The cycle begins

connor g

connor g

Member
So yesterday I got all of the stuff I needed to start up the aquarium, I picked up 26 pounds of beautiful deep purple colored live rock from an established aquarium, I also picked up a 20lb bag of live sand. I did my first water test this morning, I tested amonia, nitrate, nitrite, KH, and pH. Here are my results: pH- 7.5. Nitrite- 0.1mg/L. Amonia- between 0.1.2mg/L. Nitrate- below 5mg/L. KH- 4dH. I read the KH should be up towards 8-10 degrees dH so I added some buffer to slowly bring it up. My question is this, should I be seeing a huge spike in ammonia right away or will it stay low due to the cured live rock and live sand.
 
cubnb79

cubnb79

Member
did you also use old water from a tank or new water if so what type? how long has it been up and running...what type of filtration, what size tank, all that other good stuff....
 
connor g

connor g

Member
I used pre mixed salt water from the same store, they use RO/DI water for everything, it has been running since last night around 7:30. I have the water filtering through a protein skimmer and a biological and mechanical filter located at the back of the tank using a built in overflow. 24 gallon tank, and eventually I want to have a reef tank.
 
cubnb79

cubnb79

Member
if you want to speed up the cycle process get a small piece of raw shrimp and put it in there...then test for your spikes...imo you dont need to run the protein skimmer until you have a bio load...ill put money on it that you're going to upgrade to a bigger tank so make sure what you want to do before you dump a bunch of money on the tank you have now that way you dont have to re invest in bigger equipment later but that's my 2 cents b/c that's what happend to me...also imo you need more rock and more ls...but that's just me
 
keotykim

keotykim

New Member
Good work i like the experiment but do you test the fresh water or mud water i am sure you will got different results of both water ...
 
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