Cycling Question

Hello All,

I have a 28g Nano Cube that was setup on Sep 28. It has been two days and the LFS that I bought it from told me that my water was fine to start adding fish.

Granted, the water, cured Fiji live rock, and live sand was bought from them and everything has been cured but is 2 days enough time, even with all cured material to begin adding fish, invertebrates, and corals. What do you think?

 

I would not add any fish or corals, until I had monitored the tank for a couple of weeks or so, to ensure there was not going to be an ammonia or Nitrite spike resulting from any die off caused by the transfer of rock from 1 place to the other


I would wait 2 weeks, monitoring your tank (ammonia, nitrite, and PH for now as PH tends to swing a bit with new set ups)
after 2 weeks, try 3 or 4 snails , and see how they go on

leave them a week, and provided test results are OK, a single fish of a non sensitive type would be ideal

or build up the corals over a period of weeks starting with something hardy, such as GSP

Steve

 

Honestly, probably not. You will likely experience a smaller cycle down the road, and probably a small die off period in which you will see the nitrogen cycle start again. The water houses little to no bacteria relevant to cycling. The sand, from companies like caribsea and what not often have no relevant bacteria that has survived the shelf period. So its really your rock that may be doing the de-nitrification, and you have no way of knowing how long it was truly cycled, and how much source nitrogen may have been present to sustain sufficient bacterial colonization.

So in short; you may be fine, but I would ride it out and not take the risk of ending some livestock's life by jumping the gun.

 

I would definitely wait. I don't think I put anything in my tank for 2-3 weeks after I set it up and it was even a tank that was previously setup for a year. Take it slow.

 

Thanks All,

I was surprised when they told me that. I was planning on waiting 3-4 weeks before adding anything. I was right. I don't want to kill a 30+ dollar fish from faulty info. Will wait a couple more weeks.

Thanks

 

hey when i started i this hobby i went with $5 fish just to see whaat happened. guess what thet are still alive. now corals was different cause i had the money and the place had corals on LR so i bought 1. everything is still living . but i wouldnt go spend $40 + dollars on a fish thta may die. i come from a freshwater tank so its totally different but there are times ill take a chanch.

 

How muchLive Rock did you add? And was it really Fully Cured? If it was, then after a week you will see your water parameters all set. You would be good to start adding fish after that.