Help with a Reef Tank.

I know this is the question that probably gets asked the most of any other, the cycling question. I have 55 gallon that i recently upgraded to from a 12 gallon nano. I bought the tank empty with 15 gallon sump and lights. I put R/o eith reef crystals in there and 85 pounds of LR that came from a LFS that had been in there tanks for months. The rock was out of the water for about 2 hours on the ride home from the not so LFS. I also used 40 pounds of argonite for sand base.

I have been running the tank for 2 weeks and my levels have read zero the entire time.( started testing about 3 days in)

Added a few damsels that will come out when cycling is done.

This week I got a pretty good diatom growth on the rocks and sand so a added a small cuc.( levels still 0)

Ordered some more of my CUC that will come next Friday.

equipment:
15 gallon sump
cheato and miracle mud in sump section
heater
2 koralia ph
octopus 110 skimmer
lighting
2 150w mh
2 54 watt actinics T5

My question is why do my levels still read at zero? Is it possible that my tank has already gone through a small cycle and is done seeing that i used cured LR? Do I still have a bad cycle to come? I have some acros in my nano tank that i am itching to move over but i dont want them to dye. But i have a bad HA outbreak in my nano and need to move them over.

When do you think it woulb be safe to move them over?

Any help would be appreiciated.

 

Just for clarity's sake, exactly which levels are you measuring? If you have been measuring Ammonia at 0 and Nitrite at 0 and low Nitrates you should be good to go. It seems a bit unlikely to me that your Nitrates would be zero, though.

 

not much die off in two hours. i know people that get live rock from the store, go home, and stick it straight in the tank all the time. this is the quickest way i know of to get started since the tank is basically precycled.

 

It is also a possibility that your chaeto is counteracting the levels. They may be there, and you just don't see them.

 

I take that back I had a little ammonia right after I filled the tank up. Ever since then I have been measuring Nitrates, Ammonia, and Nitrite and they have all been zero. I waited about 3 days after my fill up test. and then have been testing every other day.

I really don't have that much in there. About a fist sized clump i put in there Thursday.


I have carbon and purigen and phosban bags made up and ready to put in there. But I didnt want those to counteract the cycling process.

 

Bump.

Had to go on call this weekend. When I got back to it this morning I had a damsel dead( one was getting beat up pretty bad by the others and didn't make it, poor little feller) so I got him out and checked the levels again still 0 on the three tests.

 

Sounds like it's cycled to me. Just take it slow for adding fish.
I had 0 nitrates for the first 6-7 months...Took me a while to get them back down to 0 again.. So I don't think it's that unusual.