Nitrite 0 think tank is cycled?

[erawtik]

Started tank saturday put 6lbs of lr in sunday, then 10lbs of ls Monday, and 45lbs of lr this afternoon and the whole time iv checked daily

nitrate 30
nitrite 0
ph 7.8

no ammonia test kit. Iv set up 3 fresh water tanks in past year and they never ran more than a day or 2 before i added fish cause my test kits never showed any harm. No dead fish yet. Opinions and what i should do?

 

[EL Diablo]

your nitrate is high.


I'd do a water change and retest.
you should also pick up a test for Ammonia

How big is your tank?
6 pounds of LR isnt much.

 

[erawtik]

29gal and i can never get my nitrate under what it is at. I have 51lbs of lr now

 

[malkore]

so you're cycling the tank with fish? 8O

It might be cycled, but you keep adding LR which means you could crank up a mini-cycle at any time, esp if you added 45lbs yesterday.

I think you have a bacterial population that's handling a lot of die off, which is why your nitrates are so high.

what is your water source? tap, or R/O?
if tap, did you test it for nitrates?

 

[Brad]

When your nitrite (that's nitrIte) falls to zero, it is a signal that the tank has completed the cycle.

The trick is that you have to have gone through a nitrite spike first. When the cycle first begins, nitrite is zero, but ammonia is high. Since you've not tested for ammonia, you can't know if the cycle has finished...or if it hasn't yet started.

If you tracked the nitrite for the past few days, and it WAS high, but now is low...you're good.

If you tracked the nitrite for the past few days and it has stayed at zero...you're not done yet.

 

[Atari]

Get an ammonia test kit so you're not guessing.

 

[erawtik]

ya il get an ammonia test kit and no im not cycling with fish im just saying in past with my fresh water fish i never let a tank run empty more than a couple days before adding fish and have had no problems. But im not going to jump the gun with this tank.

 

[electrikat]

You can actually put freshwater in the same or next day but it takes closer to two weeks for a saltwater tank to be ready AFTER it has cycled with live rock. Make sure you have most of your rock already before you add alot of fish. Every time you add live rock you will probably have an ammonia spike and some life cannot handle any amm. Good luck and remember sw is a totally different world from fw.