Cycle

[Sr]

My tank has been up and running for 5 weeks I've checked my water everyday since start up I have seen no spike or trace of ammonia trites or trates.Is this normal everything seems to be doing well . I'm growing coraline algae fish are doing good . Any advice would be greatly appreciated .

[Original Fin]

Can you describe your setup and method(s) for filtration?

Rock, sand, skimmer, sump, wet/dry, canister, fish, beneficial bacteria in a bottle, etc...


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[Sr]

90 gal tank fuge for a 150 gal tank natural sea water lve sand mineral mud in fuge chaetomorpha as well w/ light 100 lbs of live rock1800 gph pump protein skimmer is on the way asm g1x 9 green chromis 2 clowns1sargassum fish in fuge10 blue leg hermits2 emerald crabs11 astria snails 3 peppermint shrimp4 scarlet hermits 2sandsifting stars1serpent star came in the rock

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

Few more questions... What kind of test kits are you using and how old are they? Did you buy your rock cured or cure it before using it. You collected the NSW yourself? Its possible to not detect a cycle with well cured LR and "mature seawater". That might have happened in your case, especially with all the livestock you already have. I would figure some pretty big toxin numbers going on from all those fish in such a short period of time. To be safe, you could continue to test for a couple of weeks before adding more livestock. If ammonia and nitrite are still zero, you should be good to go ( assuming the tests are accurate).

[Original Fin]

I see two possibilities here.

Either you have a bad test kit, or the tank has already cycled and the Chaeto is consuming nitrates as soon as they are produced.

It is possible to get undetectable and
fast cycles when conditions are right. You would need well established/cured live rock starting out, and then you would also need to give that rock good & stabile water quality. The key is to minimize die off. You can't do better than natural sea water, assuming it wasn't collected in a polluted area.

I'd say you're good to go, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to doublecheck those test kits.



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[Original Fin]

Are you seeing any other kind of
algae growth, especially hair algae? Diatoms, cyano?
These are all common end of cycle markers, although that's probably driven by the usual concentration of nutrients from live rock die off...which it seems you may have avoided.


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[Reefing Madness]

When in doubt have your LFS test your water params for you as a double check. Also, if you truly bought Fully Cured Live Rock, you would likely not see any cycle.

[Sr]

I've had my lfs test the water . I did collect the water myself and the most of the rock was cured . I have had some diatoms in the second week very little green or cyano the crabs take care of that .

[Reefing Madness]

Sounds like your off and running then.

[Sr]

Thanks Better safe than sorry