curing live rock/6th day with high ammonia??

[acrouse]

I am curing 130lbs live rock and am in the 6th day. Just did a 25% water change (25 gallons) which i have been doing every 48hrs since getting the LR, and my ammonia is still high, almost off the chart. Should I do water changes more often or just let the tank cycle? The tank is 100gls and is being cycled with no lights.

parameters are

ph=8.2
salinity=1.023
ammonia=8or greater
nitrate=5-10
nitrite=0
temp=78

Thanks for any help or input in advance,
Jolene

[c_stowers]

With the ammonia that high, I would continue doing water changes until it is at least under control. Once its towards the bottom end of the chart I would let it cycle without water changes for a few weeks.

[reefwick]

It's gonna be awhile. Are you skimming? is there alot of flow so that the die-off can be filtered out? Wc's are good but I mean this isn't going to cycle in a week, have some patience, it'll be some time yet.

[acrouse]

Yes I'am skimming been dumping at least 2 qt a day

[acrouse]

I was told by the LFS that I should see a change in ammonia in 5 to 7 days. I have a Rio 1400 on one end and a Rio 600 on discharge side with a 600 gph return so flow is good.

[skeeter_ca]

No one can determine when a cycle will complete. Every tank is different. Keep doing water changes until ammonia is below 1.0. With it that low some of the organisms will survive.

[reefwick]

aquadw, very true but with ammonia that high it's gonna take some major WC's and time to come down. Not to mention you want to be down @ 0 for at least a week before adding livestock.

[bertoni]

Sounds like you hit the jackpot with live rock die-off. Sigh!

If the water changes are getting tedious, you could stop them. I suspect they might help save animals, but that live rock sounds pretty nasty.

There's no predicting how long live rock will take to clean up. One box might have 100 dead crabs, another maybe none, for example. You might also be seein a bit of a chain reaction, with perhaps a large, toxic sponge dying and killing other animals as it decays.

[acrouse]

I don't mind changing water at all. I asked the lfs if I should change every 24 hrs and they said to wait 48 hrs between wc. I did have a big sponge that was removed from the tank and had a few bivalves open up and die. The rock looks great lots of coralline and I am starting to see more feather dusters every day. There are two pieces that smell a little but the rest smell fine. I wonder if I need to do a 50% change insted of the 25%

[poppin_fresh]

I did 100% WCs for the first week. I dont think 25% provides enough dillution for the wastes.

[bertoni]

I would consider a 50% or larger water change with ammonia that high. Matching the SG very closely and the temperature pretty well would make that safer.

[skeeter_ca]

I agree with bertoni. You need to do some massive water changing to get ammonia down and keep anything else from dieing off.

[six.line]

Call me nuts, but I don't agree with water changes during cycling. If you have any critters in the tank, you might try moving them to a safe home inside a friend's tank until it's over.

Hopefully, though, you have no live stock. Just let it cycle, it'll be done when it's done. Water changes don't help when the source of the ammonia is decaying matter on/in the rocks.

Just my two cents.