Ready for fish... or at least cuc?

Okay my 75 gal has ben up and running for 3-4 weeks. We added 30 lbs live rock around the second week. For sand we used live sand from the guy I bought it from's old tank. Around the 3 week we got 2 turbo snails, 2 astreas, and 2 scarlet reef hermits after a huge algae bloom a couple days before that. We also got a sum/refugium from the dude with chaeto. But we forgot to be doing water changes and adding trace elements! We did all that today, then did a nitrate and ammonia test. They both seemed to be around 0. When can I add fish (slowly I know) or at least my full cuc? Thanks

 

stop dosing trace elements. if you are doing water changes it is completely unnecessary and slightly dangerous.

you will get different trains of thought on this, but IMO, water changes during the cycle are counterproductive. You want the ammonia and nitrites there so your bacteria has enough fuel to get to its proper equilibrium to your tank.

"around 0" does not cut it. are you using test strips? (they are trash if you are). You need ammonia and nitrite to be absolutely 0 and holding for at least a week IMO before adding your CuC.

once you get to that point, after the CuC are established (another week or two?) you can start adding your fish (slowly, you know)

 

Okay I am doing those things where you put the drops in and it turns the water a certain color, and they come out the same as the 0 color. How often should I test

Stupid lfs dude.... tellin me to do counterproductive stuff.....

 

Test once a week. I agree the water changes were counter productive and may have thrown your cycle off some. I would test once a week and wait two weeks to be sure the tank isn't going to jump into another cycle.

 

I agree. I tested once a week for the first 8-10 months actually. Nowadays I test more like once every 4-6 weeks, but I have been stable for months and months and months