need help... on cycling issues

[Switzer]

hello, i have a 40 gallon breeder that i put together in the beginning of the month. i have 20lbs of live rock , 20 lbs of baserock, 8lbs of livesand and like 30lbs of substrate. aquoen quiteflow 55/75 filter, koraliea 750, reef octopus protien skimmer that i have no turned on. i used ro/di water and instant oceans salt
i let it run for like a week and then added a dead shrimp on 10/5/11
shrimp is fully decomposed, cant even see it anymore, but all my readings are still 0ppm, at first before i added the shrimp, my nitrates and nitrites were a little high but as soon as i added the shrimp they went to 0ppm and the ammonia never went up.
my ph has been 8.0-8.2 the whole time , tank like 75-78degrees F.
i have some purple blotches starting to show on my live rock .
i just dont know whats going on?! please help me

 

[jsa83]

i let it run for like a week and then added a dead shrimp on 10/5/11
shrimp is fully decomposed, cant even see it anymore, but all my readings are still 0ppm, at first before i added the shrimp, my nitrates and nitrites were a little high but as soon as i added the shrimp they went to 0ppm and the ammonia never went up.

what did you use to cycle before you added the dead shrimp on 10/5/11? ...

 

[Switzer]

nothing..it was just all the liverock

 

[rdnelson99]

Was the live rock wet at all times? If it stayed submergec pretty much the whole time it is possible that you have a well enough established colony of bacteria that you wouldn't have seen a cycle.

You can test it by getting pure amonia (must be pure). Ace Hardware brand works good and is easy to find and cheap. Put about 4 drops in, wait about 15 minutes and see if that brought it up to 4 ppm. If not, add a bit more. Once you get it to 4 ppm, wait 24 hours and see if am and nitrite are both 0. If so, nitrate should have gone up substantially. That would indicate that you are cycled. If the am and nitrite do not go to 0 in 24 hours you need to continue to cycle. You can do that by dosing the pure amonia up to 4 ppm each day. Keep doing it until am and nitrite come down to 0 after 24 hours.

 

[Switzer]

i got all the live rock from ''that fish place'' it stayed wet the whole time.. i will try what you said.. thank you for your help

 

[rdnelson99]

i got all the live rock from ''that fish place'' it stayed wet the whole time.. i will try what you said.. thank you for your help

I think you will be pleasantly surprised and find you are good to go. Just be sure and don't assume.

 

[Switzer]

i hope so..i noticed the other day my live rock is starting to get purple blotches and is turning white. from reading other posts i think the purple blotches are a type of algae and he white on the rocks is just die off.

 

[rdnelson99]

If it is die off you should be seeing an increase is either am, trite or trate. Anything that dies will create amonia. If you have a good colony going you may not see that amonia because it gets converted to trite and then trate very quickly. If that is the case, you are cycled and ready for fish. If on the other hand, you have die off and you see increase in am or trite that lasts for a while, you colonies are not established well enough yet to handle the bio load of fish. Hope that helps.