Cycling a new tank

[New hobbyist]

Ok so I believe I am nearing the end of cycling a new 160 gallon tank. Above are the water parameters for today and below are the water parameters from 4 days ago. The nitrites and the nitrates have progressively been going down and ammonia has pretty much stayed relatively the same. I am confused because all of the graphs that I have seen show that nitrites and nitrates should be spiking. And instead they are both going down. I am on about day 15 of the cycle. I have about 100 pounds of fully cured and cycled Haitian live rock, 100 lbs of live sand, my salinity is at 1.026 temp is 78 degrees. I have an octopus skimmer sicche 1600 pump also have caulerpa and cheatomorphia macro algae in my refugium. Is this normal? Is the cycle stalling? Am I nearing the end? Or do I just need to do a water change? Maybe I just need to be patient!!! I don't understand why my ammonia is not going down to zero. Please advise me.

 

[evil Nick]

15 days isnt long if doing a cycle without some kind of boosting. Id start with water changes. There would already by bacteria on the live rock and sand that would consume the trates and trites. Perhaps prob not enough though to take care of the ammonia. I would say you are still in the initial starts of the cycle really.
Do the water change and let the bacteria keep growing.

 

[New hobbyist]

I do have algae growing. It's been about 8 days or so of having algae. I put a small clean up crew in there. About 12 hermits and 8 snails. I've already wiped the glass a couple times of brown algae.

 

[New hobbyist]

 

[New hobbyist]

There was a lot more yesterday hubby turned up the wave maker and it stirred the sand up a bit

 

[New hobbyist]

Ammonia is about 0.25

 

[New hobbyist]

Here's a better pic of ammonia

 

[evil Nick]

prob not true algae but diatoms, Im going through this stage now and its awful! took forever for me to get there to. theyll come back as fast as you can sweep them away (for me anyway).

Im going to be honest that amm looks pretty much zero to me. Im an under guy since those color charts are never really that accurate or easy to read.

that last pic looks zero accross the board to me.

 

[New hobbyist]

So am I done cycling?

 

[Sniperhank]

No, not done cycling. Your cycle is done when your tank processes the ammonia source so that you aren't able to detect any ammonia or nitrites after a 24 hour period.
How are you providing the ammonia source? What I'm looking at is telling me that some ammonia was presented into the system several weeks ago and nothing has been added since. I'm a big fan of putting a cocktail shrimp into panty hose. It provides a constant ammonia source as it decays and is then easily cleaned up since it is tied in the panty hose. Since the ammonia source is then constant in the system, when you don't detect any ammonia or nitrite you're cycle is done so then all you need to do is dispose of the shrimp and do water changes until the nitrates are no longer detectable.

 

[evil Nick]

No, not done cycling. Your cycle is done when your tank processes the ammonia source so that you aren't able to detect any ammonia or nitrites after a 24 hour period.
How are you providing the ammonia source? What I'm looking at is telling me that some ammonia was presented into the system several weeks ago and nothing has been added since. I'm a big fan of putting a cocktail shrimp into panty hose. It provides a constant ammonia source as it decays and is then easily cleaned up since it is tied in the panty hose. Since the ammonia source is then constant in the system, when you don't detect any ammonia or nitrite you're cycle is done so then all you need to do is dispose of the shrimp and do water changes until the nitrates are no longer detectable.

what he says. I used stability to start/boost the cycle. then i added SMALL bioload creators like snails and shrimp. THEN a yellow clown goby. I watched the levels then slowly added more stock and checked in between. I also maintained water changes once stock was added.
Im in the diatom phase now and let me tell you its just awful. My tank did its cycle fairly quick. Was my first time using stability and I think it worked/helped. I would reccomend it. Dont know what it really is but would reccomend it. I also used a mix of live sand, live rock, seeded rock and carib sea life rock I bought from a member on here. When I did my freshwater tanks I used some cheap sturdy fish and heavy water changes to cycle the tanks. Most people dont like doing that, which I get but man mollies are tanks!

 

[New hobbyist]

Wwweeeelllllllll now I'm really confused!!!! I thought the live rock and live sand would make the tank cycle. Ammonia was up then nitrites and nitrates. So do I need to start the cycle over with shrimp or the bioload creators?

 

[New hobbyist]

Wwweeeelllllllll now I'm really confused!!!! I thought the live rock and live sand would make the tank cycle. Ammonia was up then nitrites and nitrates. So do I need to start the cycle over with shrimp or the creators?????

 

[New hobbyist]

This is my diatoms this afternoon.

 

[New hobbyist]

This is a pic of my water test about 10 days ago

 

[evil Nick]

Wwweeeelllllllll now I'm really confused!!!! I thought the live rock and live sand would make the tank cycle. Ammonia was up then nitrites and nitrates. So do I need to start the cycle over with shrimp or the creators?????

it does but the thing that makes an actual cycle is the bacteria that eats/converts each step. So you just need to make sure your bacteria load is large enough to handle your bio load. you could have very well cycled if what you were using was ALL live rock and live sand but you also would not have had an ammonia source large enough to sustain a full colony long without additives.
Try the shrimp idea or adding cheaper fish (no damsles) and monitor levels. You should always add stock slowly anyway to let the bacteria grow sufficiently.

in that last pic your trites are high though. You may not be done or you may be constantly mini cycling with no bio source.

 

[New hobbyist]

Today thursdays test

 

[evil Nick]

View attachment 298297
Today thursdays test

looks perfect to me. Id say it appears you went through a basic cycle. start adding small things slowly and watch.