Question - saltwater liverock cycling

[KLKelly]

This is something I still am not quite clear on.  Does live rock keep a tank cycled when there is very little in the tank to 'feed' it?   I have a ten gallon tank without fish for the past week or two sitting here with approx. 10 lbs of live rock, 5 teeny blue legs and four astrea snails. Will the live rock eventually die off?

Freshwater systems are fed ammonia and the tank cycles.  Fish sustain the cycle without fish/ammonia source it doesn't sustain the biobugs.

With saltwater - how can the tank be cycled and maintain a cycle without any fish?

And if a tank is kept fishless - just zoos and mushrooms - can you just safely add a fish at any time?

Update: As soon as we bought the ten gallon setup from Buzzard, the person that picked up the Blenny (who is having fun and well fed in his new home) convinced me to let the clown out of the breeding box one more time before I moved him over to the 10G. Its been over a week and the evil clown isn't showing any signs of her past evilness. They are not paired up I don't think sleeping on completely different sides of the tank. 

[Faerin]

The term "cycled" is kind of a misnomer, there is no real cycle in a marine tank (there really isn't in a FW tank either, but that's a story for another day). The beneficial bacteria in your liverock will grow and shrink to match the livestock as it is added/removed from the tank, and though it does use the liverock as surface area to attach to, it is not really required to grow. The majority of life on the liverock is pretty much self sustaining (and also contributes to the beneficial bacteria), and does not need any fish or inverts in the tank to thrive.

In short, keep your parameters in line and your tank will be fine indefinitely. As long as you add your livestock gradually to let the bacteria catch up, you'll have no problems.

[KLKelly]

Thank you! : )  No wonder I wasn't finding much.