New 60 cube

[mizzoumed02]

Good evening, so I'm new as in i've been out of the salt world for about 4 years. I decided to get back in and set up a 60gal cube. I plumbed it into a 120gallon sump in the basement. I put a 1" sand bed more for ascetics and then 50lbs of non live rock (clean, no dead material) in the main tank. I then put 60lbs of cured live rock in the sump. I'm running a Nyos Quantum skimmer, a BRS dual reactor and a bio pellet reactor.

So when I started it three weeks ago, I threw two shrimp in the tank to help start the cycle but, as of today I still have No ammonia, nitrates, or nitrites.
My question is, is it possible that the cured rock had enough bio load that it is not going to cycle? In the past it's always taken my tanks over a month to go through a good cycle, but i've never used cured live rock before.

Just looking for some input/thoughts.

Thanks.

 

[e048]

The live rock in your sump could've handled the shrimps decay but I'm not sure why not just dose straight up ammonia and test the water

Depending on size of the shrimps 180g of water may have been too much and the flow may have caused all the decay to get converted but you should have at least some nitrates if that's the case. Why not swap a piece of lr from your sump with a piece of dead rock from the display?

Check your test kits sometimes I've gotten faulty readings from expired or improperly done testing (not shaking the bottle, waiting too long or not enough for results) hope that helps best of luck to you

 

[Irishman360]

You can buy pure ammonia at Ace Hardware that doesn't have any additives to it. When I did it I tested the next day and I saw the ammonia spike.

Here is a link to it

http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1272325