Is my tank Cycled???

[Northman_with_reef]

I have a 100gal tank filled with natural seawater, a 1" S.bed and 40lbs of cured live rock..

Its been up for about 12 days.

Parameters:
Nitrite:0mg
Nitrate:1mg
Ca: 480
pH:8,2

I havent had a nitrite peak, but only nitrates after i added the live rock.....
Is my tank cycled or should i give it some moore time???

Thanks
Thomas

[CaptainK]

Hi Northman_with_reef,
12 days sounds too quick for me, but if you are already using cured rock then I guess it could be possible. But I would maybe wait a week or two more just to be on the safe side.
Have you considered increasing the size of your sand bed a couple more inches? It may benefit you more and it would also be easier to do now than in the future when you have fish and inverts in there.

HTH,
CaptK

[Northman_with_reef]

Sure, I would love too increase my sandbed, BUT the guy who sells Aragamax in norway takes 80bucks per 30lbs bag.
I think its outrageus!!!

I'll probably give the tank another week before I introduce anything..

[eses]

It doesn't sound like you have introduced much of anything that produces waste. You may have had a minor cycle, but only one that takes care of the low waste produced by the organisms on the live rock.

If you introduce anything large, like a meat eating fish, it will probably cycle again once you start feeding it and once the fish starts producing ammonia. A little spike, shouldn't be enough to kill anything, but the nitrate spike may be enough to produce a unwanted algae bloom.

I would give it more time, and give it something more to cycle with. Ammonia chloride and a month should do the trick. Search online for a proper dosage, I believe it was 1/4 tsp per 20 gallons. This will give you a nice rounded ammonia spike and the bacteria on your LR can multiply to take care of it. It took my 75 gallon exactly about a month and a week to cycle this way.

A 1" sand bed isn't bad, you won't have as much of a bioload but you can still be happy with it.

[Northman_with_reef]

Could I introduce a damsel to produce ammonia, or will it die???

I have no idea what ammonia chloride is, and i dont know where to get it..

[CaptainK]

You could use a damsel to help cycle the tank. Will it die...maybe, maybe not. But most people will tell you to not go the route of using a fish to cycle the tank, it is a little cruel to the fish.
I have not done this myself, but there have been people who have used peices of shrimp that you buy at the grocery store to cycle the tank. Just pop in a peice or two and let it start the cycle process for you.

HTH,
CaptK

[bongobrian]

I wouldn't do the shrimp thing.. you would be introducting organic forms of phosphate as it decays. There are bottled products you can buy to help speed up the cycle time and to add denitrifying bacteria.

[eses]

I don't know about your area, but you can purchase ammonia in any grocery store. Its sold as ammonia, for the ingrediants it should list "ammonia chloride" and nothing else (maybe water.) It is used for cleaning.

Chances are, if you put a damsel in your tank it won't die. Since it sounds like you've already had a mini cycle, the damsel would start another one..each fish you introduce from now on will. The idea of the ammonia is to start a BIG cycle so when you add fish/inverts and increase your bioload your system is ready to handle it.

Fish work, but not as well. They don't produce a "full range" of ammonia, so you won't get nearly as much bacteria .. it will take longer for your tank to cycle in the end. Also, if the damsel lives you have to either keep it, or try to get it out.

Shrimp, or anything decaying also works..but it takes even longer, and is worse overall than adding a fish.

If you start introducing animals, do it SLOWLY. No more than 1 per month, after you add something watch your ammonia and wait out the spike before adding anything else. If you add fish while the previous cycle has not finished you can overload quickly and crash.

[golfish]

That's not a whole lot of filtration. You wont be able to have very much of anything. I would add another 40 pounds of live rock and most important 3-4 more inches of sand........Unless your running a wet\dry or other kind of filtration.....

[Poseidon]

i've always used the fish method... My setup is a little crowded now. 6 fish, 80 pounds of live Rock and a crushed shell floor ( Never Again, it looks cool but I'm ALWAYS checking pH !) To go with mostly corals Xenia Anthelia Capanella Polyps that type of stuff and I like the fact that fish produce the waste that I want to consume in my tank. It seems to me that would be the best way to get what you want. As far as adding Ammonia from the grocery store I'll use that for cleaning my house... With natural Seawater and 100 gallons of it I agree add slowly and enjoy don't make your tank more work then fun !!!!

[hllywd]

I would dispute the idea that every time you add a fish you induce another cycle. My money says if the rock is actually cured and doesn't have a big die off and you're using natural seawater that unless you really go hog wild and load the tank with a bunch of live stock you may not see a big "conventional" cycle. The rock already has the beneficial bacteria as well as the seawater. If the rock was ready to go and was transported in a way so as not to cause a die off in your tank it has some filtration capacity already. A cycle will occur only if the waste in the tank overruns that capacity already present. On the other hand if the rock was shipped and out of the water for even 24 hours I would expect a die off even with "cured" rock and a big ensuing full blown cycle though in 12 days you'd have seen that. So, your tank may be ready to slowly add some livestock watch it for a few more days to see that it's stable and add a couple fish, the already present bacteria will quickly multiply to take up the excess waste. My personal opinion is that a lot of these ideas harken to the days when we started with a new tank, added the UG plate, threw some crushed coral on top, decorated with a few pieces of dead coral and added some IO water, all sterile. There was no nitrifying bacteria present and you had to kick-start the whole process. Now we add the live rock, live sand, seawater and voila! it's there, granted not in the necessary populations but none the less the tank is seeded, feed it waste a little at a time and it will populate the entire system without causing undue strain on any organisms in the tank.
This is the first time in 20 years in the hobby I ever heard anyone say to dump ammonia in your tank, I have to think it would be bad, if not lethal, for any of your live rock organisms to get a shock like that. As for the dead shrimp idea, a couple in 100 gallons of seawater that already has a start might be a quick way to increase the population of the bacteria and thereby the amount of livestock you could add. The method I personally would prefer is to add to the sand bed, I've read a couple posts advocating the use of silica sand, it is inert and won't have the buffering ability of aragonite. Then add another 50 lbs of liverock. If you don't see a cycle after that addition (or if you do) my opinion is that it would be safe to begin adding other animals.
Be patient and do everthing very slowly.

[Northman_with_reef]

In the end of my "plan" i will have about 200lbs of live rock(lots of filtraition...) so that is'nt a problem..

I'm really not that thrilled about dsb, so I think i will stick to my 1"..

I had a Mantis in my tank, and i left in a trap full of shrimp, could that have triggerd a cycle???

[golfish]

Remember that live sand filters better then live rock......So as you go your going to cure the additional LR in another tank?

[Northman_with_reef]

I buy LR @ my LFS, ther only place that sells LR in norway!
And its all cured.

How much LR could you reccomend for a 100gal tank???