Tank Cycling?

[smpross]

Hi All,
I have a question about tank cycling. I have a 90 gallon tank with 20 pounds of live rock, 4 clown fish and 2 damsels. The tank has had the fish in it for about 12 days. My question is... My ammonia level really has not gone up. It is at .25. I also have noticed that my Nitrites are still at 0. I am feeding the fish regularly, and have not done any water changes ( I know not to do them until the tank finishes cycling.) So my question is... Is this normal? How High should I expect the amonia to spike? and when? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Scott

 

[lm]

You should use raw shrimp to cycle the tank not the fish. Chances are you will loose the fish during the cycling process.

 

[leopard_babe]

i cycled my tank with 2 damsels in it. they lived for a long time. however my ammonia never "spiked". I waited 2 months and no spike. So I added a large tomatoe clown. Still no spike. Then I slowly started adding fish. So my tank never spiked, but all of my levels went up a little and came back down.
HTH
Leopard

 

[smpross]

My LFS to me to cycle using live rock and fish. I have not lost any fish in 12 days. But I must admit that I am concerned about the low ammonia levels. I am hoping to see some type of spiking.

 

[flydan]

Hey,
I hope you plan on leaving those damsels in your tank once everything is up and running because it's a real @#$%^ trying to catch them. At least you only have 20lbs of lr and that can be taken out. I must have seen 50 posts over the years of people setting up their tanks with 100's of lbs of lr and then trying to net out their damsels. It's pretty funny after a while, but not to the poor folks ripping their hair out in frustration. Just my .02
Dan'l