Brew12
Electrical Gru
View BadgesExcellence Award
Reef Tank 365
Article Contributor
Moderator Emeritus
North Alabama Reef Club
Article Administrator
My Tank Thread
Agreed. There is much more to getting a tank ready than having it be able to process ammonia. Cycling is just one step a tank needs to go through before it is ready to add fish or inverts.It possible there's enough bacteria in there to process ammonia but there is other considerations like higher alk form the dry rock.
Agreed. If there is no ammonia and no nitrates then there hasn't been enough ammonia generated to be detected by hobbyist level test kits for the water volume in the system.Likely because nothing has broken down enough in the four days to be read on a test imo.
I'd wager there a pretty good amount of nitrites if not ammonia in the next several days. And nitrates at the end of next week.
With having added "a few pellets and some frozen food" it may take longer depending on how much frozen was added. I played around with flake and a pinch of flake will generate measurable ammonia in a cup of heated tank water in a few hours. I gave up on pellets after 2 days. I would imagine the frozen is pretty close to flake. Keep in mind that this was 1 cup of water. If it were in a 20 gallon system it would have taken days to be measurable.