brand new tank

[rog2961]

Brand new to the hobby here. I will be starting a saltwater tank from scratch. This is my first ever. I've decided to forego skimmers and the such and go with a ATS only setup. My question is since this is on a brand new tank will I be ok with setting up a scrubber? Im afraid it will interfere with the cycling or am I incorrect? I planned on cycling the tank with ammonia, and then let it run its course. During this time period will and ATS prevent the cycling?

[SantaMonica]

Welcome.

It will be fine during cycling. You won't get hardly any algae breakout on the rocks because the scrubber will absorb it. However, the scrubber won't grow much until you start feeding.

No need to add ammonia.

[Floyd R Turbo]

You can cycle the tank by adding ammonia, but you have to be careful to keep the level below 4ppm or the cycle can stop. I use the janitorial strength ammonia from Ace hardware, it is free of surfactants and double-strength, you don't need much.

As far as interfering with the cycle, not really. If you don't dose ammonia, but instead put in a bunch of live rock (not dry base rock) then you would normally have a mini-cycle, which might end up being 'invisible' because the scrubber would uptake the ammonia from the rock. That also depends on how fast the scrubber starts growing though. But, the bacterial colony will grow no matter what, because they live on the surfaces, so they will get 'first crack' at the ammonia/waste.

[rog2961]

You can cycle the tank by adding ammonia, but you have to be careful to keep the level below 4ppm or the cycle can stop. I use the janitorial strength ammonia from Ace hardware, it is free of surfactants and double-strength, you don't need much.

As far as interfering with the cycle, not really. If you don't dose ammonia, but instead put in a bunch of live rock (not dry base rock) then you would normally have a mini-cycle, which might end up being 'invisible' because the scrubber would uptake the ammonia from the rock. That also depends on how fast the scrubber starts growing though. But, the bacterial colony will grow no matter what, because they live on the surfaces, so they will get 'first crack' at the ammonia/waste.



So would you recommend a little base rock with ammonia dosing or just ammonia dosing from the get go. Should I be running another form of filtration? I just put in my dry base rock and sand yesterday and there is quite a bit of stuff floating to the top. How would I go about removing this? Will the scrubber catch it or should I be running something else in conjunction with it?

[Floyd R Turbo]

Floating to the top? Not sure I'm following. Post some pics of your setup, that might explain a few things instead of us going back and forth with posts...