No Ammonia ever detected

I have just started a 50gal SW tank. It has been cycling for 1 week now. It contains 50lbs of live rock with sand substrate. There are small critters running around on my live rock and also a brown button polyp that has just appeared. A dusting of brown algae is apparent today. My ammonia levels never spiked and my nitrites are reading 1ppm and nitrates are at 10ppm. I never tested the water for the first couple of days. Did I miss the spike?

 

It will come but really depends on how much die off you have from the live rock.

 

Funny thing cycling

as Reef Sparky puts it "your mileage may vary"

examples = not suggestions on 1st fish - although I have my 2 year old YTBs still in my 70
if you had a 30 gallon tank and cycled with a Damsel - you could expect to see a very high ammonia reading at the spike - as wastes would be produced at a fast rate. faster than bacteria develops to deal with it

if you had a 200 gallon tank and cycled with base rock and a small amount of live rock , live sand - your ammonia peak/ spike would be lower ?(but it would still occur) and bacteria would develop at a rate fast enough to deal with the build up of nutrients

there are no set figures - a peak is a peak , be it 1ppm or 5ppm and once it reaches that and goes down it means bacteria has been established to deal with current levels of waste production and those bacteria will multiply as each subsequent addition is made

Steve

 

I would have to say no-probably a little early--That is why we cure live rock for up to a month. You will learn about that later. I would add a Damsel or a frozen shrimp to give it a kick!!!!

 

I wouldn't add a damsel.. New hobbyists are always eager to get their first fish, and it's usually a damsel. Some where down the road- every hobbyist that gets a damsel WILL regret it.

I would either monitor for another few days, or add a frozen shrimp.

 

Was the rock really well cured from a local fish store? Mine was, and I never saw any ammonia spike when I started mine either. The rock had a ton of coraline all over it. Waited a few days and added a couple of oscellaris clowns. Never saw any ammonia. Doesn't mean this will happen for everyone.

Cycle with green chromis or oscellaris. I don't recommend damsels. They're mean and you'll want to pull them out at some point. In order to gt them out you'll have to pull the live rock out of the tank because they're too fast to catch.

 

i added about 8 cubes of fish food. to my 150 gallon.... ive only seen .25 ammonia though.. this is the 2 week.( going to the third)

 

yeah you might have gotten really well cured live rock and had little die off...i had a similar experience, couldn't figure out why i hadn't seen a spike. i think thats why

 

Thanks for the info. I'm thinking that maybe the live rock was cured already despite what the fish store said, but I'll continue to test and see what happens.

 

i had the same expirience waited 4 weeks testing every couple of days with no spike eventualy started to doubt my test kit maybe i just had fully cured rock. i put in a damsel that was verry teritorial when the next fish went in and really did take some catching to remove in only 12 gal so i really wouldnt put 1 in a 50