Need to clarify a couple things.

[johnny85]

I have been in the saltwater hobby in the past. I have been out of it for the past few years and just got back into it this past week. I have my tank up and running with ro/di water and red sea salt. I just got it up and running yesterday. I see conflicting info on water changes. During my cycle should I do a water change or not? Also at what point do I order my CUC? Thanks in advance.

[Jmevox]

Do a large water change after the tank has fully cycled.  Best way to tell if it’s fully cycled is add ammonia. If ammonia is 0 the next day you’re good to go. Add clean up crew when you have algae and after the tank is cycled

[johnny85]

15 minutes ago, Jmevox said:

Do a large water change after the tank has fully cycled.  Best way to tell if it’s fully cycled is add ammonia. If ammonia is 0 the next day you’re good to go. Add clean up crew when you have algae and after the tank is cycled

When you say add ammonia how much should i add?

 

[Jmevox]

Enough to get it to 2ppm

[Gravity]

Depending on your setup, whether you used live or dry rock and/or sand it may take a few cycles to get ammonia processed in 24 hrs. On my setup with dry rock and live sand (no additional bacteria), it took about four cycles to process within a day. You should also check that nitrite is zero or should see an increase of approximately 7 ppm nitrate per 2 ppm of ammonia. 
 

As for the water changes you can do them between each cycle or after you have processed the ammonia within 24hours. If you do wait to do water changes to the end, I would recommend keeping the lights off to prevent a large algae bloom. 

[Candymancan]

For my 30g long, 60g hex and 135g i used dry dead rock from amazon. Sand from petco the popular brand we all use i forgot the name but i mixed it with fiji pink and a powdery type so its two types. Looks more natural that way vs 1 size grain.

 

Then i used this stuff.  Fritszyme 9 from frits aquatics.  I used 1 gallon bottle for my 60g hex and 135g and half gallon for my 30g tank.   Ammonia went to 0 in 24 hrs and i had nitrates..  I added corals and fish right away after 3 days.   Im impatient and dislike waiting 4-6 weeks for a safe cycle to finish.   https://www.amazon.com/Fritz-Aquatics-80203-FritzZyme-Nitrifying/dp/B004U3AOKE/ref=asc_df_B004U3AOKE/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167154348866&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16063899520919533974&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008160&hvtargid=pla-335404934604&psc=1

 

 

As for cleanup crew.. Id say buy as you go.  If you get fish that are picky eaters such any bristletooth tang like the tomini and yellow eye tang. Or if you get lawnmower blennies, or any kind of dwarf angel.  I would hold off on cleanup crews.  These fish tend to rely on the diatoms that the tank forms early on and you csn use that towards your advantage to getting them to slowly eat normal prepared foods.  

 

Once you get the fish population established then i would get cleanup crews based on the algae you have.  For example i had tons of hair algae in my tanks, so what i did was get a few sea urchins. Turbo snails and that added with my tangs and foxface fish the hair algae slowely disapeard.. I have 0 in my tanks no well maybe 3% of my rock has a tiny bit but thats ok.   I litterally just now added 13 scarlet hermits. So my cleanup crew was urchins and fish to control algae not really crabs or snails per say

 

None of my tanks use sumps. Skimmer. Or any special equipment besides t5s hobs for mechanical and normal power heads.    For the cyano bacteria stage i use chemiclean.. works everytime.

 

It usually takes a year for a tank to completetly settle though.

 

Ima little confused to as why you feel you need to do water changes during a cycle ? Lol i mean ive only been doing fish keeping for 20 years so what do i know..  as for adding ammonia ? Why not buy some shrimp from the grocery store or take a huge chunk of flake food.. toss it in the tank and walla there is your ammonia.. and just leave the tank alone for a month after that.  Or get the fritszyme like i did and cycle the tank in a few days and be done with it

[Clown79]

How are you cycling the tank?

With dry rock you need an ammonia source, cleanest method is using ammonia like Dr Tim's.

 

With liverock, it just needs to cycle on it's own

 

 

Waterchanges should be done once the cycle is complete.

[johnny85]

I have Fiji pink sub and 67 pounds of live rock. 

[johnny85]

19 hours ago, Candymancan said:

For my 30g long, 60g hex and 135g i used dry dead rock from amazon. Sand from petco the popular brand we all use i forgot the name but i mixed it with fiji pink and a powdery type so its two types. Looks more natural that way vs 1 size grain.

