Cycling tank

[armyman16]

Hey I just setup my 75 gallon saltwater tank on Sunday and on Monday I added a couple blocks of frozen mysis shrimp as an ammonia source and here are my parameters for the day
Ammonia: .5-1 ppm
Nitrite: .25-.5 ppm
Nitrate: 20 ppm
Is this abnormally fast, normal or slow? I think it is cycling faster than my first saltwater tank, a 20 gallon.

 

[hultsmark]

My opinion is you are doning fine. Now you wait for the Nitrate to drop and pay attention to making the water changes.

 

[armyman16]

Won't I still have a spike in the nitrates coming? It's only been 3 days

 

[cosmo]

yeah ya should, keep adding a few pinches of fish food every few days to keep it going.

 

[armyman16]

How much longer do you think it would take if I kept sprinkling inches of fish flakes in there?

 

[kdpuffer]

The cycle time depends on a few things and it's hard to honesty judge. If you have cured live rock that came from an established tank it will go much faster than if you have dry base rock. I believe there was a typo above, you want to wait till nitrites decrease and nitrates increase that's when your cycle is complete. From your test above I would say your close but again that depends on a few things. Are you using rodi water or tap water? Tap water often contains ammonia and or nitrates so you may be getting a false reading in the fact that the nitrates were already there. good luck.

 

[armyman16]

Yeah I mixed it myself so it came from the hose in my backyard, and I have 5 or 6 pounds of live rock with a lot of die off on it and 45 pounds of base rock but I plan to buy 30-40 more pounds of live rock

 

[kdpuffer]

I would give it some time then, given you seeded with live rock it should help it along provided you treated the water for chlorine/chloromine before adding the rock. Just keep an eye on your parameters and once your ammonia and nitrite go to 0 and your nitrates rise your good to start SLOWLY adding stock. I would recommend a rodi water system I just ordered mine for 156 bucks shipped. Aquascafecanada.com is where mine is from and they ship outside Canada.

 

[carey]

If you are planning on more live rock now is the time to add it. if you wait til you have livestock you will have to cure it in a separate tank or container for a few weeks to make sure the die off spikes in there and not your main tank.

here is a great ro/di starter unit, it's cheap, portable and makes pure water. I used mine for a year before I upgraded to a more expensive larger permanent unit.

0PPM Portable 100GPD Reverse Osmosis RO+DI Filtration | eBay

 

[kdpuffer]

Would have been nice to know of that system yesterday lol oh well.

 

[armyman16]

I'll probably just buy it pre mixed from my lfs when I have to top off

 

[kdpuffer]

Top offs are done with normal water without salt. Premix will be for water changes.

 

[armyman16]

Yeah I'm sorry, I've got a 20 I just wasn't thinking when I was typing it haha

 

[armyman16]

Ok thanks, So should I keep throwing flake food in or just wait it out?

 

[armyman16]

Also, should I be doing any water changes or wait until the ammonia and nitrites drop?

 

[carey]

You shouldnt be doing any water changes until the cycle is complete. The ammonia and nitrites will drop like magic one day and then you do a large water change to get the nitrates down.
Hope that helped!

 

[armyman16]

Yeah, thanks Carey!
Do I always add freshwater as a top off?
I keep doing it everyday but it feels like I shouldn't be haha

 

[carey]

yep, freshwater with no salt for evaporation and salted water for changes. I know it seems funny to do, lol, I add like 1.5 gallons of freshwater a day to my 125g and i always think in the back of mind I'm adding too much. But the refractometer doesn't lie.

 

[armyman16]

Yeah, I probably need to buy me a refractometer haha....but I'm good friends with all my lfs so I just take it in to them an they test it for me haha
My best friend just got a job at one do I get great discounts on everything