Lets Just Hope......

[minireefer]

no prob on the ? its good to help each we we can I learned by trial and error some myself.The cycle product is what I posted earlier.It will somewhat by adding bateria cultures to speed up the cycle time. Its cool that LFS is helping by storing your animals.

 

[grunt]

ok

ok so it's been 2 weeks since i moved all my stock out of my famous 55 gallon tank and today i just checked the ammonia and it's still reading 6.1 and the nitrate went from 5 to 50 with some brown algae around the tank also. now i'm wondering if the tank its just getting worse? or this means that the cycle is taking it's place with these readings mean time?

 

[squibley2]

Until your Ammo and Nitrite are at zero the cycle is not complete. If there is nothing in the tank I am just wondering where all of the Ammo and Nitrates are coming from? Where did you get your LR from? It is possible you have an enormous amount of small snails and other hitchhikers on your LR which is contributing to the bioload of the tank. Also make sure that nothing died in the 55 before you noticed. This would toss the tank into a tail spin as well.

 

[ReefWannabe]

From the sound of it, you may just want to start over. You could try a massive water change first to see if that helps. But something has to have died in there for it to still be climbing??

 

[grunt]

Aite Then

ok i dumped and cleaned all my stuff in my 55 gallon and the ammo is on 0.1 and nitrate on 0. now that all my live sand is all dead i got some crushed coral from an established tank in my lfs and i need to know if there is a special way to introduce this? i got about a full fish bag worth of this stuff with some water in it also. got the skimmer going, the filter, and the wet dry all running good :bounce:

 

[ReefWannabe]

I wouldnt add it, unless you like how it looks. I had it and didnt like it. It will sit on top regardless. Lets watch that cycle this time around!! Hope that talk last night helped lol.

 

[grunt]

hell yeah

well the reason i did it is because i need some type of bacteria in there unless i just want to sit there and expect the tank to cycle with everything steril and dead with no bacteria. i threw it in there and is cloudy now and i will wait for like 2 weeks before i test again. things are looking good for now and i'm boiling the hell out of my live rock right now lol i think that's what messed me up so i'm not taking any more chances. thanx alot wannabe u helped alot and now i finally feel comfortable with what i'm dealing with :Cheers:

 

[grunt]

well....

well i got rid of everything exept for 2 little hermits and they are in my 29 gallon which i decided to leave it how it is for now eaven the levels are hight but i took all the rock out! and now it's just them and sand with skimmer cpr back pak and filter. the 55 has nothing but sand and they are thinking about giving me like 50 dollars for the volitan and shark egg. i really want the shark and i saw it today and it's growing fast! well i have to call him tomorrow and set a deal with them so i'll let u know what's up. i'll be on the chat if u wana bs and not sleepy yet

 

[ReefWannabe]

You didnt have to boil your liverock. Also Like I had said, the shark will need alot more room than that 55 can give him. they grow super fast lol. Also they have to have soft substrate, or they can get infections from scratches on the rough crushed coral substrate. Your going to need to start small regardless, starting with big fish will likely only throw everything off balance again.

 

[grunt]

yeah

i got rid of everything exept for the 2 little hermits and i'm gona start small so i'm just gona chill and check the water quality every week

 

[grunt]

water

i just tested the water again for the 55 today and now i have 0 ammo and 50 on nitrate. what do i do now? leave it with no life in there in the cycle or should i ad some life for ammo production?

 

[ReefWannabe]

how did you go from .1 ammo yesterday to 0 today and 50 nitrate?? thats kinda odd. Have you added your rock yet? if not, go ahead and do that. If your still reading 0 in a few days, add a peice of raw shrimp to kickstart it.

Do you still have your chromis in there?

 

[grunt]

all i got

all i got is 2 little hermits but i don't think they will be enought ammo providers and the live rock has been brushed off today and still has some green algae on it cause it's hard to get out and i don't know if it's safe to introduce them like that since i'm scared from that ammo problem that i went through and i bet it was the live rock that caused it

 

[sabotaged]

seachem's "stability" works wonders...
just my :twocents:

 

[jhnrb]

Nitrates are 50????. stop there. get the nitrates under control before you add anything else to the system live or dead. at each step of adding to the system you need your water parameters to be good. once your water parameters are good add the rock and wait for 2 to 3 weeks to see how the system reacts and deal with or wait out any cycling that developes. water changes to lower the nitrates. are in order. if not for short term a nitrate sponge or filter pad.

 

[grunt]

oh danm

danm my bd i messed up on reading the chart ok on my nutrafin test kit the nitrates are a 10 which is the next one after 5 being good my bad

 

[grunt]

shrimp

ok i therw a shirmp in the now how long should i leave it there ?

 

[grunt]

aite then

ok so now i tested the ammo and got 0.50 ppm and nitrate is 5. took the shrimp out and put all the dead now freshly cleaned rock back in. now can i finally relax and forget about the danm tank for like 2 weeks and then do another test to se where i'm at?

 

[ReefWannabe]

I would test a bit more than that just to be sure everything is going as planned. Sounds good though, thats where my ammonia spiked at after I added my LR. It took about 1 1/2 months for my cycle to completely finish.. I added fish about a total of 2 months after I started. I wont be adding another fish for prolly 2 months. But I will be adding a shrimp or 2 and maybe some coral.

 

[grunt]

follow up

ok so last week the ammo was reading .50 and a nitrate of 5 and a week has past since the raw shrimp was taken out, the dead live rock was added and the ammo is at 1.0 and nitrate of 0. so what ya think?