Where am I at? Whats next?

Charley Diesing · 01/23/2012, 12:16 AM

Sooo I cycled my rock in a rubbermaid container... When Ammonia, + Nitrate where at 0, and Nitrate was at about 20-40ish. This took about 5 weeks.

I then moved the rock(not the water) into my aquarium. I put fresh saltwater at 1.023 SG into my tank.The move was on Thurs the 19th. I tested the water.. Nitrate -5(kinda hard to tell if its at 0 or 5 or less), ammonia 0, and Nitrite 0. On Saturday the 21st I bought a blue damsel. He's been doing fine. So I guess my question is will my tank cycle again? I'M SO CONFUSED!

When can I add a CUC?

When can I add another fish?

Also I'm gonna take back the blue damsel he was kind of a test lol...

sporto0 · 01/23/2012, 12:32 AM

The reason you cycle a tank is so that you get nitrifying bacteria colonies built up on your rocks or whatever filter media you may be using, in your case the live rock will act as your biological filter. There must have been some type of die off from the rock to have produced ammonia to kick start the cycle, now your bacteria colony is as big as it needed to be to handle the load (ammonia) put upon it, I don't know if you threw a cocktail shrimp in with your rocks or what caused the ammonia, but the only way your tank would show a mini cycle or a spike in ammonia now is if you added too many fish at once that produced more waste than your bacteria could handle, the colony grows & shrinks according to the bio load put upon it, that's why it's always a good idea to only add 1 or 2 fish at any one time. You can definitely add a CUC & another fish now. Hope this helps.

Jocko · 01/23/2012, 07:55 AM

Yeah basically just never add things if you're not reading zeros across the board. And never add too many things at once. If you follow those two rules, you'll be fine and your bacteria population in your tank will continue to slowly grow as you slowly increase the bioload. Happy reefing!

01/23/2012, 12:16 AM	#1
Charley Diesing Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Austin Texas Posts: 1,162	Where am I at? Whats next? Sooo I cycled my rock in a rubbermaid container... When Ammonia, + Nitrate where at 0, and Nitrate was at about 20-40ish. This took about 5 weeks. I then moved the rock(not the water) into my aquarium. I put fresh saltwater at 1.023 SG into my tank.The move was on Thurs the 19th. I tested the water.. Nitrate -5(kinda hard to tell if its at 0 or 5 or less), ammonia 0, and Nitrite 0. On Saturday the 21st I bought a blue damsel. He's been doing fine. So I guess my question is will my tank cycle again? I'M SO CONFUSED! When can I add a CUC? When can I add another fish? Also I'm gonna take back the blue damsel he was kind of a test lol...

01/23/2012, 12:32 AM	#2
sporto0 Moved On Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Pittsburgh, Pa. Posts: 2,924	The reason you cycle a tank is so that you get nitrifying bacteria colonies built up on your rocks or whatever filter media you may be using, in your case the live rock will act as your biological filter. There must have been some type of die off from the rock to have produced ammonia to kick start the cycle, now your bacteria colony is as big as it needed to be to handle the load (ammonia) put upon it, I don't know if you threw a cocktail shrimp in with your rocks or what caused the ammonia, but the only way your tank would show a mini cycle or a spike in ammonia now is if you added too many fish at once that produced more waste than your bacteria could handle, the colony grows & shrinks according to the bio load put upon it, that's why it's always a good idea to only add 1 or 2 fish at any one time. You can definitely add a CUC & another fish now. Hope this helps.

01/23/2012, 07:55 AM	#3
Jocko Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Boston Posts: 595	Yeah basically just never add things if you're not reading zeros across the board. And never add too many things at once. If you follow those two rules, you'll be fine and your bacteria population in your tank will continue to slowly grow as you slowly increase the bioload. Happy reefing!