Is wet sand (carabsea ARAG-ALIVE) okay for initial cycle with dry rock and a bacteria starter kit?

[zenbear2008]

Hi
First time here setting up a 75 gal mixed-reef.
I am getting ready to set up and cycle the aquarium and want to know if I can use a wet sand (Caribsea AragAlive) sand with my initial cycle plan using dry-rock and a Microbacter Dry Rock Bacteria Starter Kit - Brightwell Aquatics.
Will this pose problems mixing the wet sand bacteria with the bacteria coming in from the bacteria starter kit? Or is my only choice using a dry sand and let the kit do its thing?

Thanks!

 

[Snyderman3]

Hi
First time here setting up a 75 gal mixed-reef.
I am getting ready to set up and cycle the aquarium and want to know if I can use a wet sand (Caribsea AragAlive) sand with my initial cycle plan using dry-rock and a Microbacter Dry Rock Bacteria Starter Kit - Brightwell Aquatics.
Will this pose problems mixing the wet sand bacteria with the bacteria coming in from the bacteria starter kit? Or is my only choice using a dry sand and let the kit do its thing?

Thanks!

I used wet sand and dry rock to cycle my 110 and I have had no problems but I am also new and have only had my tank running for 4 months. I have 2 clowns, 2 royal grammas, 2 fire fish, 2 shrimp, and a long nose hawk fish and so far I have had no problems I have also used 2 different brands of bottled bacteria my thought is that they probably use different types and the more diverse bacteria colonies the better that’s why I have mixed but that is just a personal thought. I think you should be fine as long as you fallow the directions on the bottle of bacteria and also spread out adding fish don’t add too many at a time so you give your bacteria time to grow like space it out a couple weeks between new fish additions. Once again I am also new so you might want to wait for someone more experienced to reply but that is just my personal experience.

 

[Azedenkae]

Hi
First time here setting up a 75 gal mixed-reef.
I am getting ready to set up and cycle the aquarium and want to know if I can use a wet sand (Caribsea AragAlive) sand with my initial cycle plan using dry-rock and a Microbacter Dry Rock Bacteria Starter Kit - Brightwell Aquatics.
Will this pose problems mixing the wet sand bacteria with the bacteria coming in from the bacteria starter kit? Or is my only choice using a dry sand and let the kit do its thing?

Thanks!

No it won't pose a problem.

Microbacter Dry Rock Bacteria Starter Kit - Brightwell Aquatics

Everything needed for fishless cycling a new system with Dry Rock is in this kit! This kit is designed to be used with unseeded dry rock such as Marco Rock or artificial live rock replacements. Plain dry sand is recommended instead of so called 'live sand' which may have been seeded with...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

This is the kit right? Note that their cycling guide is terrible.

 

[zenbear2008]

No it won't pose a problem.

Microbacter Dry Rock Bacteria Starter Kit - Brightwell Aquatics

Everything needed for fishless cycling a new system with Dry Rock is in this kit! This kit is designed to be used with unseeded dry rock such as Marco Rock or artificial live rock replacements. Plain dry sand is recommended instead of so called 'live sand' which may have been seeded with...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

This is the kit right? Note that their cycling guide is terrible.

Thanks! Can you clarify what your experience is with the cycling guide? Hard to understand? SHould I be using a different kit like Red Sea?

 

[damsels are not mean]

Hi
First time here setting up a 75 gal mixed-reef.
I am getting ready to set up and cycle the aquarium and want to know if I can use a wet sand (Caribsea AragAlive) sand with my initial cycle plan using dry-rock and a Microbacter Dry Rock Bacteria Starter Kit - Brightwell Aquatics.
Will this pose problems mixing the wet sand bacteria with the bacteria coming in from the bacteria starter kit? Or is my only choice using a dry sand and let the kit do its thing?

Thanks!

There is no chance of sand and liquid bacteria interfering at all. People suddenly started to overthink cycling when the bacteria bottles came out. It's important to understand that the tank will cycle itself if it has any ammonia source, whether or not you use the bottle. The bottle will speed it up if it's not dead, but you literally cannot prevent the tank from cycling unless you never add an ammonia source or leave the tank dry.

The reason I wouldn't use "live" sand though is that I think it's honestly a waste of money. Most of what is alive or supposed to be alive in there is dead by the time it ends up in your hands (if not all of it) which can sometimes jut add more fuel to the ugly stage of a new tank as it decays. Anything good that would have been in that sand will be on live rock anyways and much more. I would suggest seeing if you can buy or find some live rock, even a little bit of rubble from an established tank or order it online from some mariculture like KP aquatics.

 

[Azedenkae]

Thanks! Can you clarify what your experience is with the cycling guide? Hard to understand? SHould I be using a different kit like Red Sea?

