RedSea 425XL, new to me, live sand and rock cycle/plan?

[BryanM]

Lots of helpful people here, thankful for that.

I decided to side on the side of live vs dry, can afford it even if its obnoxiously expensive IMO. But it seems the benefits are a win win.

The plan I have in mind is this:

1). Salt arrives tomorrow, start mixing, and getting the tank full of water, and just get the tank and equipment going, so I don't have any major mishaps and waste a lot of money placing this live sand and rock order.

2). Place order and have airport anxiety for its arrival, all new to me, but being in California also seems the only way to go. Going with Gulf Live Rock, FWIW. Curious about how much I need as well, my understanding is the display tank here is 90 gallons. Seems like I need 100 pounds of live sand, and 150-180 pounds of live rock... does that sound about right?

3). Get rock home, unbox, and in the tank, add sand.

The big question now is cycling the tank. I've already read so many opinions that my brain is fuzzy from the ping pong ball being whacked around. I think the most interesting thing I read was adding a couple hardy fish, and simply cycling it with the live fish. Anyway, really looking for help/advice here.

 

[Formulator]

Be prepared for some flack from the community on fish-in cycling. Some people are avidly against it, saying it is “inhumane”. I am not one of those people

Its a long time tried and proven way to cycle and how I did it 9 years ago. I still have the clownfish that helped me cycle and they are now a mated pair!

 

[UMALUM]

Your doing live rock so there's no need. Just have some extra water ready as your gonna need to do some water changes. If you have time get some amquel and have your skimmer ready. Your gonna have ammonia, how much depends on how well the shipping goes. To preserve as much life as possible its your job to get rid of the ammonia asap.

 

[Fish Fan]

I've never used Gulf Live Rock, but I have read good things about their rock and sand. I have ordered from Tampa Bay Saltwater, I would definitely recommend their rock and sand. My experience with it is that you will almost certainly have at least a small ammonia spike and at least a short cycle. Things will die in transit and on arrival no matter how careful you or the shipper are. But the rock and sand is loaded with micro life, and this is about as close to an instant-tank setup as you can do, in my opinion.

https://tbsaltwater.com/

As for the fish-in cycling, I'm not a fan, but I wouldn't give anyone a super hard time for doing it. I've been in the hobby off-and-on since the 1980's, and back then we all did fish-in cycles, or used hermit crabs, or just a rotting piece of shrimp from the seafood market, which I personally DO NOT recommend as the shrimp can literally stink up your house. I much prefer to use bottled bacteria and ammonium chloride. I just feel like you can be more precise with this method vs. just letting a chunk of seafood decay in your tank, for example. It just appeals to me. And if it's even any better, safer or more humane for the fish, even better.

But if you go with the maricultured live rock and sand from GLR or TBS, you can largely skip the cycle, with the exception of a short "mini-cycle" mentioned above. If it were me, and basing this on my experience with the live rock and sand from TBS I've used, I would get your tank up and running, add your rock and sand per the instructions from the vendor you choose, give it a week or so, and then slowly start adding fish. Again, this is just what I'd do, some would move more quickly, others may take it slower with the adding of the fish.

And last thought, if you're at all worried that having a fishless tank for a few weeks or longer is somehow boring, but if you go with the live rock from GLR or TBS it should include A LOT of cool critters. You will spend days to weeks looking at the tank, and each day you will find some new critter you didn't see the pervious days. Off the top of my head, my TBS rock and sand order included all kinds of snails, limpets, hermit crabs, Mithrax crabs, porcelain crabs, little pythos crab (I believe), a very cool but reclusive decorator crab of some kind, a Florida grass-shrimp looking shrimper, and a brittle star (which I admit I haven't seen since day one lol!), plus, a bunch of interesting macro algae and probably more. My point is, your tank will be far from boring if you add the live rock and sand and give it some time before you start adding your first fish.

I hope this helps! Best of luck with your new tank!

 

[BryanM]

I've never used Gulf Live Rock, but I have read good things about their rock and sand. I have ordered from Tampa Bay Saltwater, I would definitely recommend their rock and sand. My experience with it is that you will almost certainly have at least a small ammonia spike and at least a short cycle. Things will die in transit and on arrival no matter how careful you or the shipper are. But the rock and sand is loaded with micro life, and this is about as close to an instant-tank setup as you can do, in my opinion.

https://tbsaltwater.com/

As for the fish-in cycling, I'm not a fan, but I wouldn't give anyone a super hard time for doing it. I've been in the hobby off-and-on since the 1980's, and back then we all did fish-in cycles, or used hermit crabs, or just a rotting piece of shrimp from the seafood market, which I personally DO NOT recommend as the shrimp can literally stink up your house. I much prefer to use bottled bacteria and ammonium chloride. I just feel like you can be more precise with this method vs. just letting a chunk of seafood decay in your tank, for example. It just appeals to me. And if it's even any better, safer or more humane for the fish, even better.

