Extending the cycle on purpose....????

[Dtilton]

Hi all-

About a month ago I set up my 90g with 29g sump, 180# sand, 100# marco rock, 2x250 MH and 2x54 T5 actinic. The cycle has been complete for a week or so now, it took about 3 weeks b/c the marco rock was so incredibly clean. I cycled it with some LS and LR from Maurod, a piece of raw shrimp, and now we have all kinds of cool things alive in there! Protein skimmer is going with just a little skimmate every few days. I toss a little frozen brine shrimp in every few days to give the bacteria something to chew on. Now there's a ton of green hair algae starting to grow everywhere. That was expected. My question is- we're going on vacation in a few weeks and we'll be gone a week. I thought the cycle would take much longer, so we weren't planning to stock anything until we got back. Now I want to toss in a clean up crew for the algae, but I have this irrational fear that something will get stuck in the overflow while we're gone (Oceanic Mega Flow stock) or that everything will die off, causing the skimmer to go nuts while we're away. I'd still like to wait until we get back before I add anything, but is there a point where the algae takes over and it's too late? Or will enough of a clean up crew take care of any amount of algae? I leave the blue LED moonlights on 24-7, the actinics maybe 2-3 hours a day, and the MH maybe an hour just so we can check things out. While we're away,just the LEDs will be on, so that should help limit growth. Water is Typhoon 3 RODI, 0 TDS, and I only tested the big 3- Ammonia, Nitrate,and Nitrite and all are zero. PH is 8.2.

All suggestions/advice welcomed!!!

-Danny

 

[jackthestrat]

is there a point where the algae takes over and it's too late? Or will enough of a clean up crew take care of any amount of algae?

All suggestions/advice welcomed!!!

-Danny

Danny -

Well, It took me a while but I found the question in your question.

I think you are thinking about things too much. Don't put living organisms in your still-cycling tank until you get back from vacation. For future reference, don't make any changes to your tank right before you go on vacation.

Relax and give the tank time to do its' thing - if you start rushing things now you'll be super stressed out later when it takes half a year for you to get 3/4 inch of growth on a coral

That being said - you can also drape some towels around / over your tank and stop it from getting any light at all for the entire time you are on vacation. That should put a dent in any outbreak you are seeing, and won't hurt anything (since you don't have anything in it to hurt). also, with nothing in the tank, chill out on feeding it frozen foods. You're basically feeding your algae.

 

[~Flighty~]

The cycle is just the process of building up the bacteria so that they can process the waste ammonia from food and fish. The nasty algae you see also "eats" this waste to grow (think plant food). The key is to get the ammonia and other fertilisers out of the water before they are sucked up by pest algae or they hurt your fish. It never is a good idea to let that bad algae get out of control because you are always going to want it gone eventually.

What I personally would do is to get some macro algae (refugium plants like chaeto) and drop that in your tank while you are gone. That will suck up the fertalisers and grow in a way that won't be invasive on your rocks and will out compete the ugly hair algae. Get a little clean up crew to start mowing down the bad algae and remove as much by hand as you can. Leave lights going especially actinics to drive purple coraline algae growth. When you get back your hair algae should be partially tackled, the rocks will be purpling up and there should be a ton of live food (pods) running around and ready to fatten up your first fish.

 

[Dtilton]

Jack- Thanks for the piece of mind!! Cindy- I have some chaeto growing in the sump in the fuge area- so your saying to take that out and drop it in the tank and leave the actinics on for a few hours a day for that week while we're gone and that'll help? And get a little clean up crew going now and while we're away? Should I leave the skimmer on or off while we're away? There's so little production it would never fill in a week,but would that change with a clean up crew? The levels have been at zero for a week now- ammonia/nitrate/nitrate- and they did all spike over the past few weeks, so the cycle is indeed done I believe. Thanks for responding!

-Danny

 

[Jocko]

The cycle is an ongoing thing. What people usually refer to as "the cycle" is the process of everything reaching equilibrium. Adding excess food to artificially spike the ammonia only creates an unusually high food source for the bacteria which in turn will lead to an artificially high population of bacteria that will die off when you stop adding the excess food. So I don't think there is any need to perform these cycle boosting actions.

The goal is really just to see all the levels at zero whenever you test your water. And that generally means everything is in balance. If you follow the rule of adding new livestock slowly, you will give your existing bacteria population time to adjust to the increase in bio-load. Any change disrupts things slightly, but if the change is small enough with won't create any measurable impact on water quality.

So yeah when you get back from your trip, go get that cleanup crew. And then give things a little time to equalize. Hope that made sense!

 

[Dtilton]

Thanks Matt! Makes total sense. I didn't know the ammonia fed the algae as well, just thought it fueled good bacteria. We'll add the clean up crew as soon as we get back, then start stocking... pair of percs, not sure what else after that, but yellow tang last! -Danny and Janet