7 week tank question

[etazeta956]

I am recently back in this hobby that I love. I haven't had a reef tank in about 10 years due to moving around a bit. I finally started back up. I didn't want anything big yet, nor a nano, so I selected a 40 gallon bow front. Tank has been running about 7 weeks now.

I started out with 80lbs of CaribSea "live" sand which gave me a really nice 3-4 inch sand bed. I got my salinity right at 1.025 then let it sit for a couple of days to clear up. Next I added about 15lbs of cured live rock and maybe another 40lbs of dry rock. Purchased 2 Fluval 2.0 led strips with wifi controller. Then I dosed with AquaVitro Seed according to manufacturer's dosing instructions. A larger initial dose and smaller doses everyday after for one week. After the Seed had been dosed a week the brown algae began, but only lasted a few days. Next I added a Reef Octopus 1000 skimmer. Everything was moving right along.

I was testing every two days to catch my ammonia and nitrite spikes - nothing. Ever. After about 3 weeks of no readings I added some crabs and snails and started feeding a little pellet food. Zero readings on my tests. Week 4 I added two clownfish, week 5 a royal gramma, and week 6 a yellow watchman. And a few very small coral frags.

Everything I have added is very tiny as I want to watch them grow. So now my tank is on week 7 and is looking perfect. But I never got one single bump on ammonia or nitrites. So I started testing for nitrates - zero (API test kit). I wondered about the test kit validity so I ordered a Red Sea Pro nitrate kit - 0 ppm. I used the same kit on another tank and got a small, maybe 5 ppm reading. So I know the kit works.

Sorry for the length but do you think I have cycled and just don't have much bioload for nitrates? I have a feeling that dosing the seed is what threw everything off. I think what little ammonia and nitrites got produced were cycled by the Seed before I could even register a test result.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Dustin

 

[j_mazzy]

Was there ever an initial spike?

 

[etazeta956]

Never that I caught, no. Every test I have done reads zero. Weird because there is life in the tank and generous daily feeding.

 

[j_mazzy]

weird

 

[Highweigh]

Typically you would cause an ammonia spike on purpose, preferably with pure ammonia, or some sort of decaying food after the initial seeding to give the bacteria something to feed on.

If the cycle has completed you should be seeing some sort of nitrate reading unless it's getting used up by algae or something.

Also 1 ppm ammonia --> 2.7 ppm nitrite --> 3.6 ppm nitrate.

So if you were to dose 3ppm ammonia you should end up with around 11ppm nitrates

 

[etazeta956]

As of now my plan is to overfeed a bit to see if I can get a reading. I'm quite certain that with 10 crabs, 10 snails, 5 fish, and a few coral frags I am definitely producing ammonia. First time in my life I'm needing a nitrate!

 

[thegrun]

Between the AquaVitro Seed and the cured live rock you should have had enough bacteria to prevent a cycle which is exactly what seems to have happened. Nitrates will eventually show up, but between your deep sand bed, live rock and low bio-load right now there is enough denitrifing bacteria to keep your nitrates in check.