Did the Tank Cycle 8 Days????????Help

I did not test the water on Friday or Saturday....Tonight i checked the water and found the following....Again i have a 55 gallon Bow Front which has been running for 8 days....It has 21 lbs of live rock and 20 lbs of reef rock.....I started with 40 lbs of Live Sand Carbi Sea....


Ammonia Has been Running 0.25 Now it is 0 Zero


Nitrite Has been running 1 Now it is 0 Zero



Nitrate is now jumped way up....
Was 20 a few days and then 40 Now it is 80



What is the next steps...Should i do a water change to get the nitrate down...???? I expected to see the ammonia get way high but maybe it did when i was not watching....


Also it looks but i am not sure like i am getting some green on the rocks.??

 

What do you have in the tank for the cycle to start?
Your tank has not cycled in 8 days. It will take at least 7-8 weeks.

 

Could be, but I'd test Nitrite again to make sure. What did you use to start the cycle for the initial bioload, dead shrimp, damsel?
If you didn't add anything to start the cycle, it could just be a small cycle from the liverock die-off. You need a bioload to produce ammonia to start the cycle.

 

One thing to keep in mind,
anything over 10 gallons - will take more than 4 weeks to cycle. Under 10gallons, your not really going to run into a cycle because the demand for water changes pretty much knocks that out.

With your 55gallon, I would say your looking at about 8 weeks - and from what I have learned, even that can be early.

GL!

 

Only used deli shrimp...

 

DO NOT DO A WATER CHANGE!!!!! as previously stated on this site before, it will increase your cycle, which is not good, let your tank go for a few weeks and see what the results are.

 

What type of water did you use to start the tank. I used Tap water once for my first tank and it took me months of water changes to get the levels to stablize.

 

Ya know, I don't think so. You're numbers may look in line here early but I don't think you have near enough bacteria to support any sort of bioload above and beyond a damsel (yellow-tail is good to get). Let it ride for awhile. I would get the deli-shrimp out of there and put in a yellow-tail. It'll do the same thing and it's more interesting to look at.