ReefhorseJunkie
New member
So, my wife and I decided to start a seahorse tank. We have done months and months worth of research into every possible topic here, including cycling. I am an aquarist myself, but am recently breaking into saltwater. We have an 80g tank with a 20g sump (roughly 12g of added water volume). I built the sump myself, along with the plumbing. About a month ago we started cycling. We are using live aragonite sand, texas holey rock (I know it sucks for nitrifying bacterial growth as it is so dense, but my LFS gave us a deal on it, and I like the look), a 200 (I believe) micron felt filter sock, no skimmer yet (will have one soon enough), 8lbs of live rock in the fuge, a large mesh bag full of substrat pro bio filtration media by eheim, also a sponge to collect any loose detritis as I phantom fed the tank a few times (brine shrimp, freeze dried shrimp, and finely crushed up flake food) as well as skimmate from my buddy's tank 2x to feed the bacteria. Have a 1200gph RIO pump (currently running it much lower than that).
So, if you can understand that wall of text then I will get to the problem. First off, we set the tank up (with the live sand and dry texas holey rock) and filled it up over 2 days (had to wait on our RO/DI water to finish getting made). Then we added the skimmate from my friend's tank to up the ammonia. Also, my wife picked up AquaVitro's Seed for us to use. I dosed the tank according to the directions. After a couple days, I bought the aqua-cultured live rock from a very good LFS we have here (unfortunatly he is closing), and after using saltwater only and a scrub brush (brand new one) I cleaned the outside of the LR for any loose stuff and put it into the sump. The next day I bought the eheim substrat pro stuff for more filter media as I knew we had to maximize that aspect as are rocks don't hold a lot of biology. Added some more skimmate to the tank from my friend and also started phantom feeding the next few days, starting with the brine shrimp, then the freeze dried shrimp, then the flake food, meanwhile continuing my doses of Seed. During this time I was testing the water with my red sea master saltwater test kit. I was getting constant readings of ammonia at .25 - .50ppm, 0 nitrite, and every once in a while it seemed like a tiny bit of nitrate would show up. At this point it was 3 weeks into the cycle. So I tested with my freshwater kit as well, same results (except nitrate which is harder to tell on a freshwater test). So I went to the LFS and had him test the water, same results. He asked why it was taking so long, since I had live rock and live sand, and I had no idea. So he told me to leave it alone and do nothing to it, no more seed, no more phantom feeding, etc. So I did. Now I test the water (half a week later) and my ammonia is 0.8ppm and 0 nitrite, and 2ppm nitrate. There was some talk that the tank already cycled a mini-cycle and is now trying to catch up or something, but I dont know.
I believe with the LR and LS as well as Seed, that we could have ended up with some bacteria, but not enough ammonia eating bacteria or something. I don't know. I know there are threads like this all over, but it seems like mine was a bit unique. So after 1 month of LR, LS, and Seed cycling, I am nowhere. Any thoughts?
So, if you can understand that wall of text then I will get to the problem. First off, we set the tank up (with the live sand and dry texas holey rock) and filled it up over 2 days (had to wait on our RO/DI water to finish getting made). Then we added the skimmate from my friend's tank to up the ammonia. Also, my wife picked up AquaVitro's Seed for us to use. I dosed the tank according to the directions. After a couple days, I bought the aqua-cultured live rock from a very good LFS we have here (unfortunatly he is closing), and after using saltwater only and a scrub brush (brand new one) I cleaned the outside of the LR for any loose stuff and put it into the sump. The next day I bought the eheim substrat pro stuff for more filter media as I knew we had to maximize that aspect as are rocks don't hold a lot of biology. Added some more skimmate to the tank from my friend and also started phantom feeding the next few days, starting with the brine shrimp, then the freeze dried shrimp, then the flake food, meanwhile continuing my doses of Seed. During this time I was testing the water with my red sea master saltwater test kit. I was getting constant readings of ammonia at .25 - .50ppm, 0 nitrite, and every once in a while it seemed like a tiny bit of nitrate would show up. At this point it was 3 weeks into the cycle. So I tested with my freshwater kit as well, same results (except nitrate which is harder to tell on a freshwater test). So I went to the LFS and had him test the water, same results. He asked why it was taking so long, since I had live rock and live sand, and I had no idea. So he told me to leave it alone and do nothing to it, no more seed, no more phantom feeding, etc. So I did. Now I test the water (half a week later) and my ammonia is 0.8ppm and 0 nitrite, and 2ppm nitrate. There was some talk that the tank already cycled a mini-cycle and is now trying to catch up or something, but I dont know.
I believe with the LR and LS as well as Seed, that we could have ended up with some bacteria, but not enough ammonia eating bacteria or something. I don't know. I know there are threads like this all over, but it seems like mine was a bit unique. So after 1 month of LR, LS, and Seed cycling, I am nowhere. Any thoughts?
