My tank is not cycling normally

[fixpc]

Hello all,
let me give you some background about three months ago my house was completely flooded by passing hurricane I got 5 feet of water in my downstairs, the water and did my fish tank and killed everything. I was able to salvage my tank my lights and my life rock which is no longer alive. I am now in a position to restart my tank, I've made some changes to my set up I used to have a sump with a protein skimmer, heater and refuguim. My old tank had a deep sand bed. My new setup is completely different for many reasons the one big reason is that I have a two-year-old that loves to dump stuff in myself he has thrown matchbox cars and batteries all killing coral that love him I don't have the tolerance to deal with him killing all my livestock. Now to my new setup
I have t5 lighting on a 55 gallon tank the lighting has 4 55watt bulbs 2 12k 1 10k and 1 blue. I went with a shallow sand bed and move my rocks back in the tank I have about 110 pounds of rock the rock was cleaned before put back into the tank and added 3 pounds of live rubble rock. I have a filter that has an attached overflow and skimmer the filter is a highbred wetdry/canister made by tomsaquatics I bought this because my little boy cant put a little grubby hands until it. I also have two power heads in the tank and heater the water circulation is very good I moving close to 1500 gallons an hour. So to start the new cycle I added about two or three krill Two days later my tank started cycle now here's the weird part my ammonia is high about 1.0 my n3 is fairly high and my n2 is through the roof 5.0. At this part of my cycle I should see only ammonia and possibly a little bit of n3. Also my phosphates are high, im not worry about that now I can deal with that later. Does anyone know why be getting these readings.

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by fixpc http:///t/390033/my-tank-is-not-cycling-normally#post_3451218
Hello all,
let me give you some background about three months ago my house was completely flooded by passing hurricane I got 5 feet of water in my downstairs, the water and did my fish tank and killed everything. I was able to salvage my tank my lights and my life rock which is no longer alive. I am now in a position to restart my tank, I've made some changes to my set up I used to have a sump with a protein skimmer, heater and refuguim. My old tank had a deep sand bed. My new setup is completely different for many reasons the one big reason is that I have a two-year-old that loves to dump stuff in myself he has thrown matchbox cars and batteries all killing coral that love him I don't have the tolerance to deal with him killing all my livestock. Now to my new setup
I have t5 lighting on a 55 gallon tank the lighting has 4 55watt bulbs 2 12k 1 10k and 1 blue. I went with a shallow sand bed and move my rocks back in the tank I have about 110 pounds of rock the rock was cleaned before put back into the tank and added 3 pounds of live rubble rock. I have a filter that has an attached overflow and skimmer the filter is a highbred wetdry/canister made by tomsaquatics I bought this because my little boy cant put a little grubby hands until it. I also have two power heads in the tank and heater the water circulation is very good I moving close to 1500 gallons an hour. So to start the new cycle I added about two or three krill Two days later my tank started cycle now here's the weird part my ammonia is high about 1.0 my n3 is fairly high and my n2 is through the roof 5.0. At this part of my cycle I should see only ammonia and possibly a little bit of n3. Also my phosphates are high, im not worry about that now I can deal with that later. Does anyone know why be getting these readings.
Welcome to the site..
Mine did the same thing. I don't have the knowledge to understand why or explain it. I went and got me some cycle. It's just a bottle of good bacteria...I dump it in according to directions over 3 days, and the cycle along with the raw shrimp did the trick...cycle finished as it should and all was good.
Now I ONLY test for ammonia, then when it finally goes to 0, I check for nitrites and after that goes to 0...I check for nitrates. I'm sure if I wanted to waste all my test kit juice I could test everything but why do so. A cycling tank goes through so much, and until the first two mentioned go to 0, the tank is not inhabitable

 

[fixpc]

the nitrates is really getting to me, there should be none right now it's just odd. I wonder if it is because im using old live rock. I guess it does not really matter right now until the ammonia is 0

 

[xandrew245x]

I just started my tank 3 days ago, it was a tank I bought off of a guy and included the live rock, I added 24 pounds of live rock I bought and some of the rock that came with the tank. Yesterday my ammonia and nitrites were both .25 but my nitrates were 5! I think it may have to do with old live rock.

 

[mr. limpid]

The only thing I can add to this that maybe your old LR wasn't as dead as you thought. There are sill bacteria that lived through the hurricane and is causing your high nitrates and nitrites. Any way it all good just do as Flower says wait on them one at a time to hit 0. My concern is your high Phosphates, are you using RO water?

 

[geoj]

Sounds normal to me...

 

[fixpc]

[hr]
yes i use ro water . I think it maybe the food i used to start the cycling. i will use some phs remover next week

 

[beaslbob]

FWIW the nitrogen cycle (ammonia->nitrItes->nitrates) is only 1/2 the story IMHO. The half the is aerobic bacteria based. Actually anaerobic bacteria working correclty will reduce nitrates to nitrogen gas also. But you get the idea of a bacteria based cycle.
But with plant life like algae or macros that is not the complete story. Most plant life actually prefer to consume ammonia and not nitrAtes. Of course with bacteria built up nitrates are all that are available.
But given some ammonia that existing bacteria is not consumeing, the plant life will readily and greedily consume that "left over" ammonia. And in the process slow down or stop consuming any nitrates.
So the "planted" part of the cycle can be low/no ammonia, low/no nitrItes with a possible initial nitrate spike.
Then as aerobic bacteria expand and consume more and more ammonia, they consume nitrates for nitrogen. So after a few weeks nitrates finally drop down.
that is the other 1/2 of the story and explains tanks that cycle with only an initial nitrate spike.
my .02
ps gee kinda makes you wonder huh? Perhaps the way live rock works? And why we shouldn't start tanks with macros in a refugium also.