- Joined
- Jan 21, 2015
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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.
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.