Is my cycle done? help please.

heymybigfish

heymybigfish

Member
Hi!
I started my cycle around 15 days, ago...
i spiked my ammonia up to 4ppm, and after around 2 or 3 days, i had nitrites show up... they have been sitting up to (but never over) 2ppm. so they never really spiked. they just went up to 2, and stopped.
anyways, they stayed at 2 or so for the last 10 or so days, then went down about .5 per day for 4 days.... now are at 0.
every day i dosed my ammonia back up to 2ppm or so, and let it fall to 0-.25 and re-upped it. to keep feeding the bacteria..
anyways, today for the 1st time, at my normal testing time... my ammonia and nitrites are both 0. nitrates 20-40 (hard to tell color)
is my cycle sound like its done?
i plan to dose my ammonia up to 4ppm tonight, and check after 24hrs to see if everything is back to 0 overnight.
or should i not do that? thanks
 
heymybigfish

heymybigfish

Member
yes i seen the thread (and often use the search function before posting)
but i didn't see where it could've answered my question (partially because i forgot to mention another key thing)....
my tank never ended up blooming any algae.
tank startup consisted of 30lbs new fully cultured LR, 60lbs live sand, 30 lbs dead rock... all new filter media (no seed material other than the new live rock)
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
In your case I would say that you have done well with what you have told us. I would not consider putting any live stock (with the exception of some snails of a variety of kinds) into this tank for another week or two. I would not keep spiking the ammonia up. I would however let it run and watch because with the amount of dry rock you said you put in, diatoms are an almost sure thing to happen soon. Let the water tank settle in a bit. Also a good time to get a magnifying glass and watch closely as you will see miraculous things begin to appear.
 
heymybigfish

heymybigfish

Member
thanks.
ok, i'll not add ammonia. i had thought that letting the ammonia stay at zero effectively killed the good bacteria, as they starve to death.
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Bacteria colony will not die off in that short amount of time. Besides things are constantly dying and deteriorating to ammonia and the bacteria are being fed that. Just because you read zero for ammonia does not mean that it is not there, just that it is being consumed at a rate that does not allow you to detect it on the testing.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Did you set up a quarantine tank? If not it's a good time to set one up, use some of the established media from your cycled tank.
 
heymybigfish

heymybigfish

Member
I do have a 5 gal qt tank.... Pretty small.... Should I go bigger? It's just a tank with water and a Mesh bag of biomax. Not done with cycle yet
 
heymybigfish

heymybigfish

Member
about to do a water change... i took my parameters and all were good except 2... so hoping water change will fix that...
ammonia - 0
nitrite- 0
nitrate 40-80 (hard to distinguish color)
pH- 7.8
dKH- 9
Calcium- 520. not dosing with anything, not sure how i have so much calcium.
Phosphates : .5-1 little concerned here, as the tank has only been up and running for like 3 weeks'ish' and showing some phosphates.
SG- 1.024
anyways, any tips on why i'd have high calcium and showing phosphate.
all water has been R/O water (from walmart)
thanks
 
sweatervest13

sweatervest13

Active Member
Phosphates can leach from rock, if they were in a high phos environment. Some folks will give their dry base rock a bleach bath to help rid the rock of the phosphates... Acrylic51 did this recently and I think Eric B 125 as well (may be wrong about Eric).
For the Calcium, test again and see if there was a testing error. That high number is strange... Either way, its just the cycle, so nothing too bad to worry about. what salt mix did you use and how did you mix it?
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Agree with sweatervest. The phosphates could also be coming from the water from Walmart it the filters have not been changed recently. 520 calcium is okay, not to worry there.
 
sweatervest13

sweatervest13

Active Member
Good call Spanko!! The water at WalMart is suspect at best. They are supposed have a UV light to "sterilize" the water, but the one I used to get my water from, their UV never worked. You can also check the side of the water unit to see when it was serviced last. Again, the one I went to was never changed in a timely manner. Best bet is to get you own RO/DI unit (you can find them for around $150.00).
You could run some GFO to help bring down the Phos ## a bit. But that costs money too, I would say that a good RO/DI unit would be a great investment for you. If you plan on being in the hobby for a year or more, it will be more cost effective to buy your own unit and make your own water. The math works out.
 
heymybigfish

heymybigfish

Member
yeah, maybe my own RO unit is worth a shot.
i originally planned a reef tank, but am leaning towards FOWLR for about 6 months... once its well established, i'll probably add 2 or 3 really easy, hardy coral... thats all i really want anyways. (like xenia/zoos w/e)
i use instant ocean salt mix.....
i don't think the walmart water is sterilized.... its the individual gallon jugs with the green lids... but if it is, better yet.
i know perfect is 0 phosphate... luckily i don't have anything in there that would be harmed by the phates i do have... but how much can fish tolerate? is .5 going to crash a tank?
 
heymybigfish

heymybigfish

Member
also, i haven't done a water change yet, and haven't run lights or my skimmer at all, as my cycle just finished.
tomorrow i plan on a water change, maybe 30 gallons?
 
S

saxman

Guest
FWIW, whenever we cycle a new setup, we generally do a 25% water change prior to adding any livestock.
The fact that your lights have been off is likely one good reason why you haven't seen a diatom bloom yet, but I agree with Henry...you'll have one.
As for "ghost-feeding" the tank, it sounds like you've been doing OK. What you want to do is challenge the system with 0.2 ppm of ammonia (NH3), and wait 12 hrs. At that point, after 12 hrs, your NH3 and NO2 should be zero. If not, "it's not soup yet" and needs to cycle longer.
 
heymybigfish

heymybigfish

Member
Hi thanks for the response....
i don't have any livestock, but i will definitely do a water change before i do...
i have done that 12 hr test, with success... but i'm still waiting before adding anything. i plan to add 2 turbo snails and 5 blue crabs and 1 shrimp to the tank, since there's almost no algae....there is SOME on the newer liverock i bought, enough to feed a handful of inverts, but i'll be starting my light on a daily cycle, 8hrs on- 16hrs off within the next day or 2.
 
mr. limpid

mr. limpid

Active Member
There goes those galloping elephants again. The reason your calcium is up, because you have nothing using it up. doing water change remove a small portion of calcium but the new water is full of calcium, which is increasing it. But like Spanko says 520 is ok, high is better than low with calcium.
 
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