Still No Cycling

Hi All,

Hope everyone is doing well. SO.... My tank has been up and running for about 2 weeks now and my numbers are still rock solid. (IE numbers we would like to see in our tanks all the time.) What is going on? I'm starting to think that this tank is never going to kick in to a cycle?

Now I know you have to take it slow. I've been there and done that with my Red Sea Max. So I am prepared and waiting for that process. The difference is that my other tank began to cycle days after I set it up and completed about 4-5 weeks later.

This one has been up for two weeks and nothing has moved.

Nitrite - 0
Nitrates - 0
Calcuim - 480
Ammonia - 0
Salinity 1.023

Here is some info.

- 120 Gallon tank set up with 100lbs of cured rock and 80lbs of sand.

- A week later added two small blue/green chromis to help kick off the cycle. (I know I hate to add fish but the tank was not cycling on it's own. If the tank parameters got bad I would pull them out and put them in my Red Sea to keep them safe.)

- 2 weeks later testing every other day and still no Parameter movement.

Is my tank at least building up good bacteria? I'm feeling confused as the guys at my LFS are saying that's right where I want to be? I'm just not feeling the same. Where I would like to be is in the middle of my cycle.

What should I do??? Anything, beside wait some more?? :-/ I know, haste makes waste!

 

I'd put a big peice of shrimp in, sometimes you just need to feed the bacteria to get it going, as far as the chromis, I've almost always used 2-3 chromis to cycle my tanks, never lost one yet their tough little buggers

 

You are cycled.

The bacteria in that volume of water with two small fish and whatever dieoff you had from your live rock are in equilibrium with the ammonia produced.

 

the quickest a tank will cycle still takes from 4 to 5 weeks

 

Mine cycled in 3 weeks from dry rock. Not saying yours is cycled, but sounds strange... it is possible your bacteria is established since you had live live rock from the beginning.

 

Could it just be taking longer because of the water volume? I'm thinking my other tank cycled right away because there was still some die off on the rock. With this tank I'm thinking I just got some really clean rock that did not cause the Amonia spike right away.

So is my tank at least building good bacteria now.. I did put in the filter element from my established Red Sea two days ago.. forgot to mention that.

 

I guess my concern is how will I know.. Normally you know when your levels are zero's for Nitrate, Nitrates and Ammonia.. Since mine are already there I'm just not sure how I will know when it's ok to add more fish.

 

Your having the same exact issue as me. Except my tank is 100 gallons smaller. My 20gal hasnt shown one bit of cycling. My number are almost exact to yours.
The only thing i ever saw was a little bit of brown algae buildup on my live rock, but a turbo snail got rid of it within an hour or two....

I just take it slow just in case.

 

Is that true?
If so, it would explain why the two tanks ive had cycled almost immediately from having live rock in the tank from the start...

 

I don't know... I would be careful adding anything if your not sure..
I've never done a cycle with established bacteria on the rocks.

I like Irafs idea.. Throw a dead shrimp in there even though your chromis are producing ammonia.. wait several day to see if the ammonia rises. If it doesn't then I think that would confirm that is already cycled.