 

Then i used this stuff.  Fritszyme 9 from frits aquatics.  I used 1 gallon bottle for my 60g hex and 135g and half gallon for my 30g tank.   Ammonia went to 0 in 24 hrs and i had nitrates..  I added corals and fish right away after 3 days.   Im impatient and dislike waiting 4-6 weeks for a safe cycle to finish.   https://www.amazon.com/Fritz-Aquatics-80203-FritzZyme-Nitrifying/dp/B004U3AOKE/ref=asc_df_B004U3AOKE/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167154348866&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16063899520919533974&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008160&hvtargid=pla-335404934604&psc=1

 

 

As for cleanup crew.. Id say buy as you go.  If you get fish that are picky eaters such any bristletooth tang like the tomini and yellow eye tang. Or if you get lawnmower blennies, or any kind of dwarf angel.  I would hold off on cleanup crews.  These fish tend to rely on the diatoms that the tank forms early on and you csn use that towards your advantage to getting them to slowly eat normal prepared foods.  

 

Once you get the fish population established then i would get cleanup crews based on the algae you have.  For example i had tons of hair algae in my tanks, so what i did was get a few sea urchins. Turbo snails and that added with my tangs and foxface fish the hair algae slowely disapeard.. I have 0 in my tanks no well maybe 3% of my rock has a tiny bit but thats ok.   I litterally just now added 13 scarlet hermits. So my cleanup crew was urchins and fish to control algae not really crabs or snails per say

 

None of my tanks use sumps. Skimmer. Or any special equipment besides t5s hobs for mechanical and normal power heads.    For the cyano bacteria stage i use chemiclean.. works everytime.

 

It usually takes a year for a tank to completetly settle though.

 

Ima little confused to as why you feel you need to do water changes during a cycle ? Lol i mean ive only been doing fish keeping for 20 years so what do i know..  as for adding ammonia ? Why not buy some shrimp from the grocery store or take a huge chunk of flake food.. toss it in the tank and walla there is your ammonia.. and just leave the tank alone for a month after that.  Or get the fritszyme like i did and cycle the tank in a few days and be done with it

I have read just a couple of different things saying not to do them others say to do them. I just wanted to be sure. I’m definitely going to try the fritszyme like you said. Do I need to know anything else about this?

[Tired]

If your rock is already live, put some ammonia in there to test. The tank may already be cycled.

 

If you have life on your rock that you're trying to preserve, you have to do water changes during your cycle to keep the ammonia lowish. You want there to be some ammonia, but very little, so that the bacteria can feed without the life being hurt. Where did you get your live rock, and what does it look like? Are there a lot of little crawling things and stuff growing on it? 

[johnny85]

3 minutes ago, Tired said:

If your rock is already live, put some ammonia in there to test. The tank may already be cycled.

 

If you have life on your rock that you're trying to preserve, you have to do water changes during your cycle to keep the ammonia lowish. You want there to be some ammonia, but very little, so that the bacteria can feed without the life being hurt. Where did you get your live rock, and what does it look like? Are there a lot of little crawling things and stuff growing on it? 

The tank has been up and running now for 2 days. I have nothing crawling on the rock but some of the pieces have the purple coralline algae. I got the live rock from one of my Facebook groups and the person I got it from came highly recommended. The rock looks great. Nothing really growing on it a couple pieces had some bubble algae and that’s about it. 

[Tired]

Then you don't need to do water changes, but you very well may not need to add any bacteria, either. I would test with some ammonia and see how much of it, if any, is left after a day or so.

[Clown79]

23 hours ago, johnny85 said:

The tank has been up and running now for 2 days. I have nothing crawling on the rock but some of the pieces have the purple coralline algae. I got the live rock from one of my Facebook groups and the person I got it from came highly recommended. The rock looks great. Nothing really growing on it a couple pieces had some bubble algae and that’s about it. 

Ammonia dosing is not to be done with liverock(purchased wet), that can kill anything beneficial.

 

If you purchased dry rock- then dose ammonia.

 

If after 2 weeks you have seen no ammonia spike on your tests and you have nitrates- you're cycled. Waterchange size will depend on nitrate levels. 

 

 

[Jmevox]

3 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Ammonia dosing is not to be done with liverock(purchased wet), that can kill anything beneficial.

 

If you purchased dry rock- then dose ammonia.

 

If after 2 weeks you have seen no ammonia spike on your tests and you have nitrates- you're cycled. Waterchange size will depend on nitrate levels. 

 

 

Dosing minor traces of ammonia is not going to kill all of the nitrifying bacteria on the live rock.  

[Clown79]

37 minutes ago, Jmevox said:

Dosing minor traces of ammonia is not going to kill all of the nitrifying bacteria on the live rock.  

It won't kill all the bacteria but does kill the critters you want from it 

 

There is also no need to dose ammonia with liverock. Dosing ammonia is for dry rock cycling.