Tank tests

[BucNtears]

Its been around 2 weeks since I've setup my tank.I've got around 45lbs. baserock and 35lbs. liverock and some odd 90lbs. sand and 20lbs.livesand.
Have not noticed any swings as far as my reading have been.Granted I used the liverock that the lfs had already cycled.
This is a 75 gallon
readings.
ammonia .25
ph. 8.1
no2 0.3mg/l
no3 omg/l maybe slightly higher.
I believe that my tank completed the cycle.I might not have even had one.
What do you think?

[jmorgret]

I'll piggyback on this....I also set my 30g up 2 weeks ago with LFS live rock that was cured. My tank is doing nothing, water looks good, getting very little in my skimmer, but no real alge growth. No amonia, and very little nitrate/nitrite. Not sure if it is cycling or not, not really doing anything.

[BucNtears]

I've talked to some people and they say that I should put 1 or 2 small hardy fish in to get things started.
I'm hoping to get some input.
So tag along with me.

[snorkelmark]

With 45 lbs of live rock cured not frest you probably have a lot of bacteria so you may not see much of an initial cycle.

On that 30 gallon from jmorgret he also probably had a lot of good bacteria on the LR so no real initial cycle.

If ammonia and nitrites are = 0 after two weeks with that much LR then you can add a small clean up crew - and I mean small. I think most crews are 4x as bg as you need. You would rather have hungry snails and crabs with a lot to eat than too many starving animals with note enough to eat. For a 75 gallon maybe 6 astra snails and 8 hermits and 4 of those snails that move fast anmd live in the sand. For a 30 gallon half of that.

After 2 more weeks you can add a few corals.

I think "cycling" gets blown way out of proportion - if you use good cured LR you'll grow necessary bacteria in a week or two because your rock already has a lot of it.

Now for Bucntears he still had a high ammonia number which probably means he's getting die off from the LR that was not totally cured. I would do a water change and wait another week. If the ammonia is measurable it's too high - it should literally be 0. With well cured LR I can set up a tank and have it ready for corals in 2 weeks. If the LR still has stuff rotting on it then it takes a lot longer - not really because of the cycling but just because there's a bunch of dying rotten stuff decomposing in the water !

If jmorgrets amm is 0 and nitrites 0 then he would be OK but I could not tell - both amm and nitrites need to be 0.