Odd cycle in my new tank.

[Solarfall]

I started my frag tank like less than three weeks ago and it's already cycled. I thought that was really strange. I definetly was testing at least twice weekly the whole time and it was like any cycle but in hyperspeed.
The weird part is.. It's left with VERY little nitrates. Somewhere between 5 and 10 ppm. When I tested a few days ago the ammonia was already gone, the nitrites were still pretty high and nitrates were like 60-80 ppm. I'm just really confused as to where all the trates went. I did get a decently serious algae bloom, but not that bad. I also have a fuge but havn't seen much growth in my macro. Is this normal? Should I just do a 5 or 10 gallon water change and plop a softy frag in there?

 

[Chris_150G]

Maybe it cycled really fast because of a really small bioload. Do you have fish in there? Did you just use some fish food?

 

[Solarfall]

I did throw a peice of krill in there but I think the rubble rock in my fuge provided most of the ammonia.

 

[daugherty]

gost feed it a couple times and see if the ammonia goes up if not than you should be good

 

[Ulta]

Chris is right, since your tank is not full of live-rock(I assume) and is generally pretty empty considering, then there was not much die-off/decay that will produce ammonia.

This is fine, but just keep in mind that your bacteria population is small and there is only enough to take care of the very little bio-load that you have. This makes you very susceptible to mini-cycles if you were to add things that would increase the bio-load. But since its a frag tank you should be just fine :)

But again just be very aware that you can easily create mini--cycles if your not careful!

 

[ggNoRe]

My tank which I used 35lbs base rock and just 2 small pieces of live rock with a raw shrimp in there for 5 days to jump start the cycle was also completely cycled in a little under 3 weeks with <5 Nitrates and no problems since. I think Ulta hit this one on the head.