Still No Cycling

Has your tank also been up for about 2 weeks? Slow was my thought as well. I thought I would wait another week and then added another fish and watch it.. I'm thinking eventually I'll see a parameter move.

 

Yes, but I kinda did several methods at once and I'm not sure which one helped the most.

I had a yellow damsel , which isn't much in a 180
250lbs dead dry rock
1 dead shrimp for about a week.
Used Stability for about a week... from what I understand with Stability ... there's no expiration date on the bottle and the longer it sits on the shelf the less effective it is. The bacteria dies in the bottle over time.

By the end of the third week I had gone through the ammonia spike and the nitrite spike .. both back to 0. My nitrate rise in the last week got as high as 20 and went back to 0 in less than a week.

Oh yeah,, the higher the temperature the faster the bacteria will grow.. Had mine 82-83 degrees.

 

Heres a problem with my situation tho, i have had a few chromies die already (attacked, not b/c of param) and there has definately been some bacteria offered to the tank, but nothing ever spiked....

 

Kinda sounds like it's cycled to me. I'd just keep a close eye on things.

 

Maybe I'll just feed the chromis a cube of Formula B. Perhaps the uneaten portion of that will kick something off. Here's to hopping!! HOORAY FOR THE PHILLIES!!!!

 

And if no one watched it, the spurs and suns had a good close game with over 23 turnovers.

 

The one thing that is consistant in this hobby is the lack of comparibility between cycling tanks. Some do the textbook cycle. Others show no ammonia, others no nitrites and yet others, like yours.....neither.

The thing that bothers me are your lack of nitrates. That tells me you have a wonderful balance in your system where bacteria responsible for breaking down nitrates are at such a number that you read zero. However, put enough stock in there, and the bacteria will not be able to keep up. Your bacteria were in the LR that you put in your tank BTW.

Mine showed real low ammonia levels, never any nitrites and rising nitrates, to give you an idea yet another system's evolution.

So throw in the shrimp and let it rot. You can take a chance on another fish, but I would rather increase the bacteria levels over a month or two and not stress a fishy out. Iraf has a good idea here.

That's my story and I am sticking to it. John.