Cycling Tank - Water Testing

[OnlyTono]

Final got my 50 gallon tank set up
you can check out my previous thread here:
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...design-will-it-work-170592-4.html#post1630538



I started the tank with

• About 60lbs live rock,
• A little over 85 lbs of of mixed sand (most in te main tank, some in the refugium)
  - 60LB of Ocean Direct Pacify Black Live Sand
  - 15 LBs of dry Crushed Coral
  - about 13 lbs of sand/mud direct from Catalina area
• Catlaina Ocean Water

The Tank has been cycling for almost 2 days.I ran my first full water test and I wanted a few opinions on the results. My questions are:

Looking at the test - What do you think of the results - good or bad?


In your opinion, what sort of changes should I expect over the next few days?

and finally, at what point is it safe to begin adding a cleanup crew?

 

[all4wheels2]

Nice looking tank!!

Not sure about the cycling though since you used ocean water. You usually have to add an ammonia source to get the beneficial bacteria to grow. You could try adding some pure ammonia to your tank and then testing the water after a day. If your ammonia level is still 0, then you are set. If not, then it is still cycling.

 

[OnlyTono]

Nice looking tank!!

Thanks - it's been a long road to get to this point, but so far, I'm happy with it.

Not sure about the cycling though since you used ocean water. You usually have to add an ammonia source to get the beneficial bacteria to grow. You could try adding some pure ammonia to your tank and then testing the water after a day. If your ammonia level is still 0, then you are set. If not, then it is still cycling.

I tested the water again this evening - a little over 12 hours from the last test and got pretty much the exact same results. I may try the ammonia test and see what happens.

The rock came with lots of little hitchhikers - all of winch seem to be doing pretty well. Could the ammonia test hurt anything thats currently living in the tank?

So far Ive identified some sort of soft coral (forget the name - the LFS told me), various types of tube worms - mostly very small, a couple of brittle stars, amphipod (little bug looking things?), a single Starfish (have not had a chance to isolate it yet to identify it) and theres a few areas that look like some sort of sponge

 

[all4wheels2]

A small spike won't hurt anything. Just don't overdose lol. Just make sure you get PURE ammonia.

If you're worried about putting ammonia in the tank, you can add a piece of raw shrimp and just give it a week. As the shrimp decays it will slowly put off ammonia, building up the beneficial bacteria. If you don't get ANY spikes in ammonia, I'd say you're cycled

 

[OnlyTono]

Tested water again this morning with the same levels - no movements other than a slight shift in PH. Did a partial water change and waited a 30 minutes - ran the PH test again, and evened out.

I'm going to do the raw shrimp test if not for testing the ammonia level but to also see if i can coax all the little scavengers (worms, starts, brittal stars ect...) out of hiding do get a better idea and count as to what's actually in the tank at this point.

 

[OnlyTono]

The shrimp is in the tank and I already have a few takers - about 3-4 bristle worms - one rather long one. You can see him the the first pic just to the right of the shrimp peice.

I put a camera on the shrimp and set it to timelaps - should be interesting to see what comes out to feed.

 

[OnlyTono]

Tank inhabitants (all hitchhikers) are making short work of the shrimp...

 

[OnlyTono]

Did another water test - this one six hours after putting the shrimp in the tank. Not sure if six hours is enough time to have any effect, but the shrimp is well on its way to decaying. faster then i had though it would - see the pic.

The water test shows only an slight movement on the Ammonia and the Nitrites.

Any thought?

At least I made a cool time laps video of the first 4-5 hours - check it out: http://youtu.be/JMgdR5C3D30