possible to not even cycle?

[saltywhit67]

I have had my 75 up and running for 5 days now and i have still not had a spike. I added 3 damsels on day 4. i added a lot of fully cured lr and i am wandering when is this thing gonna take off? all of my perameters are in the "safe zone"
amm. .25
nitrate: 0
trite: 20
ph: 8.4

 

[cprdnick]

If at all possible remove the damsels and try the shrimp method, it produces more ammonia, 4 damsels isn't much for a tank that size. If you do not want to go through trying to catch them, then just feed them more food more often until you start getting a spike.
What do you have as far as LR and substrate?

 

[jlem]

Don't overfeed your fish or throw a bunch of shrimp into your tank. If you have cured live rock then you have the beneficial bacteria already in your tank and your tank will have a very brief and mild cycle. You are showing ammonia so your tank is doing what it is supposed to do. Your are off to a good start

 

[birdy]

I believe it is possible to start a tank with LS and fully cured LR without having a huge spike (you do have a small one with an ammonia reading, unless you have a bad test). I am assuming
you have your trates and trites mixed up and trites are 0 and trates are 20. The thing I would stress is to go slowly when adding fish, you bioload has not been pushed very far so when you add new fish you will probably have a very small spike as the bioload adjust.

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by saltywhit67
I have had my 75 up and running for 5 days now and i have still not had a spike. I added 3 damsels on day 4. i added a lot of fully cured lr and i am wandering when is this thing gonna take off? all of my perameters are in the "safe zone"
amm. .25
nitrate: 0
trite: 20
ph: 8.4
I disagree. you nitrIte is not in the safe zone and should be 0.0. As stated before the ammonia could be a false low reading but nitrItes should be 0.0 on any test kit. Don't feed your fish until nitrIte comes down to 0.0. Then you will start noticing a rise in nitrAtes unless there is sufficient plant life (even algae) to process the nitrAtes. The rise up in nitrItes is exactly what I have experienced a couple of days after adding the cycle fish. They fall down with no feeding at about the 4-5 days. With feeding, I have had nitrItes peg the test kit for 2-3 weeks.

 

[saltywhit67]

I think i had them mixed up, i couldnt remeber which was which. i will test the water again today and if it hasnt gone up much in the ammonia i will consider adding my 2 clowns. good idea? if not i will use shrimp

 

[birdy]

Do not put the shrimp in since you already have fish in your tank. It will cause a huge ammonia spike and kill what you already have. I would just leave the 4 damsels in that you have now, you are only 5days into your cycle, feed the fish (this will help establish your bioload) and let the tank cycle, you may not see much of a spike, if you have fully cured LR, I would let the tank go at least a couple more weeks (testing the water as you go) before you add fish.