First off want to say ive cycled 2 freshwater tanks in around 2 weeks using seachem stability. Attempting my first saltwater in a 20 gallon long.
My substrate is aragonite sand, using instant ocean salt and with a refractometer have salinity at .02ppm, temperature at 80 degrees and ph at 8.3. Also using R/O DI water with zero TDS.
Im also using an Aquaclear 50 HOB with sponge, bonded filter floss and biomax ceramic media and not using carbon that came with filter. I also have an API test kit and Seachem one and have verified its accuracy with DI water.
I used pure ammonia to start a fishless cycle and put ammonia at 2ppm. I used stability and in 3wks time got 0 results unlike i did with freshwater. I did a water change to reduce ammonia to 1ppm and introduced ATM colony marine. 3wks later amd still zero results of any kind.
My question is if anybody has any idea what the issue could be with cycling. It seems to me its been long enough to see results without attempting too add bacteria from a bottle. The only other thing in the tank that isnt of artificial variety is a zebra rock bought from an LFS. Starting to think i could wait 4 months and no bacteria will develop.
My substrate is aragonite sand, using instant ocean salt and with a refractometer have salinity at .02ppm, temperature at 80 degrees and ph at 8.3. Also using R/O DI water with zero TDS.
Im also using an Aquaclear 50 HOB with sponge, bonded filter floss and biomax ceramic media and not using carbon that came with filter. I also have an API test kit and Seachem one and have verified its accuracy with DI water.
I used pure ammonia to start a fishless cycle and put ammonia at 2ppm. I used stability and in 3wks time got 0 results unlike i did with freshwater. I did a water change to reduce ammonia to 1ppm and introduced ATM colony marine. 3wks later amd still zero results of any kind.
My question is if anybody has any idea what the issue could be with cycling. It seems to me its been long enough to see results without attempting too add bacteria from a bottle. The only other thing in the tank that isnt of artificial variety is a zebra rock bought from an LFS. Starting to think i could wait 4 months and no bacteria will develop.