cycling question

[bbreaux1]

ok its been a week since istarted cycling my 55gal tank.ive got 80lbs sand 20 of wich was live and 40lbs dead rock ive got about 6 small-med sized shrimp in the tank.my ammonia still hasnt gone above 1ppmthat ive noticed and nitrite is at .25ppm. pH 8.2 temp 77-78 and sg alittle under 1.023. i was wondering if since my nitrite is starting to show could i have missed the ammonia spike ive been testing once a day in the afternoons and once in the morning for ammonia. or do i need to add more shrimp to get the ammonia to rise higher?

 

[fshhub]

it's happening, you may have possibly missed it, but it is probably climbing, but if your nitrites are climbimng, you are in the middle of cycling cycling, no need to add more shrimp, all is going fine

 

[thewolfman777]

from my experience with my tank (it has been up and running for about a month)my amm. never exceeded 2 ppm during my cycle and it took almost two weeks to get this high. that may have been your spike. i dont think that it is odd to see trites at this time. you may have enough l/r, l/s to keep your readings low. have you checked trates at all? are you using ammolock or anything to reduce ammonia in the tank? Also it is not a bad idea to go buy a second test kit and match your results. keep us posted.

 

[bbreaux1]

no live rock yet i might go pick some up from the lfs this week and have 20lbs live sand i dont think its my test kit cause i tested it before i added anything and everything was zero. and i added biozyme i think it was the first three days that might have something to do with it.those shrimp sure start lookin nasty after a week the thing that surprised me was no smell in the room i thought for sure the shrimp would stink this place up

 

[thewolfman777]

i used biozyme too and was unhappy with the results. did the guy at the lfs tell you to use this or have you had good experiences with this in the past? i felt this just delayed the natural process of the cycle. after i stopped using it and added some l/r things started to take off the way they should have from day one. imo, get some l/r (they say 1-1.5 lbs. per gallon of water but this can get expensive), and i would stop using the biozyme.

 

[bbreaux1]

im only putting about 5lbs liverock on top my 40lbs tufa rock to seed it

 

[fshhub]

5 lbs is good enough, it will take some time to seed your lr, but any is good
and the biozyme may be the culprit, stop if you are still using it, it is trying to help you keep down your ammonia and nitrites and nitrates, you are better off letting it go through teh cycle by itself, basically all it is doing is bringing it down, when you want it to rise and fall by itself

 

[bbreaux1]

i did i only used it for the first three days it looks liek my amonia tes t may bahave been alittle darker but not yet to 2 or maybe its just wishful thining

 

[ocellaris_keeper]

First,
the process to create the biofilter is not all that exciting. Your ammonia spike could have happened the first night while you were sleeping. the reason why you still have ammonia is because you still have the decaying pieces of shrimp in the tank. Pull it out and watch the ammonia/nitrite drop pretty quickly.