So Confused

Hey all, I promised to be a pest and post a million questions when I put up my introduction yesterday so here we go! I'm confused we were told that when we started up our new tank we would see an ammonia spike and green/brown stuff well...on 5-3 we put 70lbs of live rock and 40lbs of live sand in our 55gallon tank, tossed in a frozen shrimp and walked away. Now we've tested and tested and tested and had others test and we are seeing nothing....except starfish that came from rock or sand and the shrimp has disappeared BUT no spike. So my question is as such, the rock that we put in this tank was inside a saltwater tank that had been up and running for years the rock was taken from the tank put in a plastic tub for 10 mins then placed into our tank will this make the cycle take longer to occur?? Do we just need to keep waiting and testing and see what happens, I mean don't get me wrong I WILL NOT put a fish in this tank for weeks to come as I have no desire to kill one but is it time to add the clean up crew and move to the next step or do we just need to keep watching and wait for something to happen?? Thanks for the help guys

 

The rock you put in your tank is going to shorten the cycle. Big time. However, you will not want to populate quite yet. I would wait a full two months before starting to introduce corals. How are your nitrites and nitrates doing? If the LR came from an established SW tank, then you have a lot of the bacteria population taken care of.

I would consider getting a yellow-tail damsel. Three reasons I like the yellow tail damsel. It is purrrrrdy, it is tough and it consumes bristle worms. Fish that can perform extra credit are good to have around. So that little bugger will roam around pooping and helping things along. The feeding will help as well, as excess food (not too much hopefully!!!) will deposit in the tank and rot. You will want to feed no more than two or three times per week (by the book). More if your nitrifying bacteria can keep up.....

 

I should have mentioned (sorry I forget) at this point this tank is going to be a FOWLR tank...I'm a coward and corals scare me, so till I get some beefed up lighting and a well established (8-10 months) tank I'm just after fish. So even though the tank isn't very old you think we should use a fish to kick start the cycle?? With said fish should I get a cleaner??

Also my lFS advised against damsels because he said they get mean and take a stick of dynamite to get out of your tank is the yellow tail not this way?

 

yep patience is a virtue. ( not one that i am claiming to have)

 

Me either ;D And I don't mind to be patient and wait it out I just don't know if I need to be waiting with just water still or if the live rock kick started my cycle so much that I need to move onto my "test" fish of sorts.

 

Nahhh. Yellow tails can be aggressive. But not nearly as bad as the yellow, humbug and domino damsels. Of all the damsels I have owned, it is the most mellow.

 

dont get the fancy yellow tails as there pretty aggressive, called orange tails by most.

ive had alot of different damsel over the years, there all pretty peaceful if you put other extremely agressive fish with them that bite back. but in a general community tank get very small yellow tails.

 

Thought I'd give an update. We bought our little blue yellow tail on the 15th and acclimated him into the tank along with some snail buddies to keep him company and clean up after him. Since then we are still testing at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites salinity is at 1.025 and PH at 8.3 but a slight spike in nitrates (It's hard to judge what to feed one fish!) Little blue is doing great though, never showed any signs of stress, went right for his food the next day when we fed him and he'll eat about anything we offer which so far has been mysis shrimp, flake and pellet with garlic added. So looks like all is still going well thank goodness but we're not looking to add anything else quite yet just wanted to give an update and thank you guys again for your help Oh and doing a 10% water change today to hopefully get rid of those nitrates though they don't seem to be affecting the fish or the snails.