Need some opinion/help

[ceejec]

Hey guys, so I've set up my 29gallon fowlr on Nov15/11 with 20lbs aragonite sand (the black one), ran it with a penguin 350 with bio wheel for 3 days with tap water and prime to remove chlorine, added instant ocean reef crystal until my salinity was around 1.023.. On Nov18/11, added 15 lbs. of Fiji LR from my lfs, ran that for 4 days and at Nov22/11 got 20lbs of pukani rock and added it in my tank, while taking two pieces (i think theyre only 5-7lbs) to my qt.
My fiji waited at least 4hrs before I could put it in the water as I went out to watch a movie with the lady.. The pukani LR waited about 15 minutes for the drive home before I put it in the tank. I've been testing the water since I put in the first 15 lbs and have gotten readings of ammonia and nitrite that were pretty low, I didn't have any spikes of ammonia.. It would just go up to 0.25ppm on one day and then drop to 0 the next, my nitrite was 0 from day one.. although my nitrate levels have been consistently going up, right now its sitting at 10ppm, and I have (I believe its) diatoms growing and on one of my rock there's hair-like particles on top of the diatom. I'm also running a koralia 2 600gph powerhead, an old heater that I got few years ago (i dont know the wattage), and I didn't introduce pure ammonia or raw shrimp.

My question is: Could it be possible that theres enough bacteria in the live rock to cycle this fast?

I've asked the person that sold me the rocks at the lfs and he said the pukanis were cured and were sitting in their tank for some time already.

What do you guys think? should I keep waiting (maybe introduce pure ammonia/shrimp?) or can I start adding my CUC by next week?

Thanks alot!

=)

 

[crister13]

I would put the raw shrimp in and when you see ammo at 0 do a couple pwcs and you should be good! Were expecting pics! LOL GL!!!!!

 

[Sharklover]

I think like mabey a lil less then half a shrimp is fine and wait like 10 days not a week just to be safe then just put in a small cuc wait 3-4 days and add the rest

 

[ceejec]

Thanks guys! Would 3 snails and 3 crabs be fine for a "small" cuc?

 

[Sharklover]

Do like 4-5 snails 3-4 hermits and some type of shrimp to help them clean more things

 

[crister13]

Shrimp are less hardy than your fish. I would add the fish first then the CUC so they have stuff to eat. GL!!!!!

 

[ceejec]

Great! I added the dead shrimp last sunday AM.. after a few days of testing, I finally got the nitrites showing! @ 2.0ppm (close to 5.0.. using API SW testkit) but the ammonia remained at 1ppm, never really saw an ammonia spike. Should I remove the shrimp as it might produce more ammonia for the bacteria which in turn will produce more nitrites? I don't want to have my nitrites off the charts, because from what I've read from other people's post, it might stall the cycle(?)
And also, if i remove the shrimp, and the ammonia goes to 0, how long will the bacteria that consumes ammonia die? I'm trying to find goldex household ammonia here in toronto, but no luck.. anyone know where I can find any pure ammonia source? do I need one?

Sorry if I have alot of Q's, I just don't want to mess up bad =[