Cycling Question

[mjordan23]

I am into week 5 of my cycling my 125 gallon tank with 45 lbs of uncured liverock and 1 damsel.....Finally last week, I noticed my Ammonia is up and reading at .50...Its been this way now for maybe 5 days and might be decreasing a lil bit. Nitrate and Nitrite are still at 0 and Ph is good at 8.2.....Is it possible that the ammonia will peak at .50 and start to go down or do u think it will continue to raise. How long before Nitrites start to rise????? Any suggestions or opinions please. The damsel seems to be doing really good in the tank but I get concerned that Im into week 5 already and I dont know if it is cycling yet.
Thanks
Mark

 

[nigerbang]

hmmm really shouldnt cycle a tank with fish, seems rather cruel(gives them an attitude also. {esp damsels}) Should use cocktail shimp like from the store....works faster. Just be patient my 1st tank took 9 weeks to stabilize

 

[mjordan23]

well I will prolly take my rock out and catch the damsel and return to local fish store....any other opinions on how high my ammonia should get or is the .50 reading as high as im gonna get.

 

[shogun323]

I don't know from personal experience but I read a post where someone mentioned sitting the net in there for a bit for the damsel to get used to it. then after a while place some food in it and when the damsel goes for the food just grab the net. It seems worth a try because from what I hear you can pretty much count on removing all of your rockwork to catch the little sucker!! The only other method of catching them I've heard of is dynomite!!

Good Luck!!