is my cycle done?

[sir_dudeguy]

i got a 55 w/28 lbs baserock, a fluval 304 and a couple powerheads...its been cycling for either 4 or 5 weeks (cant remember the day i got it lol) after about a week the amonia and nitrite went up, and just today i checked them and the nitrite was at 0 and the amonia was either at 0 or inbetween 0 and 0.25.
so is my tank done cycling? do i need to check nitrates? i dont have a test kit for that, but i can run it to the lfs to find out if i need to. even if its done cycling i wont be getting fish for about 2 weeks still.

also, when i do pwc's do i clean out the filter too? last time i did a pwc about 2 weeks ago, the pad thing in the filter was just starting to turn a green/brown/yellow on one corner of it. I'm guessing thats the bacteria? and do i need to get rid of that when i clean the filter, or just a little bit of it or none at all?

last, should i vacuum the sand or just let critters clean it? its just aragonite, nothing live, no liverock either. i plan on gettting some in the future tho.

thanks
mike

 

[bertoni]

I would guess the ammonia is done, but I'd wait a few weeks in case of secondary spikes. I would check for nitrate if I was adding stony corals or seeing algal problems.

What kind of media is in the Fluval? I avoid the biological filtration options in that type of filter.

I would just let the sand be for the timebeing, and add all the live rock before adding any other animals, if possible. New chunks of live rock can cause all sorts of problems.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

what would you recomend in the fluval? and does cured live rock cause problems?
right now in the filter i just have the biomax, and then the eheim brand of the same stuff basically, um....effie or somethin, and then the 2 white pads. one baskett is empty. so you think the nitrates should be fine tho, as long as im not adding those listed, which i'm not.
really the only coal imight add later is a gsp, and stuff like it.

thanks
mike

 

[m3rcury]

two things:

1) check the nitrates. usually the nitrates go up quite a bit at the end of a cycle. if you haven't done a water change yet, they could be pretty high. regardless, it is a good thing to keep an eye on how high the nitrates are. if you plan on doing a reef tank, that is one of the several parameters you will need to keep an eye on.

2) you said you have some base rock. do you plan on adding any more live rock? if so, that will cause another NH spike - even if it is "cured." so, i would try to add all the LR you plan on before you start any serious stocking. "cured" only means it has been sitting in a vat at the LFS for a couple of weeks. depending on the amount of die-off, the "cured" live rock may actually not be very cured at all. regardless, you will most likely see another NH spike when you add more "cured" LR.

 

[bertoni]

I would remove the filter media from the Fluval and run only activated carbon in it. The other media tend to cause higher nitrate levels in some tanks. If you want to run some mechanical filtration, I'd suggest cleaning it once a week or so.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

will it do anything to my cycle if i remove the media in the filter? and by media, do you include the foam pad? and if i dont add liverock, will my base eventually turn live?

thanks

 

[bertoni]

The tank might lose some filtering capacity temporarily. Personally, I wouldn't worry about that. I would remove the foam pad, but some people use them and just clean them frequently. Bacteria, etc, have colonized the base rock and they will process ammonia for you. So the base rock is live in that sense.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

the base rock does the amonia already? so i could go with no filter media and just water flow in the tank? i know thats what live rock is suposed to do...no filter, just liverock and flow.

 

[bertoni]

Yes, it'll process some ammonia by now. I would remove the filter and perhaps add a tiny bit of fish food now and then to keep the bacteria fed. Any new live rock might cause an ammonia spike, so I wouldn't add any animals yet.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

i would keep the filter for circulation tho couldnt i? after all, it has like 260 gph alone, and my 2 powerheads are only 175 each.

thanks again all

 

[bertoni]

Yes, that'd be fine. Just use it for circulation and carbon.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

and shoud i always have carbon in or just every now and then? i heard that it can take away trace elements.

 

[bertoni]

I run it continuously and replace it once a month, when I'm good. That seems to work well enough for a lot of people. I don't worry much about trace elements. Water changes and feeding seems to work well enough, from what anyone can tell.