Cycling a 10 gallon

[kelp]

Question on cycling a 10 gallon. I just added all my water and sand. Temp is stable, equip is operational, salinity is good.

I will check PH before I throw any rock in. I planned on cycling with a decent amount of live rock, about 12 lbs of some fiji I found with nice corraline growth. Does this sound like a good starting amount? I thought it might be a good start to help avoid starting another cyle if I add more at a rate of 2lbs at a time every couple weeks. Eventually I would like to have 15-20lbs depending on looks and what fits nicely. Appreciate any experienced input I can benefit from.

[Satchmo]

That sounds OK. Remember that most corals you buy will come attached to their own piece of LR. So don't completely fill up the tank with it now. I went with ~12lbs to start my 10g.

[snafuforyou]

u have a good amount-if u can remove the sand from the bottom of your aquarium where the rock will rest at.-the reason is (depending on the animlas you want to keep) is so the rock does not get moved from sand burrowing animals-so place the rock on the bottom of the aquarium as much as possible

[Sahin]

I agree, you have a good starting amount of rocks.

 

To avoid "cycles" in the future, you can buy cured LR. But small bits shouldnt cause a real "big cycle".

 

And yes, they are correct, when you add corals, most likely a good few will come attached to various rocks.

 

I actually bought about 20lbs for my 24G tank and added cured LR over several weeks to achieve about 30lbs and didnt get any readings for Ammonia or nitrite after each time I added another piece of rock.

[Guest LudavicoTechnique]

You can actually buy cheap live rock ($4.99/lb and less) and seed it with the rock your corals will come on. Good live rock will cost about $15/lb and that is way too expensive to buy 20lbs of for most people (like me). The same applies to live sand and dead sand. You can seed 20lbs of dead sand with 1lb of live sand, your dealer might just give you a pound of live sand if you are nice enough. Seeding saves spending.