Yet Another Cycling Question?

[jwright]

I am new to the Salt water Hobby, although I have had fresh water for many years. This is a great site, tons of valuable information here.

I was wondering if anyone has used the product Cycle, during the cycling of a new salt water tank. My concern is that I have either Stalled or prevented my tank from actually cycling at all. The tank has been up and running for almost 5 weeks, ammonia and nitrites have not budged from 0 at all.

I am planning on just letting it run a few more weeks. I am afraid to even add fish after even that amount of time, if I havent seen any movement in the ammonia or nitrites.

thanks in advance

 

[jwright]

The tank is 130 gallons. For filtration I am running 2 magnum 350 canister filters and a fluval 403 canister filter. The tank currently has 50 lbs of Live Rock (live rock has been in the tank the whole time) with a marine sand crushed coral substrate (first mistake), as well as a healthy brown algae bloom (minor annoyance).

 

[steve-s]

Products like Cycle are IME a waste of the bottle they where packaged in.

As far as not getting an ammonia or nitrite reading, it could be the rock you purchased was that well cured of the smaller amount may not have been sufficient to get the cycle started. Do you/did you ever get a nitrate reading? If that is present still, the cycle may have happend and you just missed it. Could be the test kits as well.

If you have never had a reading on any of the nitrogens, I would personally play safe and toss in a raw cocktail shrimp (or 2 considering the tank size) and run through the process to be absolutely sure you have a strong biological filter in place before adding animals.

What type of tank will this be FOWLR or reef?

Cheers
Steve

 

[jwright]

Thanks for the advice, it is going to be a FOWLR tank, in all honesty I have ignored checking for nitrates, I will do that tonight. I have been too worried about seeing any differences in the ammonia or nitrites. The live rock was a special ordered box of Fiji rock and it went directly from the shipping container to my tank.

Thanks again,

 

[jwright]

The Nitrates levels are reading 5 ppm. I checked the nitrates against the water that I will be using for my water changes and they are at 0 PPM. So I guess my tank did complete the cycle while I was not looking. Still I am going to let it run for a couple of more weeks, in the meantime I have setup my quarentine tank in anticipation of getting a small group of percula clowns or maroon clowns this weekend. I have not decided which, it is really up to my daughter.

Thanks Again,

 

[steve-s]

Still I am going to let it run for a couple of more weeks, in the meantime I have setup my quarentine tank in anticipation of getting a small group of percula clowns or maroon clowns this weekend.

While there are no animals in the tank you will need to add small amounts of food about twice a week. This will keep the bacterial population fed in the absence of waste producing animals.

Cheers
Steve

 

[jwright]

Well it turns out my tank did cycle and is running great thus far. So now I want to start getting some fish. over the past 2 weeks I have added 6 turbo snails, 6 troches (I think that is right) snails and 6 scarlet hermits. I lost 2 of the troches and 2 of the turbos by the next day but the rest are doing swell and going to town on the algae which was very good.

I am looking for some what to go in the tank advice, I have to get a pair of Clowns for my daughter and my lfs has tank raised so I am going to get those for sure probably this weekend. I also am going to get a Royal Gramma. My wife wants some kind of sort of large colorful fish probably and Angel, Tang or Butterfly. She liked the French Angel but it looses its bright juvenile coloration.

Any thoughts are appreciated thanks.

 

[steve-s]

For a 130 gal FOWLR tank you have plenty of choices. Just be sure fish are added slowly to avoid overtaxing the biofilter of the tank too quickly. If all fish are properly >>quarantined<< first (4 weeks), that should be plenty. I would add your least aggressive first and your larger more aggressive species last. If you plan on adding any more mobile inverts, I would also suggest that. They tend to do better if established before fish depending on type.

I'm sure if you posted a "wish list" you will get some better suggestions on which fish will co-habitate together. MAbye even a few alternates.

Also.. it's trochus

Cheers
Steve