Ready for Fish?

[ozquarium]

Hi guys,
Your thoughts on my situation would be much appreciated!
I've been cycling my new saltwater tank for the last 17 days and I tested 2 days ago and it had a PH of 7.6 and roughly 0 ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I added something recommended by the aquarium shop to bump up the PH after that test, and retested today, and the PH was around 8.2 and the other measures were all still 0.
My question: is the tank ready for fish in the next few days? From what I understand, the numbers are all good now, but should I wait it out another couple of weeks to be safe (I was expecting the cycling process to take about a month), or in your experiences is it okay after just a couple of weeks if the numbers are consistent (I would test again in a couple of days before I put fish in)?
I know this is a bit pedantic of me but just want to be safe as this is my first aquarium, and so I'm very keen to put fish in asap but don't want to rush if it's too quick!

[austinsdad]

Explain how you cycled. It's not about the time (17 days) as much as it is about the method for introducing an ammonia source to begin a cycle with.

Tell us about the tank. Size, hardware, rock, sand, etc.

Really curious about your cycling method though.

[melosu58]

During the cycle dont worry about PH. It will bounce all around because of the presence of ammonia. Read our article about SW cycling and see if that is what you did.

[ozquarium]

Thanks for the replies. My tank is about 200L, to cycle I just put in substrate (not live) and 12 kilos of live rock and switched off the skimmer (left filter running). I have had a bit of brown algae come up, which from what I've read in the last 24 hours could explain the zero nitrate reading (which from what I can understand should not be zero to put fish in??). Any help would be much appreciated, particularly on how much nitrate should be in there; I have read extensively on this, but it seems the more I read on cycling the more confused I become!

[ozquarium]

I've decided I've been a bit too impatient and I put another piece of rock in there and i'll give it another fortnight or so before thinking about fish. One question though that I can't find any online advice about, would it be alright to be a couple of snails in there while the cycling is going on to remove the brown algae that's building up, or is the brown algae an important part of the process?
Cheers

[spoonman]

Rule #1 listen to the experts here and not the guy at the LFS!!!

[austinsdad]

Did you ever see an ammonia spike??