Oh no the Red Sea Kit is even worse lol. If just based on the instructions of the Red Sea Kit, I don't think they even understand what cycling is.

Anyways, back to the Microbacter cycling guide. First, I don't think they understand the point of measuring ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate if nothing's gonna be done based on it.

Second, a showing of 0.25ppm nitrate is kind of a moot value, firstly because well, it is a low enough nitrate value that it can be pretty close to 0 and hard to tell in the first place. But more importantly, what does it represent? Nothing. If all ammonia was consumed by nitrification, then one should expect 3.65 to 7.3ppm nitrate ish, based on a dosage of 1 to 2 ppm ammonia. If it is believed that nitrate is consumed by something like say algae, then there is no reason to expect it drops to 0.25ppm and not some other value.

Third, they have no mention of testing the nitrification capacity of a tank as a means to determine it is cycled. They are wrong to think the disappearance of ammonia and nitrite and the presence of nitrate means a tank is cycled. It does indicate there is nitrification, but that is different from a tank being cycled. Cycling is about building up a robust nitrification capacity, if the tank took 2 months for ammonia and nitrite to finally both drop to zero, then that's not very robust at all.

Long story short, the guide is laughable at best, and kinda worrying at worse. People who don't know would follow the guide and potentially end up with dead livestock, or at least having to spend a lot of money rectifying the situation with big water changes and so on.

[EDIT]

Just to clarify, the Microbacter kit itself is fine, just the instructions are not.

There are many ways to cycle a tank, one way is as simple as this:

1. Dose 1ppm ammonia. Measure after about 30 minutes to be sure.
2. Add nitrifiers.
3. Measure ammonia and nitrite every 24 hours, until both ammonia and nitrite reads zero.
4. Repeat step 3 until both ammonia and nitrite reads zero within 24 hours of dosing 1ppm ammonia. Once this happens, your tank is cycled.

The reason why you measure everyday, is to track how ammonia and nitrite is being processed, and then able to act on it when required. Not to ignore the results like in the Microbacter guide. XD

 

[Reefdiculous22]

So I did the same thing here. I bought live sand and a microbacter kit. Unfortunately the microbacter kit specifically says not to use with live sand. I did not read the fine print. So I’m just wondering what to do now. I am very new to this and my tank should be here today. There is so much info and different ways to do things in this hobby. It gets to be overwhelming. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am using a mix of Fiji pink and special grade arag alive sand and Marco rocks.

 

[brandon429]

here's exactly what to do

the sand and bacteria will not conflict as mentioned above. that's a marketing gimmick.

take one pinch of any fish food and grind it into powder in your hand. input it into the mix

let swirl for ten days in your already dosed and fed cycling system. the bacteria are not compromised.

do a decent water change on day ten, you're cycled. you can't not be cycled. you're already cycled most likely anyway, but this ten day move will shore up any error that could be made. its testless, time-based cycling, your test kits aren't needed here and in fact if used, will cause you doubt in an already known timing system (see any cycling chart, ammonia control drop date)

one of the major benefits in using updated cycling science vs marketers info is that cycles can be completed without test kits, based on a known wait timing scale already in place and used by thousands of trackable reef tanks.

Damsels above is correct, water bacteria in water don't fight to the death lol they comingle among myriad species contaminated into the system upon startup and daily running in a home. over time they select to what will be; initially they're competing for ammonia and doing the the uptake job we employ them to do.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

So.. the fish food is for ammonia?

 

[Dburr1014]

So.. the fish food is for ammonia?

The fish food is your input. It decays, turns to your ammonia as it does.

 

[ilikefish69]

here's exactly what to do

the sand and bacteria will not conflict as mentioned above. that's a marketing gimmick.

take one pinch of any fish food and grind it into powder in your hand. input it into the mix

let swirl for ten days in your already dosed and fed cycling system. the bacteria are not compromised.

do a decent water change on day ten, you're cycled. you can't not be cycled. you're already cycled most likely anyway, but this ten day move will shore up any error that could be made. its testless, time-based cycling, your test kits aren't needed here and in fact if used, will cause you doubt in an already known timing system (see any cycling chart, ammonia control drop date)

one of the major benefits in using updated cycling science vs marketers info is that cycles can be completed without test kits, based on a known wait timing scale already in place and used by thousands of trackable reef tanks.

Damsels above is correct, water bacteria in water don't fight to the death lol they comingle among myriad species contaminated into the system upon startup and daily running in a home. over time they select to what will be; initially they're competing for ammonia and doing the the uptake job we employ them to do.

