How long should a tank be up before adding coral?

[Banik]

Howdy,

I'm going to school in Cambridge/Boston area and am in the process of setting up a reef tank. How long should I wait before starting to add frags? So, here's the plan and the tank specs-

55 Gallon
Remora Skimmer w/ a Rio900
3x Rio 900's for circulation
350W Titanium heater
6 stage RO/DI
VHO IceCap 660 4x110

I'm in the process of trying to find sand, I'd like to put in 3-4 inches of southdown, if I can find it somewhere where I can get to it.

After the sand is in and the salt's dissolved entirely, I'll order 90lbs of LR from LR.com, 40lbs of the Keys, and 50 lbs of the "coral gulf rock"

So, after all that's set up, how long til I can put frags & suchnot in? Also, with the lighting, what sort of corals should I be looking for?

Thanks,

Banik.

 

[3mrhythm]

i did sps and clams under 660 watts of vho .. and everything thrived .. just try stuff ... i think 440 watts of vho is fine for most sps .. just keep them in the top 2/3 of the tank ... you'll have to watch the water chemistry to know when to add .. .if it were me .. i would try and find a person with water they could give up what you need .. and try and get rock from people too .. the more situated stuff you get the faster you can get stuff in there ...

 

[NateHanson]

Welcome to BRS Banik!

The first step will be to wait for that LR to cycle completely. After ammonia and nitrite rise, and then go to zero, I'd give it a few weeks, do a couple water changes, and start to add some hearty corals to "test the waters".

That's a lot of VHO, and I'd say you could get some growth of SPS such as montipora, or various softies and LPS.

Any reason you're going for florida live rock? Seems to me that it's more dense and isn't shaped as nicely as pacific live rock. Just my opinion though.

 

[mikestod]

Not to be a doubter, but are you going to live in a place permanently for a number of years at school? You might want to rethink a 55g tank if you plan on going home for christmas and summer breaks (anything more than a week or so really). SW and especially reef systems need to be supervised and maintained almost daily. If thats the case I'd advise trying your luck with a nano-reef that will be much easier to take with you.

If I'm wrong, I apologize in advance... And hopefully can help answer your questions.

 

[Banik]

I hung out a lot on www.aquariumadvice.com and they've had a lot of success with www.liverocks.com The best thing is that since it's from the keys and in transit <1day, almot nothing dies off and cycles tend to be less than a day, though I have test kits on the way, so I'm still going to do the testing to make sure. So, shortness of cycle and lots & lots of life are why I'm going LR.com. I'll be here atleast 2 years, and yeah, I've thought of the ordeal moving will be, one day.

Have others here used other live rock types? What have your experiences been? Any other places that concentrate on lots of life and very short cycle? I get the idea that most of the stuff shipped from Fiji and suchnot have a lot of die off and takes as long as a shrimp cycle.

 

[Banik]

Ok, I think it'll just be a new post for the LR opinions...

 

[NateHanson]

I got a box of Kaelini from AquaAddicts in Salem. I bought a box straight off the plane from Tonga, so it has taken about 2 weeks to cycle. The shapes, however, are incredible! Really can't be compared to florida or even most Fiji rock. If you get rock like this from some of the mail-order places it will be "pre-cured" I think, so it would cycle a little more quickly.

Live stuff on the florida rock sounds nice, but it seems that almost everyone gets some mantis shrimp, or a couple bad crabs. And that can really ruin your day if you just added a really cool fish.

 

[NeO]

Welcome to BRS!
Well, lets start!!

If you can, go with a 75g tank, the 6" front to back will make a big difference when you do your rock work.
Scratch the Rio 900 and go with maxijets 1200 they are more reliable.
Under 440W of VHO you will be able to keep some SPS like digis and caps but acros will probable lose there color, LPS and softies will do OK.
If I was setting up a new tank, I would use something like 10 to 15 lbs of live rock and the another 30 to 40 lbs of dry rock.
Dry rock is cheap and will turn live in no time and you can get it local!!


just my 0.02 cents

Gustavo

 

[NeO]

BTW, if you dont have the tank yet, look at this

http://216.235.242.50/forums/showthread.php?t=3737

 

[~Flighty~]

IMO the one day cycle is pretty impossable. I have some florida rock that was sent on a direct flight. Unless it is sent packed in water (it will not be because of the weight) there will be some die off. One muscle or sponge will be a big nitrate dump and just moving the rock can do this.

The point of the cycle isn't just to get rid of the dead material, but to let the colonies of bacteria that handle the nitrates grow sufficiently to handle the bioload from your fish. There is no shortcut way to do that.

 

[nunofs]

It's not impossible to have a 1 day cycle, I saw it myself on my tank...

There are two important factors to consider: first is whether the rock is cured or not, if it's not cured you will have a long cycle (weeks, not days); keep in mind that "cured" is different from "fresh", as I'll address below. Second is the amount of life on the rock: the Florida rock has huge amounts of life (good and bad), and some of it will die off even with overnight shipping, so you will see ammonia/nitrite spikes; on the other hand, Pacific rock that has been cured has much less life, so there's not much to die... with cured Kaelini, which had pretty good coraline coverage but little other life, I had a 0.25 ammonia reading on the first day (probably due to some tiny feather dusters that died in transit) and that was it for my "cycle".

In regard to the bacteria populations, the same reasoning applies: Florida rock is shipped "fresh", having been recently harvested from the ocean... this means that the rock was living in open water, with extremely low ammounts of nitrates/nitrites, so the bacteria population is relatively small (they reproduce only to the point where they have available sources of nitrate/nitrite), and will have to get established in your own tank... so you'll have a long cycle. For *cured* Pacific rock, there is a larger bacteria population already established (because the rock has been living in a closed container with higher concentrations of nitrate due to die off) so it will be pretty much ready to process the wastes in your tank.

Nuno