Okay so i have an established tank that has been up for about 7 months. I have alot of all kinds of coral excepy SPS and i had lava rock in the tank and my sand was just covered in soo much alge. SO i took out ALL the live rock and put in about 8 pounds of dry rock that i let soak in freshwater for about 3 days and put about an inch of dry sand over the live sand. im starting to have some brown alge( i think its deterious) growing on the rocks and sand i put in. The tank is a 10 gallon tank. I was wondering if im going to have a cycle and if yes is it going to affect my coral too much?

I would guess yes, it will probably cycle. Watch your parameters closely and be prepared to do water changes till the tank reestablishes itself to lesson the effects on what you already have in the tank. Anytime you do drastic changes you can expect some cycling issues. I moved a FW tank about 5 feet once and it totally crashed. Good luck!

you also dont want to use lava rock in your tank, you want a very porous rock so that it creates a greater surface area for the algae to grow. loko around for some live rock about 5 bucks a pound. but when you switch it out you will definatly have a cycle, so you can set up a temp tank in the meantime until that cycle is over, or just cycle the rock in other tank. several ways to go.

Its all curently in the tank i took all the lava rock out. and im having alot of brown alge grow on it now. so its just cycling?

Let me get this straight. You pulled all your established rock out (I don't care if it was lava or otherwise) and replaced it with 3-day old live rock?

You do realize you just pulled a big chunk of your biological filter out and replaced it with nothing, correct?

If I were you I'd be watching your ammo levels like a hawk.

Yes, this was a bad idea. I suggest doing many large water changes or any spikes. How did you remove the corals?

I didnt remove the corals. and yes i just removed all the live rock i had in there and replaced it with "dry" rock all corals are happy and ammo. levels are good only have 5 nitrates and all other parameters are good i have an aqua clear and i was told the sponges and filterfloss would hold some bacteria.

you shouldnt have put more sand in. that will mess up the whole biological order of your system. i suggest that you stir around your sand before you do your next waterchange.

My sand had some cyano on it and i didnt want it it was playbox sand (i cleaned it first) and now i actually put reef sand in and have reef rock too all corals are more happy then they have been in a while.

pix of teh tank pleash.

Im at school right now i will try and get some picks up as soon as i get home from the Marine recruiter. should be around 5:30 they they get up.