Introducing stuff after my aquarium cycles

[starryfish23]

I am on week 2 of my aquarium cycle how long should I let it cycle for? I thought 2 more weeks. When do you add the clean up crew? When do you add fish?

I have a 25 gallon, it has live rock and live sand.

 

[spikey114]

you need to get a testing kit and test for nitrate. If your nitrate is high and ammonia and nitrite is zero then you can start introducing fish.

read more here.

http://www.saltwateraquarium.com/cycling-a-saltwater-aquarium

 

[Titans_Reef]

All tanks are different, out of the 3 tanks cycled, I only saw 1 actually cycle. My 14g biocube and 125g I only saw nitrates but never saw ammonia or nitrites like my 40g breeder. The 40g breeder took about 6 weeks to cycle while the 125g and 14g was cycled in a week but I kept testing for ammonia and nitrites for 2 weeks to make sure the test kits were not bad. Once ammonia and nitrites are at 0 and you have nitrates around 5ppm after doing water changes, then your safe to start adding you CUC. Add your CUC slowly though, if you add too many, they compete for food and some will die which then you think you will need more to replace the ones that died. My 125g I added around 10 turbos when I started to see diatoms but now im down to 3.

 

[Fallling]

You need test kits for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Ammonia and nitrite will be 0 when the cycle is complete. You'll likely see high (or at least some) nitrate... do water changes to bring it down. Start slowly with CUC (such as a couple of snails) after that. Once tank at been stable for a week or 2, you can add a fish. Cycles are typically around 4 weeks, but will vary for each tank and can be longer or shorter.

Be sure to read the stickies at top of the forum and read up on the nitrogen cycle. Lots of good information there.