My first Saltwater tank

It is always a good feeling when you can do something with your tank and be happy with the results lol. I myself am terrible at arranging my Live Rock lol. I can just seem very happy with it. Maybe I should have my wife do mine, then I could just blame her lol, joking of course.

 

LOL well that's what I did and then I rearranged it, I think I wanna get another 2 or 3 good sized rocks to build it up a little higher.

 

So I have been doing my testing and keeping daily record of it after about the 3rd day, but I didn't count the first 2 days because the tank was not stable at all meaning I didn't have all the water in it, and the salinity wasn't very stable. I dropped a piece of raw shrimp into the tank last Thursday and Friday, Saturday and Sunday I got an a reading of 1. Monday I got an ammonia reading of 2. Tonight I did my testing and the ammonia reading was a .5, which confused me. So I tested my NO2 and my NO3, the NO2 was .25 and the NO3 was 5.0. Shouldn't the Ammonia have spiked higher than that, or at least had a longer duration?

The only thing I can think of is I have some live rock in there and it already had the beneficial bacteria on it and it did a short/small cycle. I'll keep testing until my trites and trates drop off then I still wanna let it go for a few more days before adding anything to it.

So looking ahead a bit should a CUC be the first addition or some clowns to "dirty" the tank a bit for the CUC?

Thanks all!

 

Here is a quick Pic of the tank...

 

looks good! i like the scape

 

I don't think that your ammonia shouldn't have went higher then 2. It looks like your tank is cycling just fine, and IMHO, you would have been fine just adding one piece of shrimp. I wouldn't worry to much about it and just let nature finish what you started lol.

 

Oh, I meant I added one Shrimp on on Thursday. My ammonia reading Friday thru Sunday was 1ppm. Sorry.

 

I think you're fine too my ammonia never raised above 2ppm that I caught anyway.

 

Sounds like a short cycle to me...don't be confused, be happy! And also keep an eye on it like you have been doing.

 

So just a quick update...

The cycle should be coming to an end. My ammonia and nitrites, have spiked and dropped back to 0. My Nitrates also spiked and have dropped back to 5ppm as of last night. I am waiting for it to drop to 0 then I'm going to do a 10 - 20 gallon water change. I already have the CUC picked out but there isn't enough algae to support them at the moment. I ordered another in tank heater today, so I can start warming the water for future water changes. I have a skimmer picked out but not purchased yet. I'll probably order the skimmer this week, then I have a few other odds and ends I want to pick up. The tank still looks good, the "live rock" has some green algae growing on it, but the dry rock still doesn't have anything. Well at least from what I can see. I'm hoping to add the first fish sometime in the next 2 weeks.