Have i been ripped off live rock?

can ayone reccomened a good cycling thread, detailing the steps - not having much luck finding a detaoiled thread? - #The tank has had salt water in for around 5weeks or so(with lots of flow, i've had the skimer and filter going also - the rock is from an established tank apparently - (he drove it down for me today no bad smells or anything, i weighed it out and placed in tank, in trnsit for probably 2 hours)

 

Lol I gotta use the tech term for it ;D, i'll callit byprosis from now on , it's out anyway - was in for about 2 hours max

 

HAHAHA. Great way to put it! Reef Rules to live by: You don't want "Grassy stuff!" Excellent advice. K+ for providing a most eloquent reef commandment.

 

There's really not too much to it, my last tank cycled in 5 weeks. Just get a test kit that tests for 1. ammonia 2. nitrites 3. nitrates and make sure they are all at zero before you put anything in.

This is assuming that they did register at something along the way. You want to see ammonia at some point, then nitrites and then nitrates, if you never see any of them then the cycle didn't happen, this would happen if there was no die off.

I see you wrote the tank has had water in it for 5 weeks, did you test it all during that time? What kind of substrate did you use? Livesand or plain sand or crushed coral? What I'm wondering is if there was anything live in the substrate to kick start the cycle. You also wrote you got the rock today, if it hasn't been sitting in a tank for an extended period of time it probably does not have anything live in it therefore the cycle won't start.

If you did see ammonia, nitrates, nitrites in your water before you added the rock then then you did have a cycle, once you put this rock in if it is live, you will have another cycle (amount of cycle may be small or large).

If you didn't test for ammonia, etc before, or you didn't get any readings, then test the water for ammonia in a about 5 days, if you see some then the tank is starting to cycle. If you don't see and readings of ammonia by then, I would assume your live rock wasn't live and you should go with another source to produce waste, such as a damsel, or the raw shrimp process (which you can google for).

Once process starts its usually safe in 5-6 weeks but of course that can vary too, and so do peoples opinions.

 

We like grassy stuff in our tanks, actually my man calls the GSPs "grassy stuff" :

 

Hi - i've got llive sand from lfs (although i'm convincedit may be crushed coral) no tests before rock - although have just tested now and nitrrtes are very high (1.6 or 3.3 hard to tell with colour chart) as is amonia (looks about 0.3) i thought these were meant to spike at different times?.

many thanks

matt

 

Well I hate to say it but you should have put the rock in when you started the tank because you probably made another cycle. If the sand is small and sandy like sand it's probably, if it's bigger its probably crushed coral. Anyway the cycle goes like this Ammonia -> Nitrites -> Nitrates ... so your nitrates are high or nitrites? Regardless you need to let it sit and cycle for a while. I'd test it every few days or every week or something and see how the tests come out. Eventually you will get to very little or no ammonia, and some nitrites, then they will go away and it will be nitrates, then that will eventually go to zero. Also not sure if you run your lights or not but if so there is no need to do that, you will just cause lots of algae.

 

hi guys,better images as requested, links as they're big
http://www.mgsc.co.uk/images/CIMG3586.JPG
http://www.mgsc.co.uk/images/CIMG3587.JPG
http://www.mgsc.co.uk/images/CIMG3588.JPG

Many Thanks