New tank, could my cycle be over already?

Stealthprix

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Quick background: I'm new to the marine hobby and I'm setting up my 2nd tank. I set up an Aquatop BT21G in my office at work 8 days ago. I'm doing a fishless cycle with a piece of raw shrimp in a pantyhose. In the tank I have 20 pounds of Ocean Direct "live" sand and 22 pounds of cured live rock. My first salt water tank I set up had a very simple but long cycle. This tank is really confusing me. Here is my dilemma; with the shrimp in the tank, my ammonia has been rising little by little which is what I was looking for I suppose with a decaying shrimp in the tank, but I have been testing Nitrites the past 4 days and it is always 0 PPM according to my API test kit. I just tested Nitrates for the first time today and it is at 20 PPM. Yesterday, the tank also got dosed with ammonia, and was at 4 PPM and it is currently at .25 PPM. So basically yesterday I added more ammonia (raw shrimp+pure ammonia) than the tank is used to seeing on a daily basis (only raw shrimp).

So this is where I am at currently:

Ph - 8.2
Ammonia - .25 PPM
Nitrites - 0 PPM
Nitrates - 20 PPM

Is it possible that my cycle could be over? Again, I'm only 8 days into cycling. I'm confused as to why i'm seeing Nitrates, but have not seen Nitrites. I'm using RODI water mixed with reef crystals, and I am topping off with strictly RODI water. A few other things I have noticed in the tank are that it seems Coralline algae is making itself present, I have seen a snail out (I have not added any inhabitants) along with some other trails in the sand. So apparently I have life that survived the die-off of the live rock. Again, I'm pretty new to marine tanks, but not to fish keeping, and I have never experienced a cycle like this before. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

BT21G.jpg
 

JOKER

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I would say with nitrates the tank has probably completed the cycle. I moved rocks from one tank to the other with fish and never saw any spike. I
would say you missed It as It was so quick from the live rock being used
 

maroun.c

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Could be that you missed it as stated above or maybe bad nitrite testkit.
In the absence of a baseline Nitrate reading I wouldn't be sure that the cycle is completed as you don't know if the nitrate reading is resulting from the cycle or was leached by the rocks. Would retest the nitrates and wait till they rise above 20.
 

mike007

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If your detecting ammonia the cycle Is not over. You want 0 ammonia. You should see a spike and then it should go to 0. Then you will see nitrites and then it will convert to nitrates. Api test kits are fairly good but not the best . 8 days is not long enough for a tank to cycle. Go slow and be patient.
 
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Stealthprix

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I'm not worried about having to wait, it just struck me as odd that I'm seeing fairly high nitrates, but zero nitrites
 

JOKER

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Thy are adding ammonia and has a shrimp in the tank though. With the ammonia going down from 4- .25 and having nitrates present shouldn't they be close to a cycle?
 
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Stealthprix

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See that's what I'm saying Joker. Had I not added extra ammonia my tank would be at 0 PPM ammomia, 0 PPM nitrites, and would be registering nitrates
 
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Stealthprix

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I removed the shrimp after some guidance from my LFS. I was told I should now wait for ammonia to drop to 0 PPM, and either start dosing a little pure ammonia or feeding the empty tank some flake food until the tank can handle the applied ammonia amount in less than 24 hours. Just tested the tank.

Current readings:

Ph - 8.2
Ammonia - 0 PPM
Nitrites - 0 PPM
Nitrates - somewhere between 20-40 PPM

What do you guys think? Should I just start adding pure ammonia to get a 1-2 PPM reading every day and see if the tank can handle that amount in 24 hours?
 

JOKER

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I think that would be the way to go now. If it went from 4-0 in this amount of time I would almost believe the cycle is done or very close. I would still give it time and be patient and slow adding anything when it gets there. Good luck and I think you are on the right track.
 

Jen in AZ

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if you still have your BT21G, could you do me a ginormous favor?? unscrew your light board and take a pic of the wiring! i cannot get the new light board to switch on as it did when i first got it. i cannot turn off the lights separately! that would really save my bacon with this tank! TIA- jen in az
 

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