is my tank cycled????

[fishfinatic]

i have recently set up a 100 gallon tank with sump. In the process of setting up this tank i used approx 45-50 lbs of live rock from an established tank. I have crushed coral from the same tank in some sacks in the sump i have had this running for a week or so and i have yet to see ammonia spike or nitrites and even my nitrates are at zero. My other experiment all though i dont like using live animals to cycle i have thrown a few yellow tail damsels and a 5" velvet damsel in there and still no spike in any levels. All fish are eating, no heavy breathing. How come im not seeing these spikes in levels or even nitrates for that matter please respond asap i have a person that wants my old 55 gal tank but i dont want to transfer live stock until i know its cycled enough thanks

[thincat]

Using cured LR and the CC in a sack your cycle may well be over. I would test the water for a couple of days and if all is 0 your tank is cycled. Since there was no die off you won't have any nitrates right off the bat, but will have some down the road.

[fishfinatic]

thanks for the reply you think it could be cycled already in a weeks time? im affraid of adding any more live stock because of the fear of losing them should i add?

[fishfinatic]

the sand "was" live sand but before i set tank up i rinsed the sand with fresh water several times because it was really dirty so i doubt it was still live and i also mixed all new water, none from the other tank was used look forward to hearing from you

[thincat]

The new water is fine. Hardly any bacteria live in the water column anyway. Like I stated, feed the tank for a few days and test the water parameters to see where you are at. If all is 0 you will be okay. You should start to see a nitrate reading. What test are you using?
Don;t worry about the sand it will become live in short order. If all is stable you will be able to add a fish or two a week with a 100 gallon tank. You may want to add more cured LR or just baserock to get it to ~1 1/2lb per gallon of tank water. Do you have a skimmer? That would really help in a 100g tank.

[fishfinatic]

yes i have a reef octopus in sump skimmer i plan to add more rock as the tank cycles most of the local fish stores here sell the coral colonies attatched to live rock so thats why i was saving space from having so much rock i am using the salt water master test kit from api its the liquid drops

[fishfinatic]

and as of right now the skimmer is not in use was waitng for the cycle to finish to set that up

[cmor1701d]

It depends on how much live stock you have left in the 55 that you want to transfer. You have aprox ½# LR/gal for the tank. That's not really enough (IMO) for bioligcal filtration in a tank. The recommendation is 1 - 2 pounds of LR per gallon of volume (depends on the porousity of the LR).

So the bottom line IMO is that the LR you have now was fully cured and sufficient for the bioload you now have, but is not sufficient for the increased bioload from your 55 gallon livestock if added all at once.

The rules for adding fish (one per month) don't necessarily change. If however, you double the amount of fully cured LR and you have a low bioload in the 55, you should be ok.

That would be my conservative opinion.

[Idaho-Tank]

Ive been searching around trying to find tanks set up similarly and testing similarly as mine. This seems to be the closest. I have a 100 gal tank with a sump that will hold about 40 gallons. When I set up the tank I used all RO/DI water. I put in 150 lbs of live rock out of a healthy and established tank. I put in about 150 pounds of aragonite sand from the same tank that I rinsed really well with freshwater. I did keep out a few cups of the live sand to help seed the cleaned sand.

Day 1

SG = about 1.025
Temp = 78
Ammonia = .5
PH = 8.1
Nitrate = 0
Nitrite = 0

Day 2

Ammonia = 0
Nitrate = 0
Nitrite = 0

Added about 1/2 teaspoon of fish food.

Day 3

Ammonia = 0
Nitrate = 0
Nitrite = 0

Is it to early to draw any conclusions? I expected my ammonia to go up not down and then stay down.....

Any thoughts would be appreciated.


OP. So what did your tank test like in the first couple days? How are things going now?