Paulm7373
Aquarium Advice Freak
Hi all, I'm currently cycling a 55g saltwater tank which has been running for 1-2 weeks with natural sea water and about 66 lbs of live rock. No fish in there as yet. I also threw in a raw shrimp to get the ammonia up a little but removed it after 3 days as I was advised to be patient, let things happen more naturally and thy all the live rock I have in there would cause sufficient die off. Anyway, I first started testing ammonia a week ago every couple of days and it went from 0 to 0.10, then to 0.20 in 4 days, but today being the 7th day it has fallen back to around 0.05 to 0.10ppm! I thought it was supposed to spike up to around 4 or 5ppm before coming back down again! Can anyone explain why it has fallen much earlier than its suppose to during cycling of a sw tank, or should it gradually rise with more time?