No cycle?

joyful23

Member
Here goes:
T-80
Ph-8.2
Amm-0
Trites-0
Trates-10
Ammonia, trites and trate have been this way since day 6. Tank is 16 days old. I threw in a cocktail shrimp about 5 days ago and still no ammonia or trite spike. Is it possible my LR was cured enough to handle everything? I have green, dark brown and some purple algea growing all over the rock. Nothing on the sand as of yet. Any ideas?
 

birdy

Active Member
To answer your question, yes, you can skip the cycle if you have enough cured LR and LS, if you answer the above question it would be easier to know if you have enough for your tank.
 

joyful23

Member
125 gallon, 120 lbs. aragonite sand, 20lb. LS, 150+ LR that was supposedly not completely cured, and I test usually about every 3 days.
 

joyful23

Member
How much longer do you think I should wait? I'm going on vacation anyway on the 19th of April, so I wasn't planning on adding anything until we get back. But...the whole not spiking thing is driving me crazy. Guess I just think I should be seeing "something".
 

quis

Member
I think your cycle is over. I would wait until you are back from your vacation before you add any fish, unless you have someone to look after them while you're gone.
 

birdy

Active Member
I think you could put a couple of fish in, it is actually better for the biological filtration of the tank to sustain at least a couple of fish.
You would probably need someone to come by and check the tank while you are on vacation though.
 

joyful23

Member
I just ordered my lighting yesterday and it will be here in a week. Should I add a clean up crew first? And if I do, will I need someone to watch over them while on vacation?
 

birdy

Active Member
How long is your vacation?
Biggest concern would be evaporation which causes the salinity to rise in the tank, if it gets to high it can kill inverts and fish.
I would leave the lights off while you are gone that would help with the evaporation part.
If you don't have someone to look in on the tank and fill it back up I would hold off on fish and inverts.
 

joyful23

Member
We will be gone for a week. I have someone that I can have come in every couple of days to top off the tank. Inverts don't need to be fed do they? I know...stupid question, but I'm a newbie and still a lot of questions. LOL.
 

murph

Active Member
Snails and hermits should be fine dinning on the diatom algae that is beginning to form in the tank and the diatom is another good indicator that your tank is cycled.
If you have someone to stop in and top off the tank I would add these before you go on vacation. You will likely return to see they have cleaned up all your algae and it will be time to add some fish. Make sure they check to make sure the temp of the tank is staying fairly stable also and put your lights on a timer so there is a 12 hour dark period just like on the real reef.
Good luck; it sounds like your off to a good start
 

joyful23

Member
Wow! I just can't believe that it's cycled! I was figuring a good 6-8 weeks for sure. Anyway glad to hear it and I guess I will order me a clean up crew. Thanks for all your help! This site has been GREAT!!!
 

murph

Active Member
If I where in your situation I would probably add five or six turbos and a half dozen scarlet hermits until getting home from vacation. If they are all alive and well when you return you can go from there.
Every tank is different so the size of the cleanup crew is going to be different also. IMO the suggestion on clean up crew size from sites that sell livestock are usually on the large size.
I would research a list of fish intended for the tank. The week you get back add the least aggressive of these fish, the following week fill out your cleanup crew a bit more, the next week your next fish etc ending with the more aggressive of your intended fish species. After that you will have a better idea on what size clean up crew the tanks going to take and fill it out from there.
Be sure to drip acclimate your hermits and snails just as you would a fish and check your SG. These inverts are going to want an SG in the 1.025 neighborhood. If you intended to add corals in the future your going to need this SG anyway. Most salt mix instructions will leave you with an SG around 1.022 so now is the time to adjust that in your tank before adding your clean up crew if this is the case.
If useing a hydrometer to check your SG double check it with another or better yet double check it with a refractometer. A good LFS shoud have one. Hydrometers are usually inacurate but consistently inacurate so if you can find someone with a refractometer you can "recalibrate" your hydrometer for a definate SG reading or just purchase your own refractometer.
Since you have quite a bit of LR in the tank and most likely quite a bit of live stuff already, even if you cant see it, if an SG adjustment is necessary raise it slowly over the course of days. You can do this with some small water changes with new water with higher SG than your tank. A rise of .001 per day should be fine. These small water changes will also serve to bring down your nitrate reading. A reading of ten is fine but with nitrates less is always better.
 
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