I have a biicube 29. Has been running for a month. Filled with live sand and live rock. I stocked it with four fish. After a month my levels still all at 0. Starting to get green hair algea. And have notdone any water changes. I check my levels every other day. Can you go through nitrogen cycle with out knowing it.
need help with cycle
- Thread starter koonce
- Start date
In place of the bioballs I have live rock. I have a protien skimmer and am using stock filter pad. I did buy a poly filter pad to help with phosphates but wanted to wait till tank was cycled to put it in. Should I be doing water changes yet. Pet store near me say not until it's cycled.
If thats the same pet store that sold you fish to put in your tank before it was cycled, I think I would be looking for a new pet store. But for the sake of your fish you will need to do water changes to attempt to keep them alive.
uncleof6
Active member
Hair algae, means the production of nitrate--with ammonia at zero--means the cycle is completing. It by no means indicates "stability" or how it will respond to changes, such as adding bio load. I firmly believe, higher lifeforms are being added far too soon, in systems with incomplete cycles, and underdeveloped bacterial populations. You need to see the ammonia spike, followed by a Nitrite spike (if you feel the need to test for nitrite, and i suppose for cycling purposes you should.) Following that, nitrates will rise steadily. Autotrophic bacteria take 15 - 24 hours to reproduce, it is not likely that you would miss an ammonia spike, unless you were not paying attention. If you are reading 0 nitrates, you need to consider new or different test kits, which could possibly explain missing the spikes.
With fish in the tank, (or other higher life forms,) you cannot safely spike the ammonia, (unless you consider them sacrificial) to get your bacterial populations where they need to be initially. Such a system will take a considerable amount of time to stabilize, if it does.
Water changes do affect the Nitrogen Cycle, as it lowers the concentrations of ammonia and nitrite--as well as nitrate. The ammonia and nitrite concentrations will affect the growth of the bacterial populations, by taking away the food source needed in a reproducing population.
By artificially keeping the ammonia level down (water changes--to keep your fish alive) the bacteria population will not increase, and the threat of an ammonia spike will be ever present, till the spike occurs, and takes out your tank.
Adding a cycling aid (most are heterotrophic bacteria) will, most likely, cause the ammonia spike.
I firmly believe, after reading increasing numbers of "I never got an ammonia spike" posts and comments, that fully cured--so called "live rock"--does not have enough live about it to cycle a tank; and packaged "live sand" has nothing but heterotrophic bacteria in it, that will not seed Autotrophs, to speed up the development of healthy nitrifying bacterial colonies.
With fish in the tank, (or other higher life forms,) you cannot safely spike the ammonia, (unless you consider them sacrificial) to get your bacterial populations where they need to be initially. Such a system will take a considerable amount of time to stabilize, if it does.
Water changes do affect the Nitrogen Cycle, as it lowers the concentrations of ammonia and nitrite--as well as nitrate. The ammonia and nitrite concentrations will affect the growth of the bacterial populations, by taking away the food source needed in a reproducing population.
By artificially keeping the ammonia level down (water changes--to keep your fish alive) the bacteria population will not increase, and the threat of an ammonia spike will be ever present, till the spike occurs, and takes out your tank.
Adding a cycling aid (most are heterotrophic bacteria) will, most likely, cause the ammonia spike.
I firmly believe, after reading increasing numbers of "I never got an ammonia spike" posts and comments, that fully cured--so called "live rock"--does not have enough live about it to cycle a tank; and packaged "live sand" has nothing but heterotrophic bacteria in it, that will not seed Autotrophs, to speed up the development of healthy nitrifying bacterial colonies.
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Korrine
You could get a ticket!!
I never got an ammonia spike when I set up my 10g temp tank. Picked up aged rocks from a local reefer, traveled with the rocks in saltwater and they went right into my tank. Not hardly any time at all for that good stuff to die. In fact, I still have some sponges on that rock. It is possible not to get an ammonia spike if you pick up rock in this fashion. The tank was already cycled because the rock was pre-cycled.
