That was quick?

[mguiling]

Last friday I got 75lbs of live rock from GulfLiveRock. I rinsed and brushed each piece, removed any clams and such before putting them in the tank. Then, I put 3 dry rocks from my tank which has already cycled in the tank. Tuesday, I pulled each piece from the tank and brushed it off in a 5 gal bucket, vacuumed the sand (dry, not live) and did a 20% water change using water from my cycled aquarium.

Today, my nitrites and nitrates are off the chart and my ammonia is down from over 8ppm to 4ppm. Is that a quick cycle, or is it normal?

[Peter T]

Well, I wouldn't say your tank is cycled yet. Its coming well along the way though.

You want your ammonia and nitrite at zero. A good way to test how much bacteria you have colonizing the live rock is to try to get an ammonia reading by feeding the tank. Drop in some fish flakes and test your water for ammonia spikes. If it doesn't register or raises a little but quickly goes away, then you can be pretty confident that your tank has a good bacteria population. After that, continue to monitor your ammonia and nitrite and feed your tank a pinch a day to keep your population of bacteria strong. Once you hit zero ammonia and nitrite, you are cycled. Depending on nitrate level you may want to conduct a water change after your tank cycles.

[mguiling]

Thanks Peter,

The reason I asked is that I hadn't expected to see nitrates this fast. When I cycled with dry rock, one piece of live rock and ammonia it took a week from the time I saw nitrites before the nitrates caught up. This happened almost overnight, ammonia only for nearly a week, then nitrites and nitrates off the chart.

I'm hoping that the quicker this tank cycles, the better chance I have at saving whatever life was on the rocks when they arrived.

[sponger0]

Established rock can make your cycle go pretty quickly but wait it out. My first tank never cycled or happened to fast for me to see it

[rpjaws74]

Originally Posted by peter t

well, i wouldn't say your tank is cycled yet. Its coming well along the way though.

You want your ammonia and nitrite at zero. A good way to test how much bacteria you have colonizing the live rock is to try to get an ammonia reading by feeding the tank. Drop in some fish flakes and test your water for ammonia spikes. If it doesn't register or raises a little but quickly goes away, then you can be pretty confident that your tank has a good bacteria population. After that, continue to monitor your ammonia and nitrite and feed your tank a pinch a day to keep your population of bacteria strong. Once you hit zero ammonia and nitrite, you are cycled. Depending on nitrate level you may want to conduct a water change after your tank cycles.

+1

[Dragon moray ki]

My 90 didn't cycle and I gost fed for two weeks. You can never know

[Peter T]

Originally Posted by Dragon moray ki

My 90 didn't cycle and I gost fed for two weeks. You can never know

Your 90g didn't cycle? Or do you mean not register ammonia? Those are two completely different things.

If your 90 didn't begin to cycle after you fed the tank for two weeks, you may of needed to add some more LR to introduce a population of bacteria. That or you may of needed to add more food and just play the waiting game.

If you meant that your ammonia or nitrite never spiked but you were already reading nitrates, that means your tank was cycled from the get go because you used well cured live rock.

However, if you read the original post, that is not the case here and mguiling did indeed have an ammonia and nitrite spike and the tank is still in the process of completing the nitrogen cycle.

[mguiling]

It finished today, 0 ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Two weeks is pretty good?
So far, the only signs of life are a lot of fern-like plants and some fuzzy stuff on the hard coral.

[Peter T]

If you haven't read a trace of ammonia in the past five days while ghost feeding the tank, I would say you are cycled. If you have not had five days of zero ammonia, I suggest you ghost feed the tank until you do just to be safe.

Fern like plants does not sound too good lol. Google bryopsis to check to see if that is what it is.

[mguiling]

Originally Posted by Peter T

If you haven't read a trace of ammonia in the past five days while ghost feeding the tank, I would say you are cycled. If you have not had five days of zero ammonia, I suggest you ghost feed the tank until you do just to be safe.

Fern like plants does not sound too good lol. Google bryopsis to check to see if that is what it is.

Yeah, not to crazy about my first experiment with live rock. There wasn't a lot of coral and invertebrates like I expected, just the bryopsis and a few other algaes (are all salt water plants algae?)

I did manage to rescue this little colony by moving it into my tank before it had cured.

Cora_sml.jpg