I'm lost with this tank Cycling thing

[jlpruden]

I've had live rock and live sand in the tank for about two weeks, tested my water parameters and everything is good. I decided to add a few damsels and they are doing ok as well, what gives?

[sjj80]

Did you buy cured or uncured live rock? Cured rock has already cycled at the suppliers facility and uncured hasn't cycled and will have lots of die off.

[mikemartinez]

You most likely bought cured rock so it was basically ready to use..

Hope you didnt get any blue damsels... They are the devil....

[Radioheadx14]

what do you mean what gives? if you parameters are good then you may have already cycled. i cycled in less that a week because i used local cured liverock. just dont start adding fish like crazy and still watch you parameters closely. you still may have ammonia spikes because your bacterial colonies may not be large enough yet to handle a large bio load.

[barbra]

It sounds as if you are dissatisfied with your good results. If so, just wait, because chances are those damsels will cause you plenty of consternation

[moo0o]

hahahaha did you not want them to live?

[papagimp]

Originally posted by barbra
It sounds as if you are dissatisfied with your good results. If so, just wait, because chances are those damsels will cause you plenty of consternation

Agree here, lol. Not everyone will see noticable results when cycling a new tank. The use of live rock and/or live sand can really help to reduce/eliminate the time for a cycle to occure due to plentiful amounts of bacteria on the rock/sand. Using uncured or dead sand/rock and you'll have to wait for this bacteria to colonieze completely, which will take time and the water quality will definatly show this as ammonia and nitrites rise and fall again.

[jlpruden]

Guys, I guess I was basically looking for some changes in my water parameters and when it didn't happen, i thought maybe i did or was doing something wrong. I thought about putting a few hermit crabs in this weekend, but I may wait another week or two to be on the safe side.

I bought a few 3 striped Damsels

[papagimp]

No biggie, sounds like ya missed it, that's all. I've missed a cycle before, once you get more experience and know what you're looking for with a new cycling tank, you'll be able to catch this kind of thing more often.

As for the damsels, as they grow larger, so will their aggressiveness. My mother refused to believe me on that one and after about a year, her 3 strip went on a rampage, chased a new clown over and out of the tank, went back to kill the older clownfish, obliterated her psuedochromi, and made many attempt to rid the tank of her yellow tang, who coincidentally, is a mean bugger himself and has hung in there for that reason alone. I had to listen to her tell me "but he's never harmed anything before" and "he's really peaceful though" for a year before all this. Best of luck

[jlpruden]

Originally posted by papagimp
No biggie, sounds like ya missed it, that's all. I've missed a cycle before, once you get more experience and know what you're looking for with a new cycling tank, you'll be able to catch this kind of thing more often.

As for the damsels, as they grow larger, so will their aggressiveness. My mother refused to believe me on that one and after about a year, her 3 strip went on a rampage, chased a new clown over and out of the tank, went back to kill the older clownfish, obliterated her psuedochromi, and made many attempt to rid the tank of her yellow tang, who coincidentally, is a mean bugger himself and has hung in there for that reason alone. I had to listen to her tell me "but he's never harmed anything before" and "he's really peaceful though" for a year before all this. Best of luck

Thanks!!! Do you think it would be safe to add more livestock this weekend; if so, what? My Damsels are pretty tiny, so I think i have time. My son wants some clowns, do if the Damsels will harrass Nemo, that could be a problem.

[papagimp]

Nemo is a damsel fish just a specific type of damsel. Being small juvi's at the moment, their probably won't be any issues right now with em together, but the potential for disaster will be there in the future. AS for adding more livestock. YOu definatly want to give the tank sufficient time between any livestock additions. This will allow the tank to build up more bacteria and not overfload the filtering capacity at once. Adding too many fish at one time and you could very easily see an ammonia spike/nitrite spike. As well as higher nitrates in all likelyhood.

I'd personally give the tank a couple more weeks at least. If all seems okay then, should be okay to add the clownfish. Just keep an eye on water quality, make sure no ammonia/nitrite shows up and be sure nitrate levels are acceptable (I'd say under 20ppm but many will go to 0ppm to be safe, lower is better IMO)

[jlpruden]

Originally posted by papagimp
Nemo is a damsel fish just a specific type of damsel. Being small juvi's at the moment, their probably won't be any issues right now with em together, but the potential for disaster will be there in the future. AS for adding more livestock. YOu definatly want to give the tank sufficient time between any livestock additions. This will allow the tank to build up more bacteria and not overfload the filtering capacity at once. Adding too many fish at one time and you could very easily see an ammonia spike/nitrite spike. As well as higher nitrates in all likelyhood.

I'd personally give the tank a couple more weeks at least. If all seems okay then, should be okay to add the clownfish. Just keep an eye on water quality, make sure no ammonia/nitrite shows up and be sure nitrate levels are acceptable (I'd say under 20ppm but many will go to 0ppm to be safe, lower is better IMO)

Great info! Thanks again... I definitely have more than enough filtration, but I need to add a skimmer.. OK, I'll let my 3 little guys swim around for a few more weeks... BTW, I have a 55 Gal.