Very interesting...Cycling miracle!!

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luntiz

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Apr 11, 2004
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Los Angeles, CA
Purchased tank tuesdays morning, filled tank with freshwater on wednesday, added salt on thursdays and the tank has nearly completed its cycle. The ammonia dropped down to zero from 1.5 and nitrites went up to like +5. So I tested my water today and it was at .3!!! I love my cycling process!!!!!! :D :D :D At any rate, should be done by tomorrow morning or noon. That would mean it only took me 8 days to complete the cycle. Jealous? :)

Results are the same for two test kits, Tetra test kit and Aqua Doctor (not exact name, too lazy to check name but has a fish in a doctor outfit) test kit.

50 gallon acrylic
70 lbs base rock
10 lbs live rock
running barebottom
 
well the 70 lbs of base rock use to be live...til my tank developed a leak, so i just took it out and let it dry and i brushed and rinsed it with freshwater. the 10 lbs of live rock that i used to seed was fully cured. here i thought i was going to wait upwards to 2-3 months to fully seed my base rock.
 
upwards to 2-3 months to fully seed my base rock

You will. Just because your ammonia is dropped does not mean the base rock is fully seeded. The cured 10lbs of live rock will have a significant impact on the curing cycle since that rock would have already had a good population of bactera on it to consume the ammonia and nitrite.

What did you use as an ammonia source?
 
I'm not sure if that was enough bioload to produce a sizeable quantity of bacteria, hence the mini cycle you experienced.

You may well find that when you add a fish your tank goes through another cycle.
 
So the 70lbs of rock from your former tank was not totally dry yet? I was under the impression it had been out of water for quite some time.
 
well i have some huge chunks of rocks that i doubt was completely dry (at least in the deep center of the rock). Shouldn't there be some critters that fail to fall out of the rock? I'm not sure where the ammonia came from but I did have 1.5 of it.


I wonder if I did go through the proper cycle or was it just a mini cycle...
 
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = .3
Nitrate = 40

Doesn't that look like it went through a cycle?


I did dose some Fritz Zyme....dunno if that was a major cause or not. I never dosed anything (bacterial stuff) in my last tank and it took about 2 weeks to complete it's cycle. My current setup has been through roughly a week and a few days.
 
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