaked because I thought it might be a mantis shrimp but later on that night it came out and I discovered that it was a red serpent star. he looks to be about 5-6 inches across.
I am worried that my tank is not big enough for him to survive in. If I have to i will take him down to my lfs and give him to them. also all of the rock is COVERED with feather dusters. Is there some sort of supplement that I should put into the water? because I had not planned to put any Livestock in for a while and I am worried that they might die as well.
I am not sure what to do or how long to wait.
thanks
Harial
PS sorry for the long post
:help: :help: :help:

 

[jjlittle]

Your tank will go through a cycle period which no 2 cycles are alike and there is no set time frame. The LR & LS will help you go throught the cycling process much faster tehn if there was no LS or LS. The star I would say will most likely die when tank perameters change in the cycle process so if you can catch him I would .Your tank will be unstable during this time and stars need stable conditions.

 

[puffer32]

You still have to go through a cycle period, that lasts about a month. Put your LR, LS and water into the tank, hook up afew power heads, get a cooked cocktail shrimp and just wait until your tank s cycles. Your ammonia, nitites then nitrates will get very high then go down to 0. This will take about a month, you can start testing in about 2 weeks, don't wait any longer because my tank was cycled in alittle more then that. After the cycle is over, you can add your clean up crew. You need to take the star to your lfs, get some credit for it, your tank will probably kill it when your numbers spike. You can leave in the feature dusters if they are attached to rock, they could make it through the cycle, but might not. Good luck to you!

 

[kiharaconn]

My understanding is that if you use fully cured lr and ls there will be no cycle to go through. I used fully cured rock and have had my tank set up for over a month now with no problems with my levels at all. The thing is to make sure it is fully cured. If it was left sitting out for several hours then there will be die off and a possible small cycle. But if it was out for only an hour or so it should be alright. Just watch the levels and if there is a problem do a small water change.

 

[puffer32]

I believe this is a new set up, so it still needs to cycle, with cured rock the process will be quicker then uncured rock, but you can use both. When you have an already cycled tank, you don't want to add uncured rock because you will have another cycle if you put in to much. But no matter what you use cured or uncured if your tank hasn't been cycled, it still needs to be!