no ammonia spike?
 

started up a 56g a month ago. it now has about 15lbs (so far) of live rock and 2lbs of live sand (plus the 3in we started with). recently we added a few hermits and have had a few snails emerge from the live rock. the problem is the ammonia and nitrites. the tank has been tested since the beginning and both ammonia and nitrites have been at 0 and haven't changed. is something wrong? why is there no ammonia and nitrite spike in the cycle?

Maybe the kits are not accurate, but the ammonia may also stay low if the rock was already cured. What sort of live rock was it?

IMO...I would test for Nitrates....you might have missed the whole ammo/nitrite all together......it might have already happended
OR...as Randy says....

i believe it was fiji live rock we bought from a local petshop which had a lot of saltwater supplies. not sure about cured or not...
as far as testing, been doing so with the same kit since day 1, no changes. the kit was new and not expired...and one of the top brands. they carried it at every supplier we visited.
the pet store suggested buying damsels to test the tank, but i'd prefer to not have them at all. as of the last day or so, lots of reddish-brown matter has appeared on the surface of the light colored sand. will this trigger anything? i'm just really at a loss here, not knowing whether it's cycled and somehow daily testing missed it...or it hasn't and we'd be killing fish if we started it up in a few weeks. :(

oh and we did test for nitrates a few times.. think it was the lowest reading or at 0. i'll retest tonight and post the results.

The reddish brown is likely cyanobacteria. It is not uncommon in new tanks. Siphon it out and look to make sure that you have adequate water flow and nutrient (nitrate and phosphate) export.

I wouldn't worry much about not seeing ammonia. Just take it slowly.