Cycling

[qsails]

Should I be Cycling the tank with the light's on or off?

[harbingerofthefish]

I believe you should run lights during the cycle. I'm not even sure why leaving them off is an issue (someone please fill me in). If you drop in your LR with god knows what on it, and let's say it has some highly photosynthetic life on it, and you have the lights off for the some 3-6 weeks of a cycle...you now have a dead photosynthetic creature. If the lights are off to save yourself from excessive algae...well your going to have algae either way, might as well be able to save a life even it means dealing with a bloom. Algae will die off. Get a crew and clean it up. If your going to pay $6 or so for LR then keep it live.

[ross76053]

I can tell you I cycled my tank with the lights on 6 hours/day. After two weeks, I gradually increased the light period by 30 min/day until reaching 12 hours/day. I'm not saying it has to be done this way - it's just what I did. And I had very little die-off.

 

Good luck!

[NaNO ReeFiN]

I did what Ross did and kept the lights on for about 4-6 hours a day and slowly increasing it as well.

[newreefers]

If you cycle with your lights off, then after the cycle when you introduce the lights you may get a massive algae bloom.