regrowth possible?

[cocoa_pleco]

For cycling my 10g salt, i was thinking pure ammonia, but i read that you can use 1lb of live rock in a 10g, but most of the live part will die, and thats how it cycles.

1. Will anything regrow if i do this?

2. Can i keep that 1lb after cycling?


Thanks in advance:1:

[Chrona]

I'm fairly certain that you use the full 1 lb per gallon to cycle the tank, and then scrub the live rock clean of detritus after it's cycled. More stuff grows back apparently. I wouldn't try this personally with nice, expensive, coral-laden LR though, as I would be greatly disappointed to have a nice frag die, heh. Then again, this is all from the web, so you are probably better off waiting for fish whisperer or someone.

[cocoa_pleco]

meh, im going to the SW store tomorrow morning, so ill just get a lb of it.

[Fishguy2727]

One pound of LR is like tossing in a table shrimp, it will not produce a constant input of ammonia like fish will, which is what your tank needs to get used to. Unless you are going to do a full load of LR I would go with the pure ammonia. Then if you decide to do LR later you can cure it outside fo the tank. That rotting off of the dead stuff is curing, which needs to be done anytime you get uncured LR.

[cocoa_pleco]

how about 1lb of live rock and a damsel?

or i could do a full 6-10lbs of live rock today, but wouldnt that be a waste of live rock if everything dies?

If i do get a damsel, do i have to do water changes to lessen ammonia and nitrate?

[Drumachine09]

Couple questions (sorry hijacking your thred CP)

1. What is the difference between uncured and cured rocks?
2. Should i get cured or uncured?
3. My tank is not cycled yet. Would it kill it if i put it in?
4. How many pounds would be good for a 10g with a damsel? ( ive decided against the clown)
5. By putting live rock in my tank, will it make my coral sand live?

[cocoa_pleco]

all i know is 1lb of rock/gallon

[Chrona]

Couple questions (sorry hijacking your thred CP)

1. What is the difference between uncured and cured rocks?
2. Should i get cured or uncured?
3. My tank is not cycled yet. Would it kill it if i put it in?
4. How many pounds would be good for a 10g with a damsel? ( ive decided against the clown)
5. By putting live rock in my tank, will it make my coral sand live?

Uncured means that there are lots of dead or decaying organisms on the rock, so you will have to cure it in a seperate tank unless you want a massive ammonia spike (which is good if you are using LR to cycle the tank)

If you are going to use it to cycle your tank, then uncured works best.

No, live rock is often used to cycle tanks. Most to all of the organisms will grow back.

The rule is like 1-1.25lbs per gallon. And clownfish pown damsels!

It will be live in that it will house bacteria and microogranisms. Live sand that you buy, however, also has the benefit of containing tons of other organisms, like mini-starfish, etc that you can't get from simply putting live rock on the sand.

This is what I've found from my research, so I haven't applied any of it IRL. I just wanted to throw it out there in case you were impatient and didn't want to wait for a response from one of the saltwater guys :)

[Fishguy2727]

The way my cousin's work (one of best reef LFSs in area) described it was to put the full load of live rock in the tank (1-2 pounds per gallon), leave it in the tank for 2 weeks with the lights off (to prevent algae blooms due to huge buildup of nutrients from the curing process), then do a water change of at least 50%, then you are ready to start slowly stocking.

Double check your damsel decision. Most get too big for a 10. Almost all are too big, very aggressive, and will end up uglier than most fw fish.

If there is LR in the tank the sand will become live too. Commercial live sand has a lot of good bacteria in it, but not much else (otherwise it wouldn't live in that sealed bag for months on the shelf). If you can find non-commercial live sand (from an established tank/system that you rush home to get back in your tank asap) that has a chance for more diversity, but if you are using LR you don't need to worry about it.

If you use very little LR and a fish, you are doing fish cycling, which I highly discourage. You will end up with the same problems as old fashioned cycling that put all that stress on the fish that are present, except you also have LR that is curing in the tank making it even worse in there.

For a tank like a 10 I would suggest something like clowns, gobies, blennies, that sort of small stuff. It will be enjoyable, calm tank without aggression or territory issues (unless you add too many fish or too many of one species). You will have room for maintenance fish (which do you a favor by doing what they do) and you will be more likely to succeed.

[cocoa_pleco]

i was leaning towards the clown, for sure now its a anenome, goby, and oscellaris or tomato clownfish.

Ill get maybe about 5 lbs of rock today, but if i remember theres a deal on 10 or more lbs with 15% off

[Fishguy2727]

Hold off on the anemone until you are definitely ready for it. Too sensitive for a new 10 gallon. They can destroy a tank if they die.

I would go with a captive bred ocellaris (much hardier, and sometimes very different and interestng patterns) out of the two species mentioned.

What type of goby are you thinking of?

[cocoa_pleco]

yeah, the anenome is gonna be held off for a while. Im going away for five days in a month, and have noone to take care of anything, and i think my fish will be fine, but not a anenome, so ill just have the clown and goby unless its a hardy anenome.

My lfs does have captive bred oscellaris, usually 150 to 200 always in stock ( VERY popular fish).


I dunno about the goby. What kind stays small?

I have enough of the crushed shell substrate for him to dig in, and i kinda want a small one. any suggestions?

[cocoa_pleco]

and im going to Europe in July for a few weeks, and then ill have to board my fish at a lfs.

[Fishguy2727]

Most of the gobies stay small, but in this case small is a relative term. Small enough for a 10 narrows it down. Cleaners are good, hardy, many captive bred. Clown/coral gobies stay small. Check out the fish on liveaquaria.com. They have a lot of different fish for sale, but I just use it as a basic guide to what is out there, pricing, sizes, basic care info, etc. I would definitely not take their info without question, but it's a start.

[cocoa_pleco]

made it to the lfs. There was only HUGE chunks of live rock, or small ones, so i got all of the small ones they had, 3 lbs. Theyre getting more in a week.

They have small gobies, 20$ too.

I did go to a grocery store, and bought some manilla clams as pets for my 2.5g tank.