Cycling with Live Rocks

[kwan]

Hi, I am a newbie with salt water tank and may I say how informative your forum is. I have learned so much from the communications.

I am in the middle of a conversion from a fresh water tank to salt water tank and have several questions with regards to cycling the tank.

I intend to reuse my equipment from the fresh water setup such as the canister filter. If I do it correctly, I should be able to preserve the good bacteria in the filter and hopefully reduce my cycle period. Is my assumption correct here?

Secondly, I want to introduce some live rocks from the start of the cycling. Is this a good idea? Will some of the bacteria die off from the LR? By introducing LR at the start of cycling, will this shorten the cycling period? Also should I do regular water change during this cycling period?

Thirdly, what is the recommended SG and temperature for a fish only tank. I gather one must keep the temp at around 26C and SG of 1.023. But most salt mix is specified at a temperature of 25C and the hydrometer is calibrated at 24C. So how does one go about getting the SG and temperature right for high temperatures? Is there a table for SG and temp calibration?

Many Thanks!

 

[fishfreek]

The freshwater bactera will not tolorate the high salinity of a saltwater enviorment so its just as good to clean the filter media througly or to change the media out entierly. If your looking at a fish only tank a canister filter will be ok but for those who have corals canister filters can be a detrament in the long run due to how they seem to collect nitrates.

Sure you can cycle with the live rock. We have an article on curing live rock in our articles area that can give you some ideas.

I like a SG of 1.025 and a temp of 80-82.