How to cycle a saltwater reef tank

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Mj Sanchez - 8 years ago

Am two weeks in the cycle process and water still has brownish tint .would small water changes be best ?

TheFishTank Doc. - 8 years ago

Your tank does not need to produce ammonia or nitrate to cycle. Cycling a tank is all about building up levels of bacteria on the rock. In your case you used live rock, that was already cycled (full of bacteria). You tank is there for instantly cycled. If nothing on the rock dies, then your tank is ready to go. You just need to wait 6 days to make sure nothing has died and produced an ammonia spike. Think about it, when you upgrade a tank do you feed the rock (that has come from the old tank)in the new tank, to create ammonia and nitrate. That is exactly what you are trying to avoid. The same is true when starting a tank with live rock. The big difference is, the water parameters at the shop will be different to your new tank, so you have a greater chance of die off. If you use the old water in your upgrade, and then top the new tank up with new salt water you will avoid die of, and therefore a cycle.

Joe Steen - 8 years ago

Good video, thanks. A week cycle is very rare. Test for 7 days after you think it's cycled.

Randy Durden - 9 years ago

I prefer the damsel method.. over the live rock.. it doesn't cause all of this algae blooms..

Sky&cori Vlog - 10 years ago

Brown algie

Sky&cori Vlog - 10 years ago

How do you get rid of the alge?

muffemod - 10 years ago

Diatom algae is like a fire. Once all the fuel is burned the flame extinguishes.

John Arco - 10 years ago

Then you should wait till you get crazy buildup of the brown algae to clean the tank and can I add water to fill the tank up it lost some water due to evaporation or whatever ??

Ben Nakajima - 11 years ago

Very good advice. I am currently cycling 36 litre nano and having diatom boom. The boom has been about a week. But now diatom started to die out. Diatom consumes silicon and nitrate. Diatom is a very good indication to know whether cycle is finished or not. Once diatom is gone automatically anaerobic bacteria consumes nitrate to nitrogen and oxygen. The cycling a tank is basically creating mini ocean.