Cycle questions (help)

[Skrimpwhisperer]

So with the new 72 bow up and running and currently cycling, I have some questions.

I am dosing with micro bactern to help speed up the process but it's been three days and my ammonia level and nitrite levels are all the same, Sticking at zero. Is this normal? I was prepared for an ammonia spike and I haven't seen it climbing at all.

I also took some of my old live rock from my old tank and added it to the new tank with the dead rock, hoping it would speed up the cycle. With those rocks came a Few hitchhikers (hermits) that I didn't shake off completely. They are doing very well in the new environment and because of this I was thinking the tank might not really cycle.

Any answers?
Thanks!

[Skrimpwhisperer]

Bump? Anybody home?

[scott3569]

Well bud I am new also, but from what I have been reading and understanding, if it has only been 3 days, give it some more time..I can only imagine how your feeling right now, and I am sure I will be feeling the same way here shortly but, this process you got to let it take it's course..

[Skrimpwhisperer]

Well bud I am new also, but from what I have been reading and understanding, if it has only been 3 days, give it some more time..I can only imagine how your feeling right now, and I am sure I will be feeling the same way here shortly but, this process you got to let it take it's course..

Right, I was just wondering if it would even cycle though because there has been no ammonia or nitrite detected in the tank so far, especially with the living critters in it. I don't want to start moving stuff over and have a spike and kill everything off down the road.

[bif24701]

How much LR did you transfer from old tank? Was this in an active maintained environment where the LR would still be LIVE? Three days is not enough time. You should be adding and ammonia source to jump start the cycle. Buy some simple pure ammonia (check by shaking it, no foam should form to verify is pure ammonia). Dose until ammonia is at 5-10 ppm for two weeks, after two weeks maintain dose and verify several hours that test reads zero. This will verify that nitrifying bacteria are active and processing ammonia in sufficient time.

Adding LR from an active system will help significantly. There are several factors to consider, if you are curing LR in the system then cycling could take a lot longer, if it's just dry rock may not take as long.

Update with more info.

[GTboosted]

What bif said, you need to add a source of ammonia to get it to cycle. Adding more bacteria manually wont help since there is no source of ammonia.

Easiest way for me was to toss in a raw grocery store shrimp and leaving it to decay.

[Skrimpwhisperer]

Ok so I added maybe 7-10 pounds of live rock from an established tank. I have not obtained any pure ammonia so I will source that as quick as possible.

[scott3569]

Sorry man, I didn't read that you had already had a tank...Leave it to a newbie!! :)

[Skrimpwhisperer]

It's all good :beer:

[Skrimpwhisperer]

How much LR did you transfer from old tank? Was this in an active maintained environment where the LR would still be LIVE? Three days is not enough time. You should be adding and ammonia source to jump start the cycle. Buy some simple pure ammonia (check by shaking it, no foam should form to verify is pure ammonia). Dose until ammonia is at 5-10 ppm for two weeks, after two weeks maintain dose and verify several hours that test reads zero. This will verify that nitrifying bacteria are active and processing ammonia in sufficient time.

Adding LR from an active system will help significantly. There are several factors to consider, if you are curing LR in the system then cycling could take a lot longer, if it's just dry rock may not take as long.

Update with more info.

Bif, also meant to ask, on the dosing of ammonia. So I keep dosing on a regular schedule after the first two weeks and then test after dosing to make sure the bacteria is eliminating the ammonia and nitrite before it can harm the tank?

I'm just making sure I'm clear on this, also I did 7-10 pounds of rock from an established tank

[bif24701]

After you dose the ammonia check the ammonia levels make sure is zero after several hours, I wouldn't worry about nitrite.