This dude knows cycling.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Hi
First time here setting up a 75 gal mixed-reef.
I am getting ready to set up and cycle the aquarium and want to know if I can use a wet sand (Caribsea AragAlive) sand with my initial cycle plan using dry-rock and a Microbacter Dry Rock Bacteria Starter Kit - Brightwell Aquatics.
Will this pose problems mixing the wet sand bacteria with the bacteria coming in from the bacteria starter kit? Or is my only choice using a dry sand and let the kit do its thing?

Thanks!

no, shouldn't cause issues. IDK if the wet sand will help either though, but it most likely won't harm anything. Regardless, remember to not fish-in cycle and to not use tap water

 

[SlugSnorter]

here's exactly what to do

the sand and bacteria will not conflict as mentioned above. that's a marketing gimmick.

take one pinch of any fish food and grind it into powder in your hand. input it into the mix

let swirl for ten days in your already dosed and fed cycling system. the bacteria are not compromised.

do a decent water change on day ten, you're cycled. you can't not be cycled. you're already cycled most likely anyway, but this ten day move will shore up any error that could be made. its testless, time-based cycling, your test kits aren't needed here and in fact if used, will cause you doubt in an already known timing system (see any cycling chart, ammonia control drop date)

one of the major benefits in using updated cycling science vs marketers info is that cycles can be completed without test kits, based on a known wait timing scale already in place and used by thousands of trackable reef tanks.

Damsels above is correct, water bacteria in water don't fight to the death lol they comingle among myriad species contaminated into the system upon startup and daily running in a home. over time they select to what will be; initially they're competing for ammonia and doing the the uptake job we employ them to do.

I would test, IDK why you are saying not to test. Theres no harm in testing before throwing in fish. Lots of general testing kits come with ammonia, pretty sure sailfurt and redsea ones do anyway.

 

[Dburr1014]

I started to disagree with Azedenkae until he edited his post.
Any ammonia being processed is cycled.
Weather robust or not is moot. When you add fish, I would hope you would do it slow anyway. So any processing bring done if fine.
The edit he did is the way to follow.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

So my tank literally just arrived about 20 minutes ago. Forgive me if this isn’t the proper place for this post. I’m just really excited and I mentioned earlier in my post it would be here today.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

I do believe I’ve been over thinking the cycle. I don’t really mind waiting for a long cycle if I have to. I just want my fish and animals to be happy and healthy. Thanks for the help and advice.

 

[brandon429]

cycling has predetermined end dates, they aren't ranging wildly in completion tank to tank, only the non digital test kits people use range wildly tank to tank, the actual cycle completion/ammonia control dates are already well known by cycling charts and owners of digital ammonia meters.

The reason it's important to know that waiting beyond the ready date for a system for 'extra' cycling time doesn't increase fish safety is so that we can focus on actions that do increase fish safety, those have to be specific actions separate from the cycle event.

If we read Jay's fish disease forum, it's literally full of help posts from people who waited long past their ready date to begin and still showed up there with lost fish...waiting for extra cycling time does not increase fish retention %


you can see in the available cycle charts online that basic ammonia control is set by day 10 wait in nearly any combination of display tank cycling we'll see in reefing posts. It doesn't take longer than that where bottle bac is used, for example, and this is 99% of cycling posts. You can't fail a cycle, but you can fail a fish disease prep mode hence the busy daily losses in jay's forum. live rocks moved among tanks will be skip cycle rocks


once you input bottle bac, some food, and wait to day 10 ish you can look past the cycle and begin actual quarantine and fallow preps to keep the fish alive as best as possible.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

cycling has predetermined end dates, they aren't ranging wildly in completion tank to tank, only the non digital test kits people use range wildly tank to tank, the actual cycle completion/ammonia control dates are already well known by cycling charts and owners of digital ammonia meters.

The reason it's important to know that waiting beyond the ready date for a system for 'extra' cycling time doesn't increase fish safety is so that we can focus on actions that do increase fish safety, those have to be specific actions separate from the cycle event.

If we read Jay's fish disease forum, it's literally full of help posts from people who waited long past their ready date to begin and still showed up there with lost fish...waiting for extra cycling time does not increase fish retention %


you can see in the available cycle charts online that basic ammonia control is set by day 10 wait in nearly any combination of display tank cycling we'll see in reefing posts. It doesn't take longer than that where bottle bac is used, for example, and this is 99% of cycling posts. You can't fail a cycle, but you can fail a fish disease prep mode hence the busy daily losses in jay's forum. live rocks moved among tanks will be skip cycle rocks


once you input bottle bac, some food, and wait to day 10 ish you can look past the cycle and begin actual quarantine and fallow preps to keep the fish alive as best as possible.

Awesome. I still need to get a quarantine tank. I am gonna skip starting the tank until I can get those things in place.