Cycle Questions

nugzo

Premium Member
My 210 has been up for a week now. I added 400lbs of Caribsea West carribean reef sand. 60Lbs almost cured LR from LFS, 50Lbs of LR from my 7month old 75g and about 50lbs of live sand from the 75g. I added 8 3" cooked shrimp from the grocery store (6 in the display and two in the fuge). The shrimp are now unrecognizable. The smell was horrible for a few days but now it's almost gone, almost undetectable... unless u put your head in the cabinet. :eek2:

I didnt start testing for amonia untill the 7th day. I'm getting 0 amonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate. Is the tank cycled already because of the live rock and sand or has it not started yet? Anything i can do to "test" it? Thanks in advance!
 
My guess is that it is cycled. You might want to give it a few more days and retest just to be on the safe side.
 
most people put 1 or 2 shrimp in their tank.

you can remove them now.

go buy a new ammonia test kit just to be sure because i cant imagine there being no ammonia or nitrate, its possible though.

water shouldnt stink a reef tank should smell nice and clean, its just a sign for good water quality on all fishtanks fresh or salt.

i would do some water changes over the next week to get your water back in shape and then check your perameters a day later to see if everything is ok.

seeing you used alot of good rock everything is probably ok but just watch it for a week, no harm in that.
 
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0 N03 is worrisome. As the by-product of N02 there should be at least a low level of N03. Have your LFS test your water.us
 
I re-checked this morning. Nitrates are at 10. Maybe i miss counted the drops last night. Thanks for the replies.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12273358#post12273358 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Poisonus Yeti
A good distinct characteristic of a finished cycle is the presence of diatoms.

I have a brownish algae growing on some of the rocks , looks almost like little air bubbles in the algae. Also brown algae on the glass at the sand level and on the silicone seams. Green algae on the sand in the fuge. I just added another 70lbs of almost cured Fiji Premium today. Shoudldnt be long now! Should i run without display lights for a while? Wont that keep the algae down? Even though it should be cycled soon, it will still be another 45-60 days before i put any fish in. They are all in a QT tank W/ copper (ich). Since i used all of my LR and sand from the 75g infected tank, i need to run the new tank without fish for 2 months to be ich free right? I will be adding coral over the next 2 months though.
 
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