Introducing Macros?

Will putting Macro algae in a tank that is in the process of cycling kill it or should it be alright?
I bought a rather large ball of macros (chaeto, fern caulerpa and a green grape looking one) for my 29gal BioCube that I would like to plant for seahorses. I could also put it in my fuge of my 55 for now if its not safe.

 

i would wait untill the tank has completed to cycle before you add the macro. the fuge sounds like a better place for now. plus more life will attatch to the macro while in the fuge so when the cycle is done in the 29, you will have reef bugs everywhere.

 

+1 wait for the cycle to finish

 

some people soft cycle with algae, (usually a cycling tank can't hurt chaeto, sometimes the chaeto will help it cycle overnight), if that is something you can benefit from, try a portion of the chaeto. It grows, the rest will be fine to add in later. I would keep the caulerpa out, it tends to be picky.

 

doesnt caulerpa go asexual and start growing all over your tank? i thought thats why reefers use chaeto now?

 

Alrighty, that's what I thought but I wanted to make sure. Thanks John.

Yuppers, that's why I want it. Im building a seahorse tank (they need some hitches.)

 

seahorses love caulerpa...very natural for them. a good choice, not that they are picky though. I had a female and male I was trying to pair up, (the female was a full 8'' erectus and the male only 5'' so maybe she didn't like shorter guys...it never worked for them), and she would just hang out on the intake on a HOB. I had all these hitches in there....macros..gorgs...etc....she liked the HOB intake. Used to scare everyone..."oh no! your seahorse got stuck!" hehe.... Seahorses are a lot of fun, a breeder talked me out of mine....I should get another...love watching them hunt. Hey swagger, feed them live shore or ghost shrimp one day when you get them. It is nice feeding CBs the frozen stuff b/c it is convenient, but they are a lot more fun if you mix up some live food every now and then. Excellent hunters and they tend to continue hunting which is fun to watch as they creep around the tank stalking shrimp.

on a different note though, if you aren't trying to soft cycle with algae, it may be best to skip it. the reason being is that if the algae constitutes a large portion of your surface area and then it dies, the bacteria dislodged into the water column wont be very helpful and the remaining aerobic bacteria will have to pull double duty to cycle the dying macro. the result may be a mini cycle. Likely to happen? no...and some patience and the bacteria on the chaeto will grow exponentially onto other surfaces as well...just thought I would throw that out there - more for subsequent readers who may come across the post.

 

Sounds like you had a fun pair John. How cute.
Im not quite familiar with the term "soft cycle" however. Could you define it for me?
The 29gal I have it in is now 15 days (Two weeks) old and has new sand and cured LR in it since I set it up. Its going through its cycle at the moment (algae blooms galore).

 

soft cycling is when you want to preserve as much life on your LR as possible. easier to demo maybe:

1. setup tank with water, add chaeto - no ammonia, nitrites etc...
2. add some sweet LR - some of the breaks down into ammonia and then nitrites then to nitrates etc...by the bacteria living on the chaeto, the chaeto itself will then consume the nitrate and the rock is spared ammonia poisoning...you get to keep the fragile inhabitants...etc...
3. wait a little
4. add another rock...
5. repeat etc...

People do this rather than the place all the rock in at once to reduce die off that happens from the ammonia spike to preserve the quality and value of the rock as well as to reduce nutrients in the system caused by the die off that would have otherwise occurred if you just put all the rock in at once. That method, "the regular method", is sometimes referred to as a hard cycle because the rock is exposed to ammonia and nitrite.

did that make sense? I was typing on an empty stomach and couldn't get my mind on topic...

 

sweet i soft-cycled then had no idea i did, but woot!