Cycle ?? I am confused!

[ShooterRick]

Monday I started my fishless cycle with 50 lbs base rock, 6 lbs live rock.
Tuesday amonia was 0.25. Wed. amonia 0.5 and I added another 8 lbs of base rock and 6-8 more lbs of live rock. All live rock from an established fowlr tank. Substrate is 40 lbs standard reef sand and 40 lbs live sand. I have been feeding the tank every other day with frozen omnivore food. Tank is 72 gal with 20 gal sump. Ok, friday amonia was 1.0, but today which is sunday amonia has fallen to 0.5.

Nitrites are reading 0.00 thus my confusion. What am I missing to have amonia fall but no nitrites?

 

[Phranque]

What are your Nitrates? If you are using LR from an established tank, it is very possible to skip the Nitrite phase.

 

[ShooterRick]

What are your Nitrates? If you are using LR from an established tank, it is very possible to skip the Nitrite phase.

Nitrates just tested 0.0. Surely this tank has not cycled in one week? I will wait a week and test again in 3 and 5 more days and see. Wow!

 

[Phranque]

Yeah, I would wait & continue testing every couple/few days. Just be sure to keep your ammo 1-3ppm to keep the bacteria fed, just in case you really are cycled (which I believe you may be). If ALL of your LR is from an existing tank, that's akin to pulling a canister filter off of one tank & putting on another.... all the bacteria is still there. With 92 gallons of clean water, it could just take a little while for noticeable Nitrate to present itself for confirmation.

 

[ShooterRick]

Yeah, I would wait & continue testing every couple/few days. Just be sure to keep your ammo 1-3ppm to keep the bacteria fed, just in case you really are cycled (which I believe you may be). If ALL of your LR is from an existing tank, that's akin to pulling a canister filter off of one tank & putting on another.... all the bacteria is still there. With 92 gallons of clean water, it could just take a little while for noticeable Nitrate to present itself for confirmation.

Sounds like a plan. I just fed about 1/8 cube of frozen omnivore food to the tank and will probably start feeding it small amounts daily now to make sure bacteria has something.

If I may. My fowlr is 29 gal and besides the LR it has a biowheel supporting it. My nitrates in this tank rairly read more than 0.00 and it is about a year old. I want to move 10 more lbs of the LR into the 72. That will only leave about 6-8 lbs left in the fowlr. Will it harm the fowlr short term? I have 4 fish in it now.

 

[Phranque]

I would probably leave things as-is for the time being. If you pulled all of your LR from your existing system, then you have reduced the acclimated filtration capacity for those guys. Better to leave what you have where it is, and if you are moving those 4 fish into the new system, just transfer the remainder of the LR when you move them over (if that's your plan). Remember to test your old system a little more often to make sure you haven't removed too much LR.... just in case.

 

[AquaRick]

Nitrates just tested 0.0. Surely this tank has not cycled in one week? I will wait a week and test again in 3 and 5 more days and see. Wow!

If this persists, I'd suggest to get your water tested at a good LFS to double check.