another of my many questions

[taxqueen]

So I put my live rock in yesterday,I'm sooooooo excited I was reading conflicting info about the cycling process. Should I be be cycling with the lights on or off? As well I was reading that water movement is important thus why I purchased a powerhead, but some reading says I should piont the blower toward the surface of the water, other reading says I should not have it so strong that it produces alot of bubbles. I know it seems silly to be concerned about this but I just want to get everything right. Does it really matter where the powerhead is placed?

 

[lizardarm]

I think that what people are getting at when they say to point it toward the water's surface
is that there is better oxygen exchange at the surface when it is turbulent. High oxygen levels are important in an aquarium. As far as the lights being on or off, I've heard it both ways also and really just don't know what's best although my gut instinct tells me that having the lights on for at least part of the day is probably beneficial to any microfauna on the live rock.

 

[Krish]

Powerheads/flow serves different purposes. Pointed at the surface as already mentioned, increases oxygen exchange. Flow pointed beneath the surface is used for carrying food to corals etc that cannot move about and search for their own food, but rely on it to be brought to them, keeping waste/detritus in suspension to either be mechanically removed (rather than sit and rott which degrades water quality) and so forth. It's good to have both surface aggitation provided by flow and flow within the tank. I'd make sure to have have sufficient flow in your tank where there are no deadspots for detritus/waste to accumilate. As for the lighting, most people tend to cycle their tanks for the first few weeks without them on, but like with anything in this hobby which you will soon learn, there is more than one way to go about things in this hobby and be successful so go with what works best for you. This is the reason why you see so much conflicting information here as people use many different methods in this hobby to accomplish the same thing and be successful

 

[jagwire]

lighting and flow

you want both flow in around and on the surface of the tank. to make this happen use more than one powerhead and play with them until there are no dead spots or area where things can settle.

i have the best luck cycling without light for about two weeks and the start a very short period of time. light can be very benificial to things that you want to keep alive but it can also be very benificial for thing you do not want have growing (algea). so if you dont provide light at first you have a better chance of at least starting out with less algea than if you were to have the lights on.

its cool that your ready to add lr remember to be patient and let things take thier course youll probably get bored with the rock and want to add things soon but waiting until all is ready will alow you to add and keep things alive which will take longer but is worth it.