Converting to bare bottom

[Vhuang168]

Cycling a tank, with or without sand is pretty much the same for me.

My current QT tank, IM30L was cycled in 4 days. Dry rock, no sand. 1 bottle of bacteria, some ammonia. Ammonia dropped to 0. 1 biggish water change. Done.

 

[xCry0x]

I wouldn't really consider getting rid of ammonia cycling a tank unless your goal is just to run a FOWLR tank.

The difficulty is in getting it stable enough to support coral and not have new patches of unexpected "oh no what is that" popping up every couple days

 

[Vhuang168]

The difficulty is in getting it stable enough to support coral and not have new patches of unexpected "oh no what is that" popping up every couple days

I wouldn't consider that 'cycling' a tank. Getting a tank to a place where it is stable enough is different for everyone. The bigger the tank, the longer it takes imo. The 40 took 2-3 months, the 190 was over a year. We'll see how long it's going to take for the 150.

 

[newfly]

Its pretty interesting -- they straight out say they would never do barebottom + dry rock for a new tank ever again.

I'm doing exactly that, bare bottom with dry rock. I might regret down the road.

 

[Aqualove]

Sweet! I’ll buy it now. Hope it solves my issue!

Thanks for the tip...I found it here for a slightly better price - https://coralsfishandbeyond.com/collections/cleaning-supplies/products/eheim-quick-vac-pro

 

[xCry0x]

I'm doing exactly that, bare bottom with dry rock. I might regret down the road.

I mean its really about patience.

And its HARD to be patient for a year.

You buy all this fancy new stuff and its not exactly fun to turn it all on and then have it look like a planted tank for a year

The way I'd approach it, personally, is that if I ever had the thought that I might want to get a bigger tank going. I'd throw a bunch of dry rock in a trash can with a power head and a heater, then basically cook the rock for 6-12 months.

 

[JVU]

Dr. Tim’s One and Only speeds up and improves initial cycling so dramatically. I don’t understand why anyone anymore let’s it sit for months hoping the right microbes randomly land in the water from your home when you can just add them in large quantities up front.

 

[rygh]

There is the specific Ammonia cycle, and there is the vague "mature tank" cycle.

For the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate, that takes a pretty specific set of weeks, and can be done much faster with various bacteria additions.
Live sand would likely speed that up as well.

The "mature tank cycle", which is a bit of a made up term, really means having stable microfauna/macrofauna.
Going through the diatom ugly phase, getting all dead nutrients out of the rocks, etc.
Varies a lot. I would guess sand would help also.

Starting with recently dried live rock can be a huge mess, since they tend to be FULL of all sorts of dead things,
that rot and release nitrates and phosphates for months.

 

[sfsuphysics]

I tried the Eheim, and while it pulls a little sludge, it's mostly just throwing cloudy junk back into the tank.

Toss on some felt filter socks or equivalent when you do this cleaning, yeah cloudy junk into tank, then as it goes through the filter sock it pulls it out, when the water is clear yank the sock, clean it, and get get ready for the next round of cleaning.

 

[newfly]

I mean its really about patience.

And its HARD to be patient for a year.

You buy all this fancy new stuff and its not exactly fun to turn it all on and then have it look like a planted tank for a year

The way I'd approach it, personally, is that if I ever had the thought that I might want to get a bigger tank going. I'd throw a bunch of dry rock in a trash can with a power head and a heater, then basically cook the rock for 6-12 months.

Yeah, patient is the key. My hope the pain in the first year will pay off down the road. But who knows. I also think its easier to add sand then remove sand.