Which equipment should I turn on during cycling?

I have always run the skimmer when cycling and have never had any issues. It will not really pull anything anyway for the first couple of weeks and as John pointed out you can have it set to skim very dry.Skimmers help with gas exchange.No lights...No CUC......Heater optional but I probably would.

 

Yah Skimmer set to dry for me with heat and pumps going with no light. Maybe lights when testing them and when moving some aquascape is all I use them for when cycling.

 

I have always used my lights when cycling. If ca and alk are in order, you can usually get a jump start on your coralline algae. If you aren't careful though, you can get some nuisance algae though.

 

That's what I really thought.

Well, I have 7 fresh water tank. They use T5, and during summer, they go well above 90. Even if my room temperature is 70, my tanks would be around 80.

I would like to keep my Reef 78. I would not run the AC for the whole house at 60 room temperature, to get my 78.

Trust me, I've done my homework on this one ;D

So when can I start dosing? right away? correct?

Hmmmm, if the purpose is gas exchange, then shouldn't water circulation and agitation on top, would be enough?

 

You start dosing when it's necessary. When I set my new system up, I used 2 part to get my alk up to 10 and ca up to 450ish.....that's what kickstarted my coralline growth. 4 months later, my overflows and rock are completely covered in purple.

 

I would definitely turn the heater on, and maybe a few degrees higher than normal. From what I've read in several places, higher temps during cycling helps kick start the bacteria. Nothing like 100 degrees, but somewhere around mid 80s. But I could be wrong... That's just what I've read on several different forums.

 

hey all good lol I just used a fan to keep tank down under 80 when we were running t5's. but a chiller works to lol

 

Make sure you have good airflow through the tanks to keep them cooloer. I have no temp issues with my tanks and I use T5HO on them. They all have good airflow and the tank temperature changes no more than 1 degree.

 

I ran 400 watt MH over my 120 gallon with no temp issues. Just 2 fans on each end of the canopy. 2 pushing, 2 pulling. Kept my tank quite cozy at 78.8 degrees!

 

Thanks for the advice on Temperature guys. However, I already bought the chiller. So I'll be using it. Hhahaha