Is this normal?

how so??? my tanks cycled within the month :|

 

I'm not sure about that one.

Be careful with cause and effect assumptions. There's no evidence that because you had a pound of LR per gallon; that this is why your tank cycled in a month.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying you're taking a leap by assuming that's the reason why your tank cycled in a month's time.

 

the more live rock you start with the larger the population of bacteria you start with. populations increase faster the bigger they are.
also the more live rock you start with the larger the chance of more die off. the more die off the there is the more ammonia is produced and the more the bacteria must grow to remove it.

populations only increase and decrease to meet the available level of food(ammonia, nitrate, nitrite)

a tank will cycle faster with more live rock if it has the same amount of ammonia being produced as a tank with less live rock.


It is really the amount of ammonia and size of starter bacteria cultures in the tank that determines which cycles the fastest.

ofcourse you can make the arguement that a tank is never truly done with cycling until it is fully stocked because every time you add new animal it goes through a mini-cycle to take up the extra ammonia.
if your counting mini-cycles then i suppose you could even make the arguement a tank is never fully cycled because each time you feed the fish extra ammonia is being produced for a period.

if mini cycles are counted i say you are both wrong because your tank is never done with cycling .