Tank Startup

[summitxho]

I am happy to announce that my tank is up and running. I rinsed my sand, put it in the bottom, mixed my saltwater in buckets, added it, let it cylce for a week while I waited for my live rock. I added my live rock December 4th, and it has been cycling ever since. The rock was very very cured, and there was not much die off because it was only out of the water for maybe 15 min, I have been testing water quality every second day (ammonia, nitrates, nitrite, PH, salinity) and saw a slight rise in ammonia on day 1-2. Ever since then I have been reading 0's across the board with 8.0 PH and 1.023 salinity, sometimes with a slight nitrite reading, everything on the rock seems to be doing very well, tons of snails, feather dusters, crabs, even what looks to be an anemone. My live rock was so full of life, I didnt want to kill it all putting a shrimp in and having a harsh cycle, so I let my live rock cycle the tank. So I believe I am ready for some inverts, would anyone argue that? Also I know its hard without a picture, but what I think is an anemone is about the size of the tip of a pencil eraser, with 2 short antenna sticking out (sort of looks like 2 little tiny pink fan worms), its bright pink, and deflates when I move quickly, anyone have any idea what type? or if its one? For inverts I planned on getting 3 blue legged hermit, 1 red scarlet hermit, 2 margarita snails, 2 astrea snails, and 2 nassarius snails (sorry for spelling) good start? I have a 10 gallon tank, 12 lbs live rock, penguin 150 filter, carib-sea fine white sand, and im using Kent sea salt

 

[dskidmore]

Put in a normal serving of fish food. If there's no ammonia spike in 48 hours, go ahead and get your inverts. You don't have to do a hard cycle, but if you don't you have to stock very gradually.

 

[summitxho]

yeah I have been feeding the tank small amounts of flake food for almost 2 weeks and have not seen any ammonia register at all, nor at the LFS where I had my water tested

 

[Guest]

The inverts are fine, they will not increase the bio load though.. I am with putting maybe a half of a shrimp in there.. If the bio diversity is there, you will not see a problem.. However, if you say that there sometimes is a slight nitrite reading, it has to be getting it from somewhere. If you put the shrimp in there and in a day or so see an ammonia spike, then to me, I would say that the cycle never happend or the bacteria has not colonized. If the rock was cured and you brought the bacteria with it, the piece of shrimp should not make a difference.. BTW for a 10 gal, I would suggest only a piece of shrimp the size of a dime or so.. If after a week, you see no change. Go for it...

 

[summitxho]

sounds like a good plan, I will try that, I meant sometimes there is traces of nitrates (NO3), up to 5 mg the most I saw, always getting those two confused

 

[dskidmore]

If you've been feeding the tank regularly, I'd say you're good to go. Go for the inverts, and a after another week of good results, your first fish.

Nitrate is the end product of the cycle. 5 mg/L indicates that you have had a soft cycle, unless you're getting that much from your tap water. You should expect to see that climb between water changes.

Have you been doing water changes during your cycle?

 

[summitxho]

no water changes yet, planned on doing one tonight and picking up some inverts friday, I threw a half of a small shrimp in last night, with still no ammonia, no nitrites, and pretty much no nitrates when tested this morning, if there was no good bacteria there would have been a spike by now right?, I would still be safe to add inverts if the small piece of shrimp is not affecting the tank and still have clean readings correct?.

 

[dskidmore]

I was just wondering, with the nitrates so low if you had brought them down, or if they were naturally that low.

Good job!

 

[summitxho]

I did nothing to lower them, I thought originally it may be my test kit so I took it to the LFS with same results, must be all the good advice on here

 

[dskidmore]

I think anyone who plans ahead and does thier homework can have great sucess!

 

[summitxho]

agreed, without this site I would not have known about the fishless cycle, the space requirements for saltwater fish, what to test for, where to start troubleshooting certain problems and tons of other good BASIC info that I had not seen before and certainly not as in depth, I would have been heading for what I now know would be a disaster, well wish me luck, the inverts should arrive tommorrow.

 

[seaham358]

in a new tank with no fish there should be little too no nitrates.. I would not rush into adding inverts and toss in the shrimp for a few days to see what happens.
Nothing good happens fast in this hobby. Feeding a small amount of flake food IMO is not enough to trigger a cycle so go with the shrimp. Waiting a few more days so your sure IMO is the way to go.
Is it possible you had no cycle .. yes if the LR was cured

 

[summitxho]

seaham, I added a piece of shrimp last night and still had 0's when tested this morning except for slight nitrate reading, also after feeding the tank little bits of flake with no reading, I started adding quite a bit of flake food last week, and that is when a bit of nitrates were reading. Would this not tell me that if there is enough bacteria to complete the cycle for flake food and half a small shrimp without registering ammonia, then there should be enough for inverts?

 

[dskidmore]

Go for it! Just don't increase feeding suddenly when you add the inverts.

Nothing wrong with a gradual cycle. You start out with healthy live rock, and you're halfway done with your cycle to start with. The fact that nitrates are presesnt is evidence that a cycle has occured. Flake food is just as good an ammonia source as the shrimp. It provides a more gentle cycle by adding a small amount of ammonia every day instead of front-loading it. The shrimp method stops delivering ammonia after awhile, so despite the hard cycle, by the end you may starve some of your freshly bred bacteria. Feeding flake on a regular basis maintains the bacteria population you built up at a steady level.