Is my tank cycled or not started? NEED HELP!

Changing the water may slow the cycle down. Just take it slow, i would concentrate on your ph issue, as said before by brandon it should be around 8.1-8.3. you can try a ph buffer if it dosent come up. Also the r/o water helps alot, It gives you "clean water". good luck

 

That doesn't explain why he is reading 0 ammonia though. The bacteria has nothing to do with the ammonia boom. The bacteria is just to turn the ammonia into nitrites and then nitrites into nitrates.

Hope this doesn't offend you, but are you sure you are reading your test correctly?

 

What brand of tests are you using? Can you check your ph again please?

PH 7,2 is not normal...Your tap water might be the reason for it...I would do a water change with RO and maybe use a different brand of salt.

 

i know that i was doing mine wrong,i was not shaking my nitrate test bottle 2 at all keep reading zero. gave it a good shack and bam 40

 

Top-offs and water changes...

littlea8 -- Just to make sure you have an explanation to justify taking a course of action: Freshwater (but not unfiltered tap water) is used to top-off tanks rather than saltwater because when evaporation occurs in your tank you are losing a high percentage of freshwater and a very low percentage of salt. So if you were to top-off your tank with saltwater, you would add more salt even though most of the old salt was still in the tank, and would hence make your salinity go up each time you topped-off.

A water change differs from a top-off in that when you do a water change, you replace the saltwater that you removed with exactly the same amount of saltwater. So in the future, when your tank is ready for regular water changes, you'll be have a water change schedule and a top-off schedule -- according to your particular reef's demand.

 

oohhh okay thanx for the explanation...and i know for sure there's nitrates cause the test was defiantly orange...im using the api test kit...and when i added the shrimp the nitrites defiantly went up. The only thing I was unsure of is the ammonia. I know the colour has been the exact same everytime i tested it and im fairly confident it was 0.

 

Try taking a water sample to a local fish store. They will usually do a water test for free. See if their test matches yours.

 

okay so I testing everything once again because the shrimp is completely decayed. My results were as follows:

Ammonia still stayed at 0ppm
Nitrite decreased back to 0ppm from 0.25ppm
Nitrates stayed the same at 20ppm
PH stayed the same at 7.2

So the only change was the decrease in nitrites back to 0. I was gonna test sunday but the shrimp is totally rotten and i don't think can get worse. I would think it is cycled and time for a 50% water change but then again i am a beginner. Can the professionals please help me out? what should i do? lol

 

You still haven't fixed your pH?? Why not?

 

I'm just tellin you, you put a fish in there with pH that low and it will probably just sink to the bottom and die. I tried giving a clown a freshwater dip once a LONG time ago and I didn't buffer the water because I didn't know I had to. So the pH was at about 7.0 or so. That clown sank straight to the bottom of the bag and died within a few hours. I'm serious about your pH issue, buddy.