Googlymoogly
New member
So as my title says i'm new to the hobby. I have friends that have had tanks for years and I've wanted to get tank. I went to a frag swap with them and one ended up winning the grand prize of a 93 gallon frame less cube and stand. He sold it to me for fairly cheap and now I started to setup my own tank. I have them helping me with what to buy and getting my tank started. They had me start my tank from scratch.... Dry rock and dry sand. They suggested I do the raw shrimp in the tank for 72 hours to get the tank started on its cycle. I did that over 3 weeks ago. I had my ammonia and nitrite/nitrate tests ordered so I didn't get to test my tank until probably 3 or 4 days after I took the shrimp out. When I did my first test I had trace amount of amount of ammonia and a little nitrite. 2 days later I had 0 ammonia and around 1 ppm nitrite and maybe 5 nitrate... Sorry I don't know the exact numbers I find it hard to really get the exact numbers using these test kits... Which shade of pink is it... I use Seachem test kits. Anyways, I about 3 days after getting 0 1 5 readings my tank dropped to basicaly 0 0 and maybe 2 at most. It hasnt changed for a week now. I was expecting from my understanding of the cycle that my nitrates should be rising. I have not done a water change since i set up the tank 4-5 weeks ago. I have an auto top off that tops off my tank with RO water but that is all. I don't really understand why after 5 weeks or so I'm basically not getting and ammonia nitrites or nitrates really at all. I was starting to think maybe something went wrong and the cycle didn't really start at all? Do i need to try and get it to cycle again or is it kind of in the perfect cycle zone? I have also been adding a little fish food to the tank every day for the last week or so trying to get my numbers to spike but I still get the same readings everyday.
I'm not in a hurry to put anything in the tank. i go on vacation in May and was planning on not putting any fish or coral in until after I come back so I still have a month of letting the tank work its cycle. I have 60 lbs of dry rock in it so far... no sign of algae or anything going on and the tank has been running for 4-5 weeks. My PH is currently 7.8 and water temp seems a little low at 73 degrees... I have a 300 watt eheim heater in the tank set at 78 but according to the meter I have it says my temperature is only 73. Any help would be appreciated. Does it sound like it has been cycling fine and I just need to wait even longer for nitrates to go up.. or has something happened to my cycle and I need to try and get ammonia back in it again and see what happens. The tank is crystal clear it looks nice when i turn my lights on.. I don't keep my light on because I read at this point all it will do is cause hair algae to grow so I only turn it on a couple minutes as I do my tests and just look around the tank checking for algae or growth of anything at all.
I'm not in a hurry to put anything in the tank. i go on vacation in May and was planning on not putting any fish or coral in until after I come back so I still have a month of letting the tank work its cycle. I have 60 lbs of dry rock in it so far... no sign of algae or anything going on and the tank has been running for 4-5 weeks. My PH is currently 7.8 and water temp seems a little low at 73 degrees... I have a 300 watt eheim heater in the tank set at 78 but according to the meter I have it says my temperature is only 73. Any help would be appreciated. Does it sound like it has been cycling fine and I just need to wait even longer for nitrates to go up.. or has something happened to my cycle and I need to try and get ammonia back in it again and see what happens. The tank is crystal clear it looks nice when i turn my lights on.. I don't keep my light on because I read at this point all it will do is cause hair algae to grow so I only turn it on a couple minutes as I do my tests and just look around the tank checking for algae or growth of anything at all.
