No Ammonia Spike during cycling

[RussellHill]

I just got a 125g tank and 175lbs of Ultra Fiji live rock from Liverocknreef. Once the live rock was in I waited a couple of days to test my water. Ammonia was 0 and Nitrite was 3ppm. A week later the Ammonia is still 0 but the Nitrite has cone down to 1ppm. Should I do anything to create a large Ammonia spike or just let it finish cycling? I want a healthy amount of bacteria .

Any help appreciated

Russell

 

[rt67ghy]

If they're going into a new tank with no livestock I' d create an ammonia spike so you can be sure you have enough of the right bacteria as you pointed out.

 

[whosurcaddie]

Dose ammonia to 2ppm and test the next day. If it has bottomed out your good to go.

It really depends on how much die off was on the rock. If you had very little die off there wouldn't be a large ammonia spike.

 

[JakeK]

I used "pre-cured" live rock with my biocube 29 and was also not experiencing an ammonia spike so I kept creating them until I was reading zero consistently. It took about 2 weeks with the pre-cured live rock. I used a very small piece of raw shrimp in a media bag to get it going. After the first reading of zero after using the shrimp, I put another small piece in, got a small ammonia spike and then did it a third time where I saw now ammonia or nitrites consistently for a week.

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: I used all premium live rock when I set up my display and never had an ammonia reading at all in my system, but I also used live sand I collected from the outer reefs off the Florida Keys , and maybe this is the reason I never had a cycle in the tank. If you raise your ammonia levels to high when you use live rock, you might kill a lot of the interesting life on your rock. Feed the tank a little, like you would if you had a few fish in their and check for ammonia to see if it is cycled with all the live rock. This is one of the benefits of using all high quality live rock along with all the wonderful life that comes with it. :fish1:

 

[anthonys51]

i agree with green. i wouldn't want to spike the ammonia if i was using good live rock. i would put cuc in feed them like was feeding fish and should be good to go in 2 weeks after that to add fish. go slow when adding fish.

 

[Coralreefer1]

You need something in the tank to instigate the cycle. A cycle is always going to start at 0 for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates and then within a month or so all of those numbers will elevate till the aerobic and anaerobic bacteria begin to populate the tank to handle the toxic ammonia and nitrites and break them down to the less toxic nitrates at the end of the cycle.

 

[RussellHill]

Thanks everyone

 

[CStrickland]

If it were me, once the nitrites cleared I'd feed every other day to let the bacteria level out to a population for the job at hand. Stress-testing biofilters works for a lot of people, but I like to go a little gentler. There was prolly plenty of dead stuff in the rock after a plane ride to instigate the cycle.

If you don't have a qt set up yet you can think about getting that started so that in several weeks when the fish is ready to move in your tank is gtg