New tank cycle... strange?

Adamant

New member
Hi All,

I got my LR and sand into my tank on Saturday - picked it up locally from someone who was taking down a tank and the LR was kept in water the whole time and the sand was still wet.

I've not seen any Ammonia on my test kit yet, but my Nitrite is now at between 0 and 0.5mg/l (a very faint colour showing) and my Nitrate is up to 30mg/l.

I'm using a Colombo test kit which I picked up locally and have an API Saltwater Master kit being delivered tomorrow to double check.

Is it likely that I'm not going to see the Ammonia go up as the bacteria in the LR (as it came from an established tank I'm guessing the bacteria is still alive) is dealing with the small amount of die-off that occured in transit?

What do I do? Do I just keep on monitoring until I see an Ammonia spike? Maybe throw in a dead prawn or something just to "force" ammonia to be produced to see the Nitrate spike to prove the cycle worked?
 
You might not see an ammonia spike. Just keep monitoring, feeding the tank a small amounts of flake food, and wait until the nitrite goes down to 0.
 
I'd get some ammonia chloride and force a 2ppm spike. Then monitor it through the cycle. Since you already have live rock it probably already has the bacteria. So feed it and make sure it can handle ammonia.
 
I got some ammonia (only one I could get was Jeyes Kleen Off) and forced a 2ppm spike about 6pm last night.

As of just now, it looks like the ammonia level hasn't changed so I'm thinking that either I hadn't cycled at all or maybe the bacteria I have / had in the LR isn't enough to support a 2ppm bio-load.

I'm just gonna have to keep checking the ammonia and nitrates and see what happens.... I was really hoping that it was cycled so I could get my first fish / CUC this weekend but oh well, rather wait and have happy critters :)
 
I got some ammonia (only one I could get was Jeyes Kleen Off) and forced a 2ppm spike about 6pm last night.

As of just now, it looks like the ammonia level hasn't changed so I'm thinking that either I hadn't cycled at all or maybe the bacteria I have / had in the LR isn't enough to support a 2ppm bio-load.

I'm just gonna have to keep checking the ammonia and nitrates and see what happens.... I was really hoping that it was cycled so I could get my first fish / CUC this weekend but oh well, rather wait and have happy critters :)

I'm not familiar with the JEYES ammonia - is that PURE ammonia? No other additives? No scent? No detergent?

How big is your setup? How much LR & LS did you put in?

How much ammonia did you have to add to get to 2PPM? Does your test kit go above 2PPM? Or is 2PPM the max reading?

My Red Sea test kit only goes to 2PPM, but I have quick test strips that go all the way up to 20PPM. When I was ammonia dosing for my cycle, when ever I redosed, I would test with the Red Sea to 2PPM, then I would verify that it was not over 2PPM by testing with a strip. My thought for you is - if your test kit only goes to 2PPM, and you just dosed to 4PPM, your kit is only going to show 2PPM until it comes down under 2PPM again.
 
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The Jeyes is completely pure - many sites mention it and someone got the materials data sheet from the manufacturer which states it's 9.5% ammonia and 90.5% water, no surfactants or perfume.

My tank is 350L but only holds about 290L or so when it's full as the LR and LS displace the rest.

I put in 31Kg of LR and 2 big builders buckets full of sand - probably about 50Kg of sand or so.

I added just over 6ml of ammonia and the test kit goes up to 8.0ppm. Having checked just now I think it's between 0.5-1.0ppm (the colours really aren't the easiest to read!).

The nitrites are currently showing 0, however, so perhaps there are enough nitrite to nitrate bacteria but just not enough ammonia to nitrite bacteria!

I guess I'll just wait for the ammonia to drop to 0 and so long as the Nitrite is also at 0 then stock lightly and see where we go?
 
Trying to decided between one shade of pale pink and another shade or pale pink is a real treat, isn't it?

So you said you dosed up to 2PPM at 6pm yesterday, and now you're seeing between 0.5-1PPM - so it's fallen by at least half, maybe more in that time? If so, I'd say you have bacteria in there.
 
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