But if you go with the maricultured live rock and sand from GLR or TBS, you can largely skip the cycle, with the exception of a short "mini-cycle" mentioned above. If it were me, and basing this on my experience with the live rock and sand from TBS I've used, I would get your tank up and running, add your rock and sand per the instructions from the vendor you choose, give it a week or so, and then slowly start adding fish. Again, this is just what I'd do, some would move more quickly, others may take it slower with the adding of the fish.

And last thought, if you're at all worried that having a fishless tank for a few weeks or longer is somehow boring, but if you go with the live rock from GLR or TBS it should include A LOT of cool critters. You will spend days to weeks looking at the tank, and each day you will find some new critter you didn't see the pervious days. Off the top of my head, my TBS rock and sand order included all kinds of snails, limpets, hermit crabs, Mithrax crabs, porcelain crabs, little pythos crab (I believe), a very cool but reclusive decorator crab of some kind, a Florida grass-shrimp looking shrimper, and a brittle star (which I admit I haven't seen since day one lol!), plus, a bunch of interesting macro algae and probably more. My point is, your tank will be far from boring if you add the live rock and sand and give it some time before you start adding your first fish.

I hope this helps! Best of luck with your new tank!

Not worried at all about fishless, mostly trying not to make too many mistakes, and maximize the spendy live sand and salt (which I have come to believe will really be added peace of mind in the long run)

 

[BryanM]

So the live rock and sand will be here tomorrow!

Near as I can tell after they get put in the tank, I'm in water monitoring mode, mostly for ammonia, and when zero, I add "some", and monitor to see how long it takes to be removed. Do I need to be doing anything else?

 

[stewy14]

I used turbostart 900 for my 10g, added 3 times the recommended amount, and it cycled within less than a week for me!

 

[Formulator]

I used turbostart 900 for my 10g, added 3 times the recommended amount, and it cycled within less than a week for me!

I wouldn’t recommend this…

 

[stewy14]

I wouldn’t recommend this…

why? just asking curious

 

[Formulator]

why? just asking curious

Because the bottle has instructions for a reason. Why would you triple it? What makes you know better than the scientists who designed the formulation? A brand new tank can’t sustain 3x the recommended amount so you are just adding bacteria to die and pollute your water.

 

[stewy14]

Because the bottle has instructions for a reason. Why would you triple it? What makes you know better than the scientists who designed the formulation? A brand new tank can’t sustain 3x the recommended amount so you are just adding bacteria to die and pollute your water.

well, people do that and told me that it is ok to do that, nothing bad happened to my tank

"To decrease cycling time, FritzZyme® TurboStart® 900 can be safely used up to 5x recommended dosage"

 

[Formulator]

well, people do that and told me that it is ok to do that, nothing bad happened to my tank

Maybe I’m wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. It just seems to bother me when people do stuff like this because part of my day job as a formulation scientist is to come up with instructions for use of drug formulations and dealing with drug complaints from hospitals when they don’t follow instructions. So it’s close to home for me LOL.

 

[stewy14]

Maybe I’m wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. It just seems to bother me when people do stuff like this because part of my day job as a formulation scientist is to come up with instructions for use of drug formulations and dealing with drug complaints from hospitals when they don’t follow instructions. So it’s close to home for me LOL.

oooh, ye, sorry! Cool job though! but those are drugs and this is bacteria for a fish tank, pretty different! But very very cool job! how does it work?

 

[Formulator]

oooh, ye, sorry! Cool job though! but those are drugs and this is bacteria for a fish tank, pretty different! But very very cool job! how does it work?

Thanks. We do lots of testing and verification of the instructions for use. I work with sterile injectables, so we take a drug product in a vial and actually prepare it for IV infusion with all potential doses and materials of construction for the IV bags, tubing, catheters, needles, etc. We then administer the prepared IV, only instead of injecting into the patient we collect it in another container and run a bunch of biochemical tests on it to make sure the drug is still potent and chemically stable. In this way we verify that the drug is still good when prepared and administered according to the instructions we provide on the drug label.

 

[BryanM]

I do not believe I should be using that product with live rock and sand however.

 

[stewy14]

I do not believe I should be using that product with live rock and sand however.

u can

 

[BryanM]

I don't know if I mentioned this, but

100 pounds of live sand
150 pounds of live rock

Both from gulfrliverock

Near as I can tell I should just be monitoring nitrites/ammonia, due to some die off in shipping, and when zero, good to go -- But is likely good to go day one.

 

[X-37B]

I did 150lbs of live rock from GLR no sand in my 60×40×22 system
I added a 4oz botzle of turbo start to deal with the ammonia and die off at the start on day one.
I checked nitrate amd po4 after 1 week and then started adding cleanup crew and a few corals.
Im at 3 months now with 20+ hard corals and 8 fish.
Only dealt with the brown uglies on the glass and they are 90% gone with coralline starting to spot on the back wall, bottom, rocks, and powerheads.
Po4 is <.1 and no3 around 20.
Cleanup crew of turbos, trochus, emerald crabs, and pepermint shrimp added at week 2.

 

[BryanM]

Love rock and sand in, pics when it clears up.

Very happy with Gulf Live Rock!

 

[slingfox]

Nice setup. Looking forward to seeing the full tank shot!