Will my tank eventually cycle ?

If you bought FULLY CURED LR locally and immediately transferred it into your tank, then you might not see a cycle at all as the bacteria is fully established on/in the rock. If this is the case, add your clean up crew and then one small fish.

Alternatively, if you put sterile sand and sterile base rock into a tank there is nothing to rot and cause Ammonia so you'll never see a cycle. That might be why your fish store had you put fish food in. You are going to need to put a substantial amount of food in to create the Ammonia you need if you don't want to use a shrimp.

 

I do not have a skimmer and do not plan to use one yet due to budget
I haven't seen a spike in ammonia, nitrite or nitrate yet or maybe I might have missed it during my tests. I have 30lb of LR. I have not done changes in water during the cycle. I meant power head instead of pump, kinda new to this stuff ... hard to keep up with the terminology. I have 40Lb of live sand in there. Someone in the forum recommended to put fish flakes in the tank to cycle the tank.

Thanks for your replies

 

I think that's what is happening Inwall75, I bought base rock with very small amount of coraline on it but mostly it looks like base rock to me. The sand I got was in wet commercial bags, forgot the brand. I think I'll add a small shrimp cleaner and a clown fish to start with just to be safe.

 

I'd hold off on shrimp, personally, but that's a personal thing. They're expensive and VERY sensitive. I'd say start with a few small fish and maybe your cleaning crew (Snails and CHEAP shrimp, like Peppermints, hermit crabs if you really want... etc)

 

I think we might have a misunderstanding. I thought you didn't want to use a raw shrimp so you were instead using fish food because nothing was creating Ammonia so the cycle wasn't starting. If you used fully cured LR, I'm fine with you adding a cleanup crew. However, if you have base rock, I'm not.

There will be bacteria in that and if one is only adding a little bit of fish food, they will process the small amount of Ammonia that is generated. Adding a LIVE shrimp at this point would not be a good idea as SinCityReef indicated....they are sensitive and will surely die.

I agree. Don't follow the CUC recommendations on the net. It doesn't sound like there's much food for them. Add a little at a time.

 

I don't understand this statement, I can think of many reasons to use "this Stuff" as you call it. Purigen is a good very good product, good for helping control ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, removes impurities and helps keep the water crystal clear.

I use in in tandem with Carbon all the time in my Reef, its also really good for Ponds and Fresh Water Aquariums.


A clean up crew will not generate as much waste as a fish or two but I agree, thats what I would put in first, then make sure you feed them every couple of days using crap pellets or something because since your not feeding fish they will go hungry.

I agree on the using of that already cured live rock kept you form having a major league cycle. I have done this several times and not had any kind of spike at all. My 75 gallon reef was sweet up using rock from my 3 nanos and rock and sand that had been sitting in a 75 gallon rubber-maid tub with pumps circulating the water for several months.

After putting the sand in I and letting the water clear I added all the that and the rock I had which had corals already attached to them, the fish and all the CUC's from all 3 Nanos.

I monitored the tank closely for at least 3 or 4 weeks and never really saw any real spikes in anything. the ammonia went from 0 to about 10ppm but I really don't consider that a spike because it will jump like that now depending on how much food I dump in the tank.

While I really don't recommend doing it that way it can be done, I actually had no choice. The only time that I have ever had a Real Cycle with big spike in everything is when I set up my seahorse tank, because most of that rock was shipped dry.

As far as not having a skimmer you really shouldn't have any problems not having one. Just make sure that you keep up with maintenance, water changes especially. My 56 gallon seahorse tank has never had a skimmer on it. It has seahorses, a Mandarin, scooter Blinny, Yellow clown goby, yellow watchman goby, 1 cardinal, 2 rock urchins and tons of coral in it. I just make sure to do water changes every 2 weeks and have never had a problem.

 

what is CUC ? when I said putting shrimp .. i meant a cleaning crew shrimp. maybe I should wait a few more weeks ?

 

CUC=Clean Up Crew. This is mainly inverts that will help with your tank maintenance. All have diffrent strenghts or areas they are good in. Hermit, crabs, Snails, Shrimp etc.



Also cleaner shrimp actually are members of a CUC. However, Cleaner shrimp are up towards the $20 mark and essentially the advice being given here is you dont want to add one yet. add you a fish first.
I don't think you need a peppermint shrimp unless you have aiptasia in your tank but if you wanted to have a shrimp they are less expensive than cleaner shrimp.


You added cured live rock and also from your statment you added "wet sand" so you have Live Sand as well.
You do not have to wait a few weeks!! I believe you are safe to add inexpensive hermit crabs, or some snails. Also One fish to start. A clown is a good choice to start or maybe a less expensive Damsel for sure.

 

wow... is about all i have to say to that one liner....thats going to be of no help in this persons situation, and its surely not going to educate them further on what is going on in their tank.

edit: purigen is a decent product if maintained properly, but IMO its often time mistakenly used for clearing up a high nitrate issue.

 

It's certainly not providing very much information, but you know what, it's simple recommendations like this that opens up the door to realizing that different options exist. People who didn't know that it existed can research it and decide for themselves and be a little creative. I've read so many repetitive rule of thumbs that people set out, that "you must allow at least 2 weeks to a month for the nitrogen cycle to take effect.... so forth and so on" and that's the way it should be. Well you know what, I defied that that rule. I don't need to wait that long for a nitrogen cycle to take place, I am now able to start a tank in one day with live fish and coral knowing they are safe without worrying about nitrogen spikes just because someone hinted to me that a product like this existed. By the way, I'm not endorsing this product in anyway, just that it worked for me.

So yea, I wasn't trying to educate them with the same information that they could find littered all over the web, I was only trying to open doors.