Anyone else experienced long cycle times?

[Freddy Twotimes]

I have been cycling my tank for about 2 months now. I know there was about 2 rocks that were not cured when I set up my tank from scratch...I added 62 lbs into a 55 gallon all at once. The levels dropped from high ranges to mid to low ranges after about 10 days; the tank has been bouncing up and down for the past 4-5 weeks in the mid to low ranges.

I started getting a lot of algae growth in the tank, so following my fish stores advice I turned my light off completely. He thought the algae was not being eaten by anything so it may have been dying off as well adding to the issue. A week later the algae was gone, I did a 20% water change and I am right back to the familular readiings...

Ammonia - 0.5 ppm
Nitrate - 2.5 ppm
Nitrite - 0.1

These levels are not horrible, but I would have expected to be in a position to add my cleanup crew by now. I don't remember ever having a tank that did not cycle in 4-6 weeks and it is curious that the levels never get any lower than and even remain at these levels.

I am only running a skimmer, over one LB per gallon of live rock and a UV sterilizer. I wonder if I should have additional filtration? My fish store has thier softy tanks set up like this and they are up and running...?

[Reefland]

What kind of test kits are you using?

[Freddy Twotimes]

I use Red sea, I also have taken my water to my local fish store for testing and they are also seeing the same readings; they use Red sea also.

All of the fish stores here in town use either Salifert or Red sea. One reef place uses some really elaborate tests and they are extreamly expensive in comparison to the Red sea or Salafert kits.

[Ninong]

Your nitrate reading is actually very low, so there is nothing bad there. Your nitrite reading of 0.1 ppm is acceptable because some test kits are overly sensitive. I know I often got a reading of 0.1 ppm NO2 with Salifert even though my NO3 readings were 5 ppm or less and my ammonia was undectable (using Salifert).

It could be that your ammonia test is just not really all that accurate. Even Salifert's ammonia test kit doesn't claim to be able to read below 0.5 ppm. The lowest square on their chart is 0.5 ppm, so if it's lighter than that one, it's just something under 0.5 ppm.

If you are sure of your nitrate readings, I would go ahead and add the clean-up crew now. As long as your nitrate is below 50 ppm, you could go ahead an add the clean-up crew.

If you had something inside the live rock that was still dying, I think your nitrite and nitrate readings would be higher.

[Freddy Twotimes]

Ninog,

It may be important to mention that my readings are that 20 hours after the 20% water change I have performed. I have attached the document that shows my readings up to this point. I have nothing in the tank, I am not feeding yet under these conditions it has gone up before from a low reading. Maybe I should watch it for one more week and see what happens after this water change?

Also, The water has never been clear. I always seem to have a slight cloudyness to the water. I remember previous tanks doing this in the early stages but I was wondering, why would the water not be crystal clear even if the peramaters are ok?

[Reefland]

Does your source water have any ammonia in it?

[Freddy Twotimes]

I get the water from the Water 2 Ice store or the fish store depending...Water 2 ice has a 24 hour outdoor filler and I need to go there for top off water because of my schedule and the LFS hours.

I will need to test both sources. I do have some fresh water left over from the fish store I could test...I will need some more for this weeks top off, I could test the Water 2 ice water this week.

I have no other place to get my water. I have had a lot of success with Poly filters but I was not going to use those until my water was cycled on its own. I guess this could tell me how good of a job can be done from the git go.

I do know that all the water I have used here in Phoenix reqardless of where I got it reads .01 for Phosphates from the source.

[Freddy Twotimes]

Does your source water have any ammonia in it?

I tested the fresh water from the fish store today, it had been in the test tube since yesterday but it tested 5.0ppm for Ammonia! The water in my tank actually has less Ammonia than my source water?!

Maybe I spike the Ammonia level everytime I top off? Maybe the micro organizms died raising the Ammonia level from having it sit for 24 hours in a test tube with the cap on? Maybe, I need another source of water...

I need to test the water from there again, right when I get it home out of the container and also test the water from the 'water 2 ice' store.

I'm blown away man...what could this mean? Is this guy not changing his filters?

[Ninong]

Sounds like something got into his freshwater storage tank and died! Probably drowned.

[Reefland]

Instead of buying water, is getting a RO/DI unit for yourself out of the question?

[Freddy Twotimes]

Yeah, I live in a 1 bedroom apt. I hardly have enough room for my stuff the way it is

I told the fish store that I had gotton some bad water from them. They tested thier supply and said it was almost zero. Is it possible to have a bad test kit?

[Ninong]

What brand of test kit are you using?

[Freddy Twotimes]

I use Red Sea, I think the fish store is nuts...I tested my tank water yesterday and it was 0.1 and thier fresh water was 5.0.

[fish outa wata]

Did you bring the water that you tested into them and show them the results? Somebody's test is off. They might be trying to cover their asses.