Cycle Update / ?'s

[SuperWade2]

It's now been 13 days since I added my 75-80 lbs of LR into my 46 Gal Bowfront Tank. The LR was 45 lbs of Select Fiji Premium Rock and 35 lbs Fiji Foundation Rock from LiveAquaria. I also had about 20 lbs of LS and 30ish lbs of Non LS. I did a Shrimpless/Fishless Cycle, hopeing that the die-off from my LR would be enough to start the cycle, but did add some SeaChem Stability for the first week (sold by LFS before doing much reading on this fourm). Have also been adding a pinch of flake fish food daily.

I have been testing the water every 2-3 days and my reading from tonight were;

Free Ammonia (NH3) = 0
Total Ammonia (NH3 & NH4+) = 0
Nitrite (NO2) = 0
Nitrate (NO3) = 20

Now I never really saw a HUGE spike in the Ammonia... it did go up, but never much past the .1-.2 Range... Nitrites never went real high either, maybe not much past 1 on my SeaChem Kit.

I am getting Salifert Ammonia/Nirtrate/Nitrite test kit this week, so I will confirm all of these things in a couple of days. I also considered taking a sample to the LFS to see if they can run thier tests as well.

I have noticed more color growth on my LR over the past few days as well.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/photopost/data/542/medium/DSC03704.jpg

I guess I don't know if this means my cycle is over, or never really started...

Any tips or words of wisdom?

SW2

 

[philthefish]

Was the LR cured or uncured? If cured, it may have caused a mini spike which the bacteria within the LR dealt with quickly (if that makes sense!). When I first set my tank up 6 months ago, I had a similar small cycle but when I added livestock, the tank started cycling again and it took bloody ages. In the end (when I lost my third fish!) I dosed with ammonia to get an ammonia spike of 1ppm and dosed this every day until amm and nitrites zeroed within 24 hours of dosing. The main problem with this is the high nitrates at the end of the cycle which require a massive water change (near 100%) to get to zero.

The advantage of this method means you can add a few fish immediately rather than one or two as the necessary bacteria to deal with a bigger load is already there.

 

[SuperWade2]

Was the LR cured or uncured? If cured, it may have caused a mini spike which the bacteria within the LR dealt with quickly (if that makes sense!).

Per the LiveAquaria Website ;

Our Drs. Foster & Smith's Select Fiji Premium Rock has been pre-cured by a unique misting system in Fiji. After harvest, the rock is placed on special shelving units and then sprayed with a constant mist of seawater. This process helps eliminate harmful bristle worms and mantis shrimp, which can wreak havoc in reef systems.

and

Our Fiji Foundation Rock has been cured, held in large vats that are sprayed with fresh seawater here in the U.S. Although there is little coralline coverage, the rock is teeming with beneficial bacteria and micro-fauna.

...and which leads me to the obvious question of when it would be "safe and humane" to start thinking about adding a small clean-up crew and consider some fish?

SW2

 

[SuperWade2]

No other opinions or suggestions out there?

 

[hammerhead911]

The only problem I might see is this: The Figi live rock comes all the way from across the globe. The rock is not kept under water, as is sometimes the case with the keys or gulf rock. All lot of die off has already occurred before it got to your tank. Is there enough to start your cycle? Maybe, sometimes, not in my case. I would throw a raw, headless, peeled shrimp in the tank. This will definitely kick your cycle off. It will stink, but it will get your bacteria growing.

 

[h8z2luze]

I heard that throwing a dead shrimp in there was the last thing you want to do. I am not saying they were right but they said it will just polute your water. Why not get a cheap damsel? Mine survived.

 

[hammerhead911]

The shrimp gives the same benefits of the old "damsel cycle method." It just cuts out the cost of fish, the possibility of killing the fish, and having to remove the damsel from all that live rock once the cycle is over. Many people use the damsels as lab rats to get the cycle over. I'm not some big tree hugging liberal, but we do need to minimize the impact that we have on our oceans, and wallets. No ways is going to be better than the other. I just think that the shrimp method is easier, cheaper, and will alleviate headaches in the future.