Liverock cycling in stages?

[player676]

I'm still doing my preliminary research and someone pointed me to www.tampabaysaltwater.com. I was looking at "the package" and how they recommend setting up the cycle. What they do is ship the sand and half the liverock immediately. Then, when the tank is ready, they send the inverts and remaining liverock. My question is this: Won't the new liverock create an ammonia spike and thus ruining the cycle? Or will the initial cycle be enough so that there is no die off or spike from the second rock installation?

Thanks!

 

[roka64]

I had read that also, about a month ago. I imagine you will have a little die-off, hopefully not enough to cause a cycle. I think, once you establish your tank with the original LR/sand, this should be able to keep the tank stable, or as stable as possible. The (hopefully) small ammonia spike would quickly be sqwashed by the beneficial bacteris. I am planning on 150Lbs of baserock (online) and about 50-100Lbs of LR from my LFS.

 

[Sadielynn]

what size tank is this for?
I would think that yes it would cause a second cycle...
the only reason I could think that they may do this is to give you more critters? not sure tho on that one ... one thing to watch for is alot of folks who get from tampa bay is mantis shrimps in thier live rock .

 

[player676]

it's for a 180g set up. The first stage would be the my initial cycle and then the 2nd stage and cleaning crew would go in and then after that, start to add fish one at a time.

I will watch for mantis and gorilla crabs, but I also like the idea of getting cool critters.

 

[melosu58]

It seems like to me that it would also experience a mini spike after the second batch of LR. If you do add inverts during that time you`ll need to do some good size PWC`s because the clean up crew will be sensitive to your nitrates.

 

[ICEnVy]

When I got my LR shipment, even though it was already cured there was still die-off from shipment. So to avoid a spike, I cured the LR again for 2 weeks and then added only 10lbs at a time.