Question about Tank Cycle

Hi,

First off thanks to everyone on 3reef for the great information. You've made getting back into the hobby after being out 20 years much easier.

My current set up includes:

- 75 gallon reef ready w/ 30 gallon sump
- 75 lbs of live rock; 25 lbs of dead rock
- Live Sand
- 48" Aquatic Life 6 bulb T5 HO Lights
- Reef Octopus 6" pinwheel skimmer (I am not using it yet as I've read not to during the cycle)

I'm doing a fishless cycle using the live rock and live sand along with Seachem's Stability. I set up the tank 7 days ago. I didn't start testing the water until Day 5 and had .25 ppm Amonia and somewhere between 0 and .25 ppm Nitrites. I did not test for Nitrates as it was so early in my cycle. Today I noticed a diatom bloom starting on the rocks and sand and retested finding the following:

Ammonia somewhere between 0 and .25 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 20 ppm

Is is possible that my tank cycled that quickly and I missed the initial Nitrite and Ammonia spikes? Also, what should I do next? I don't plan on adding any livestock for another 4 - 6 weeks as I am just getting my quarantine tank set up and need to let it cycle.

Thanks for your help.

 

Welcome to 3reef and congratulations on getting back into a fantastic hobby.

Since you started with 75 lbs of LR I would not expect to see a long cycle, as long as the LR was cured.

You will have to provide a source of ammonia/decay to sustain the biological filter, you can do this simply by ghost feeding.

If your biological filter has grown enough you should not see much of an ammonia spike, the nitrogen cycle should complete fairly quickly.

 

+1 on above

using live rock/ live sand in combination with a bacteria aid such as stability
you will find that typically ammonia and nitrites will quickly

I had similar experience with Live rock and an alternative bacteria supplement in my most recent set up

just wait until you are certain that both ammonia and nitrite are at zero and have remained so for a period of about 1 week
then it would be time for a clean up crew IME

Steve

 

Thanks everyone for the great responses.

I tested today and have 0 ammonia, 0 Nitrite, and 10 ppm of Nitrate.

I'm planning to wait at least another week and then based on parameters will look at adding the CUC.

Since I'm at least four to six weeks from putting any fish in the tank any suggestions on how much I should ghost feed? I've been putting a pinch of fish flakes in every other day (5-10 small vegetarian pellets - each one maybe the size of a large grain of sand).

Also, when do you recommend stocking the refugium? I'm planning to have only Chaeto and pods. I've read conflicting things regarding this. Some say to wait until the anaerobic bacteria have become established to avoid having your algae be the primary means of removing nitrates, but others say to get it going as soon as you start to see algae in the display tank to not let nuisance algae get a foothold. I'm interested to hear other's thoughts.

 

okst8fan

if it where me, I would only ghost feed, until the point of CUC introduction, thereafter the waste from the CUC alone will be enough to keep your bacteria levels ticking over

in fact it is probably self perpetuating to a degree, you have some bacteria, you do not feed, some bacteria dies, along with a myriad of other creatures that came on your live rock, most of which you have not seen as yet, creating food for the living bacteria, so even without any ghost feeding you would still maintain a quantity of bacteria

re - fuge
IMO , the debate between what life form processes nitrates is not important if the options are A bacteria , or B algae in a refugium - IMHO A or B are fine
the debate about which is better between A bacteria and B algae in the main tank
then for me A wins each and every time

setting up the fuge early and allowing the Chaeto to develop and utilise the nutrients of a maturing tank, combined with a CUC , should hopefully help to prevent algae becoming a nuisance in the main tank itself

Steve

 

I cycled my tank using live rock only. After two weeks I ghost fed the tank about 1/4 frozen cube every 2-3 days. After 4 weeks I added a CUC, chaeto & pods. By this time ammonia & nitrites were 0, and nitrates were around 5. 2 weeks later I added my first fish, a week or so after nitrates were 0. This method worked great for me so far, as ammonia, nitrites and nitrates have all been 0 for 3 months now.

You certainly don't need to wait until nitrates are 0 before adding a CUC. I would say get your macro algae growing now as well.

 

I recently setup a 110 gal using the dr. tims method. After about 4 days the tank was cycled and everything read 0. I used the fishless cycle by adding a few pieces of food. Currently my tank is really flourishing it has had no nasty spikes in anything and its only about 1mth old and i have a few hardy corals in it that are growing insanely fast. So as they mentioned you dont have to wait if everything is reading my CuC went in on day 5 and didn't lose anything.