Scratching my head. Strange cycle...

[LuciDog]

Am I wrong in the understanding that nitrates show up when the tank is cycled?

 

[Cymonous]

Nitrates show up during the cycle, but does not mean the tank is cycled yet. Tank is not cycled till after you had an ammonia source, ammonia and nitrites have reached 0.

 

[kfisc]

Agreed. Depending on the sensitivity of the test kit, nitrate may show up perennially. Most kits aren't anywhere near that sensitive, and when reefers describe their tanks here, you'll see "undetectable" in reference to nitrate.

 

[CStrickland]

They can even read as falsely high during the cycle if your nitrites haven't cleared yet. They def don't mean the cycle is finished.

 

[LuciDog]

Tank was set up using 3/4 live rock from an established tank, and 1/4 dry rock
I added pure ammonia to spike it myself
Ammonia dropped over the course of 8 days (from 7ppm - 0.5ppm...)
No nitrite spike
Nitrates are around 15ppm before 25% water change (haven't checked since)
Have been dosing with seachem prime and stability

 

[Azedenkae]

Am I wrong in the understanding that nitrates show up when the tank is cycled?

Simply put, nitrate shows up when nitrites is converted over to nitrates, but when said nitrates doesn't get converted itself to something else.

That can happen during or at the end of a cycle. Or really any time there is nothing to reduce the nitrates produced.

 

[CStrickland]

Tank was set up using 3/4 live rock from an established tank, and 1/4 dry rock
I added pure ammonia to spike it myself
Ammonia dropped over the course of 8 days (from 7ppm - 0.5ppm...)
No nitrite spike
Nitrates are around 15ppm before 25% water change (haven't checked since)
Have been dosing with seachem prime and stability

What are you dosing prime for?

 

[Dkuhlmann]

ONce your ammonia drops you need to wait for nitrites and then for them to go to 0 you don't dose anything you just wait. Then when the nitrates are the only thing there you do a wc.

 

[LuciDog]

I was told by my LFS when I was buying equip to do a one time prime and stability for 7 days when I filled the tank.

 

[CStrickland]

I was told by my LFS when I was buying equip to do a one time prime and stability for 7 days when I filled the tank.

I'm asking cause Prime's mainly good for 2 things: taking some of the bad stuff out of tap water, and making ammonia (like you'd have in an uncycled tank) less harmful to animals. So it's more like an emergency thing, if your kid pours gogurt in the tank so you have to change out a bunch of water real quick you can treat tap water with Prime to avoid a crash, or if something real big dies and spikes ammonia in a new tank you can dose it, or for a non-cycled QT.

I was worried your lfs said that if you dose Prime its ok to use tap water, or add fish before the cycle is finished.

 

[LuciDog]

I'm asking cause Prime's mainly good for 2 things: taking some of the bad stuff out of tap water, and making ammonia (like you'd have in an uncycled tank) less harmful to animals. So it's more like an emergency thing, if your kid pours gogurt in the tank so you have to change out a bunch of water real quick you can treat tap water with Prime to avoid a crash, or if something real big dies and spikes ammonia in a new tank you can dose it, or for a non-cycled QT.

I was worried your lfs said that if you dose Prime its ok to use tap water, or add fish before the cycle is finished.

Ahh. No neither. My tanks are stockless right now, with the exception of the critters I've been finding, and we're filled with RO water.

I don't know why they advised that. And I did question it. They just said "as a precaution with a new tank fill" so I didn't see the harm.

 

[CStrickland]

Super. Prime won't hurt anything, and it's awfully good to have around just in case.
Ro/Di is the standard filtration for reef tanks, Ro without the Di isn't as good. Here's a good article about water filtration while you're waiting for your cycle to finish (ammo and nitrites zero) http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-04/rhf/feature/index.php

 

[LuciDog]

The RO is plumbed right into the house. That's why I used that. I'm going to put a seperate feed off for the DI but I need my husband to do that... And he won't until he's on vacation in August.