Tank cycling

ok well let me give you all the info to start

i have a 55 gallon tank, 60lbs of live sand and 20lbs of live rock. i started the tank cycling 3 weeks ago with uncooked shrimp. about a week ago i added 5 blue green chromis to the tank. i left the shrimp in the tank to. i feed them every other day. i also am using a marineland emperor 400 series filter. my friend had given me a bio wheel from his filter that has been running in his tank for 3 years(hoping the bacteria off of that bio wheel would help the cycling process) well today i did my first tests. i am using the test strips from the company name JUNGLE.

heres what i got as of today (remember this setup has been going for 3 weeks)

ammonia- 3.0ppm
nitrite- 5.0ppm
nitrate-20.0ppm

what do you guys think? any tips? should i leave the shrimp in the tank with the fish? should i do a water change? or just leave things how they are and just give it time? any info or tricks would be greatly appreicated.

thanks, paul

 

You are still in the middle of your cycle,i would go ahead and remove the shrimp since you have a source for ammonia(your fish),the shrimp would have cycled the tank without the chomis,alot of people dissagree with adding fish during the cycle,but since there allready in there,leave them,remove the shrimp,you should wait for ammonia and nitrites to zero out and nitrates to fall below 10ppm(preferably)before adding any other livestock.It can take several more weeks to build enough benificial bacteria to promote denitrafication.And welcome to 3reef BTW!

Edit-the test strips you are using are not very accurate,best to get a liquid test kit,like an API,much more accurate.

 

I agree with Grinder! And welcome to 3reef PB&J.

 

welcome aboard,

as mentioned earlier, your still in the cycle, most likely halfway. I would put your blue chromis in your friends tank until your tank is cycled. There's no guarantee that your fish will survive the cycle. Based off your results, it doesn't even look like you have enough nitrosomonas to bring down NH3 yet. The nitrite phase takes a long time as well.


Keep the biowheel in your tank, put the fish in your friends tank for now. Get a drip test kit and remeasure or you can compare results at your lfs, but their kits are no better