has my tank cycled in a week?

[jeo]

A week ago I set up a 75 gallon tank with a 29 gallon sump. I put 100 lbs of southdown, 50 or so pounds of nature's ocean sand that had been in my friend's shark pond, and another 40 lbs of nature's ocean sand in it. I added 7 damsels to cycle it, 2 of which died(I think because the temp got really high(this problem had been fixed- temp now at 79)) and I just let them decompose in the tank. I tested the water a week later and there was almost no sign of ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. Did my tank cycle really fast because I had the sand from my friends tank in it? thanks for the input

 

[sgt__york]

IT is possible if ur media had well established bacteria for your bio load. However i would think a couple of dead fish woulda spiked things up. If you leave fish IN the tank.. no question.. ammonia will increase. If it doesn't, you must have an established enuf media. I'm rather surprised that the nitrates didn't go up a bit tho - of course 5 damsels not a lot of load. Me personally, i would be a 'tad' paranoid, until i saw the nitrates go up a bit, whie the ammonia/nitrite sit at 0. Might want to increase the load and monitor the levels daily - perhaps even a morning and evening reading. Once u get several readings of activity - you will better tell what is really going on. Might also wanna verify ur testing stuff is accurate - verify it at a LFS. You could also catch one of the damself, put him in a small jar for 30mins to an hour, then do a water sample on it - see if any ammonia appears. Good luck.

 

[bosco0633]

My tank cycled quickly as well. I had a large amonia spike, which went down to zero within a week or two. The Nitrate was zero all the way through the cycle. If you are going to add anything, start with some rock. Dont get to crazy. good luck

 

[nm reef]

First I'd be curious about the quality of your tests and how regular you ran them. If your tests are correct and you ran them regularly then you should have seen some indication of an ammonia spike followed by a spike in nitrites....both would fall then remain at zero. Nitrates may have increased slightly. If you have seen no indication or either ammonia or nitrite then I'd suggest you procede with caution and insure your tests are accurate. Even with quality sand/LR you should still see spikes in a newly set-up system.

 

[jeo]

Thanks guys, I did verify my tests at the lfs, and although 5 damsels isn't a very heavy bioload I would think that the two dead ones that I left in the tank would be a lot, right?

 

[kelly]

As mentioned above, you should have had some kind of spike. Did you ever have any spikes at all? I would be leary about adding anything yet, give it another few weeks and continue doing tests. If you had the spikes, and now the test results are zero, then things may be ok.

 

[jeo]

I don't really have much doubt that the tests are accurate because I tested them myself and then had my results verified at the lfs. The thing is, I never tested the water mid way through the week. I put the damsels in and didn't test the water until a week later, so if it did spike, which I bet it did, I wouldn't have known about it. I didn't bother to test just because I figured it would take longer. I guess my question in this post was more if it was possible for a tank to cycle this fast and from what I am hearing it is. Thanks guys

 

[joe's reefer]

all my tank has is water,liove sand and live rock everything was already cycled so i whated about a week now im fine with everything at 0 besides my nitrate which is 5-10