Cycling questions

[Brian L]

I have a 75 gal tank that I'm currently cycling. The test results are as follows:

Ammonia 0.50 (coming down from 2.0)
Nitrite 1.00 (slowly inching up)
Nitrates 10 (just appeared last night)

I started the cycle with 3 raw shrimp from the grocery store. Most of the decaying shrimps are still sitting on the sand, do I need to remove the remainder or leave them in?

Also, the "brown dusting" of algae has spread across the sand. Do I need to manually stir the sand up or wait till after the cycle is complete and let a cleaner crew handle it?

My plan so far is that I will wait for Ammonia and Nitrite to reach 0 and do a 50% water change (right?). Finally, given that Nitrates have appeared, I'm thinking it's time to hook up my skimmer, or should I wait for Ammonia and Nitrate to drop?

Thanks,


Brian

[moe_k]

Hi Brian,

I would pull the shrimp now.

I would throw the skimer on now.

Do the water changes as you see fit.

Then sit back and let the bacteria handle the job.
As for the algae, it'll keep growing as long as there are nutrients available.
I wouldn't stir things up. Are you using a DSB? Stirring could make mess and disturb the bacteria.

[alf3482]

I would have to second that!

[Brian L]

Yes, I've got about a 3" dsb. I just asked because I seem to remember reading some posts about people who manually stir the sand up, but I'll leave it be.

I was going to wait until ammonia and nitrite are at 0 and then add a few damsels. Maybe I'll skip the damsels and go with a pair of maroon clowns.


Thanks for the help.

Brian

[hartman]

Brian,

How old is the tank?
Do you have any fish, inverts or corals in yet?
Do you have LR in it?

I would pull the shrimp
Do not change the water, unless you have animals
Do not run the skimmer, unless you have animals

For a good solid cycle you want to let those levels build up and the colonies of bacteria to respond and grow. Then after a few weeks start skimming and water changes.

Hartman

[Brian L]

Hartman:

The tank has been set up for about 4 weeks. Nothing was going on with the tank (i.e. ammonia at 0.25, everything else at 0) until I put the 3 raw shrimp in last Friday night. I added Cycle about 2 weeks ago thinking this would help establish bacteria, but it did nothing.

I have 30bls live rock, 3" dsb and no animals yet. This is going to be a FOWLR tank.

I have been trying to stay patient and wait for the proper time to add some fish. I was hoping to get a few blue damsels this weekend, but I don't want to rush it.


Brian

[hartman]

Brian,

Ok are you running the lights? and do you have power heads moving the water around?

Here is how the cycle should go without running a skimmer and no water changes with no animals

1) Ammonia spikes and bacteria grow that consume and convert it into Nitrites.
2) Ammonia levels drop and Nitrites levels increase and a different kind of bacteria grows to consume the Nitrites and convert into Nitrates
3) Once Ammonia and Nitrites level drops and nitrates increases you have kind of reached the third stage. During the process you need to be adding some bio-load like feeding the tank a little food every day to maintain load on the system. This keeps that colonies of bacteria growing. Wait a week or two and then do water changes and use the skimmer. Once you get Nitrates below 10 then add snails and maybe 1 fish.

This way the tanks bacteria has grown into large enough numbers to start consuming the bio-load created by the fish and snails.

Hartman

[Brian L]

That's pretty much how I figured it would go.


Thanks again,

Brian

[BOBG]

What worked really well for me was using partially cured live rock to start the cycling process. I started witha 3" sandbed(southdown) 9lbs and added about 5 lbs per week until I reached my 1lb per gallon. I then waited about three weeks(monitoring parameters every other day) before adding any actual life to the tank. I NEVER had an ammonia spike. I have a 125 tall tank 60"x18"x26". I have a 3 compartment sump/ refugium. In the first compartment where the over flow goes into is my Turboflotor skimmer, the second compartment contains a 1.5 inch sand bed(southdown) 5 lbs of live rock, grape and blade calerpa, with a 505 actinic and a 03 actinic running off hours of my main tank. In between the refugium and the return compartment is fiber floss. My first creature was a saddle back clown which developed some type of fungus. I never could catch him for treatment and he dies. I waited a week and added a cleaner shrimp, 15 astrea snails and 2 turbo snails, a couple blue legged hermit crabs. I waited a week and added a Gold striped Maroon Clown and a week later added a lawnmower blenny and a week later added a pajama cardinal. Everything is doing great and all of my parameters are exactly where they should be. I added a DYI Calcium Reactor that keeps my ALK/ Calcium at optimal levels.