Help with cycle

[jaws1279]

Hello I'm doing my first saltwater tank and I'm attempting to cycle the tank. The issue that i have it that my ammonia has not raised passed 0.25ppm and nitrite is 0 nitrate 0. I added 20lbs of live rock and i cleaned it and scrubbed before adding to the tank. It's been 10 days and no change in ammonia. Temp is 76 deg , pH 8.0 salinity 1023 tank size is 46g. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? or 10 days is not enough time to see it peak?

 

[pepito113]

Hello. And welcome to the site... How are you cycling your tank. Are you using the shrimp method? Are you dosing with ammonia? Just explain how you are cycling your tank and then we can give you a better answer...

 

[spanko]

Keep monitoring for another week. If you don't see a rise in ammonia and/or nitrites you may not see much at all. How good was the live rock would be the question here, where did it come from, how long if at all had it been out of the water?
After a week, if nothing shows up you can try to ghost feed the tank. Take a good pinch of fish food throw it in the tank and see if the ammonia or nitrites rise over the next day or two. If they do and go back down quickly then you have a population of nitrifying bacteria already colonized and can probably wait another week (4 total) to see if the diatoms bloom. (this will be a brown dusty looking covering that will appear on the rock and or sand) At that time it would be safe to add a few critters that will be part of your clean up crew.

 

[jaws1279]

Pepito : i just used live rock as my source of ammonia i figured some of the die off would be enough to produce ammonia.
thanks Spanko ill give that a try if no changes in 2 days