water testing

[Milky3]

How often do you have to check water parameters when cycling a tank?

[IslandCrow]

Technically, I'd say twice. If you wait about 4-8 weeks (depending on the amount of die-off you expect), your cycle is probably going to be complete. If that assumption is true, you'd check once at that point, and if all the parameters are good, check one more time about a week later to make sure nothing has changed. Personally, this is now what I do, but it's because I'm not in any hurry, and it doesn't matter to me if the tank was actually ready for fish a few weeks before I got around to adding them.

OK, that's the minimum. In general, I'd say once a week. There are quite a few people who will check daily, but I don't see any reason for this other than curiosity or to practice running tests. You're only monitoring the cycle, not controlling it, and since you want your ammonia and nitrites undetectable for at least a week (at leas that's my suggestion), it really does you no good to check any more often than weekly.

[Milky3]

IslandCrow thanks for the reply I am in no hurry either just wanted an opinoin thanks again.

[Octoshark]

Originally Posted by IslandCrow

You're only monitoring the cycle, not controlling it, and since you want your ammonia and nitrites undetectable for at least a week (at leas that's my suggestion), it really does you no good to check any more often than weekly.

You should check often in order to make sure you achieve a proper ammonia spike. If you only check once a week then you may have missed your ammonia spike and will not know how efficient your cycle is/was. The only way to get around that would be if you have previous experience and know how much of a spike you will get with whatever method you choose to start a cycle. If a rookie throws a tiny bit of mysis in a big tank then waits a week to test, then they will see 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate. Based on the one week recommendation, they will see 0 everything and think their cycle is complete. They will have missed the ammonia spike, and if it turns out that their ammonia spike was very very small then they will have no idea. Then they will put some fish in, and bye-bye fish.

So you should check more often in order to confirm that you have indeed achieved a sufficient ammonia spike, or else your cycle may not have been good enough to support the introduction of livestock.

[jenjen]

On my first tank I checked daily, mainly because it gave me something to do.

On my second tank I checked every second day, because I used a mix of live & lace rock and I wasn't sure what to expect.

On my third tank I checked periodically, a couple times at the start and then once I saw ammonia I didn't test for a week or two.

I agree both with IslandCrow & Octoshark and would suggest you check as often as you need to in order to feel confident in the progress. But DON'T get all excited the first time you see zero's across the board and think you should throw some livestock in!

[Milky3]

Thx again for all your info!

[IslandCrow]

I probably should have qualified my advice. I always advise stocking slowly, where there is a very gradual rise in bioload. I'm also assuming your using a majority of live rock and not base rock. Given these things, I'm not a proponent of necessarily needing an ammonia spike. Personally, I've always started with properly cured rock, and I've never had an ammonia spike. Nor have I had any detectable levels of ammonia or nitrites after adding livestock, so this method works for me with the above constraints.

Now, if you're starting with a majority of dead base rock, or you plan on adding a significant bioload after your cycle, I would follow Octoshark's advice. You'll need to basically prime your system to produce a sufficient amount of bacteria to handle the bioload your livestock will produce. In this case, you will need to ensure you have a source of ammonia to feed this initial bacteria population. Unfortunately, this still seems to be more of an art than a science, so I'm still not sure if the ammonia reading you get is all that helpful, except to see that you got one.