Week and a half and no ammonia = no cycle?

[Ratpack]

I have had my new tank set up and there is no ammonia at all, in fact everything is zero. Once the temp and salinity was stable I added some of the water from my current tank and some live rock from my current tank. The tank is 75g and I put about 15 pounds of live rock in and then added my ceramic rock so it would start to seed. Then I placed my mush which is shrimp, clams, brine shrimp and flake food into the sump to start the cycle. Well, I have no cycle, could the LR be keeping up, thus it will not cycle? I am well prepared to wait 6-8 weeks since I thought I would have to anyway, but I hate to wait with an empty tank for something that may not happen. I also should note that the skimmer is pulling stuff out pretty well and perhaps that is why things are not too much for the LR in there.

Thoughts?

[DaveG99]

15lbs of live rock is nothing for a 75 gallon!

I think your right. You may not have a cycle at all. I have transfered a couple tanks and I never had a cycle when setting up a new tank with good cured liverock.

[FranktheTankTx]

^^^ Agreed. Depending on the live rock you use - you may not always have a cycle.

[stanlalee]

If you put in cured liverock your not going to cycle and there really was no reason to put in a dead shrimp. having such a small amount of rock you should a) dont get crazy with stocking , you'll have to do the whole add a fish and wait several weeks before adding another where as if you started with 75lbs of cured rock you could be much less conservative. b) buy more rock so you can sustain the bioload a 75g should be able to handle properly. would even benefit from the surface area of base rock if not cured live rock.

[Ratpack]

There is a lot more rock in the tank, it is just not live yet. I have some more LR that I can harvest out of my other tank and place it in the sump, I don't want any more in the DT because I want the open look of the columns I have right now. I think I may go ahead and move a frag or two over and see what happens and continue to monitor each day. If it still doesn't go into a cycle after a couple more days, then I will move my fish over one at a time and give a few days in between.

[FranktheTankTx]

I might give more than a few days inbetween. Take it slow and monitor your levels.

[Ratpack]

Thanks for the advice. I moved a couple Kenya Tree frags that I caught floating around over there last night an will monitor them for a few days. I will continue to monitor the water parameters each day and after another day or two with no ammonia, nitrites or nitrates, I will probably move a fish over. Would Occ. clowns be good to go in the tank first? I have a pair of them that I think I could catch pretty easy.

[skimmer315]

why dont you transfer your old tank water into new it will jump start tank and no cyckle then add new water to old gave my neighbors first tank that way.she stocked it in a week

[Ratpack]

I did transfer some of my current tank water over when I was filling it and still no cycle. I added a raw shrimp that I had Sunday night and when I got home yesterday, the ammonia had arrived. I quickly moved the frags back over to the current tank and they seemed fine this morning. So now I wait it out. I actually feel better now, I was worried I would move my other tank and then it start a cycle.

[kylecanada]

I am in the exact same situation. It's good to hear that I am not crazy. I set my 240 up about 10 days ago. I had all new sand and bought 250 lbs of semi-cured rock. I have no ammonia and no nitrites. I did use the Bioptim stuff and it seemed to work. I already put a blue tang and blue throat trigger in and they seem to be doing great. I know it's early.