New Aquarium not cycling

[hawkinsrgk]

Hello Everybody

I am new to saltwater aquariums and have started a new tank build. Title is "Randy's new tank build" in the North Alabama Reef Club forum.

I am having trouble getting the tank to cycle and hoping somebody can explain whats going on. I started the cycle (or tried to) about 3 weeks ago.

The tank is 180G with a 65G Refugium
Coralife Super Skimmer 220G with fishing string mod.
Return pump is a Mag 18
2 Max-Jets with the 1600 Mod and 1 Seiko 1600 for a total turnover rate of about 33.3 per hour.
160 pounds of Marco Base Rock and 40 pounds of live rock
Used R/O water with Reef Crystals sea salt. SG is at 1.023

For the first week I tried to start the cycle with the base and live rock. When I did not get an ammonia reading on two different test kits I added a shrimp to the overflow.

Now I'm at week 3, and have not seen an ammonia spike. About a week ago I got a very bad Brown Diatom issue. Not too concerned about this since everything I have read says this is just part of a cycle and it will go away. Just want to give as much information as possible. I have been running the skimmer since day one and still getting skimmate.

Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 0 Phosphate - 0.

Any opinions are appreciated.
Thanks
Randy

 

[LOVE2REEF]

id say shut the skimmer down for now.. and are you only testing for ammonia or are you also running nitrate tests?

 

[LOVE2REEF]

lol did see the Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 0 Phosphate - 0.. but ya id still say shut the skimmer down for now.. or maybe your already cycled and should start dropping some cash on some corals!!! good luck :bigsmile:

 

[dakotasreef]

The Ammonia comes from fish waste and decaying matter. Do you have anyone local who has an established tank? If so you could get some tank water from them to help. But you will need to add some fish either way. Even if you get the ammonia cycle going, if there is nothing to produce some ammonia then the bacteria that break down ammonia will die off. I would add some chromis, 4 to start then gradually add some more. I would not add any Damsels, like most fish stores recommend. For some reason the damsels always survive then beat up on the other fish later on.

What type of shrimp did you add? How big? If the skimmer is pulling gunk out of the water and you are getting your tests come back with 0's this early on. I might take a sample to a LFS or friend and have them retest it.

Hope this helps, It's just my thoughts.

 

[hawkinsrgk]

I should be able to get some tank water from an established tank. I thought the dead shrimp in the overflow would produce the ammonia that was needed.

 

[Troylee]

Throw some chromis in there as mentioned and see what happens.... Normally a diatom bloom is the bi-product of a cycle when it is complete.... You said you added some base rock and live rock, how much????

 

[hounddog01]

I would say with 40 PBS of live rock you will not have a cycle. The live rock has enough Bactria growing on it so it is already taking care of the ammonia your adding with the shrimp. If you want to do anything you could get some pure ammonia. Ace has a good brand. If you shake the bottle and you have foam on top when your done it is not what you want. You can add 4 ml per day. That will give you 5 ppm. If you tank can handle that for 3 to 4 days then add fish cause the tank is ready to go.

 

[hawkinsrgk]

160 pounds of Marco base rock with 40 pounds of live rock

 

[Murfman]

Hawk, welcome. I agree with Hounddog on using the pure ammonia vs some chromis. your Marco rock has nothing on it. The live base rock you threw in there, tell us about it. If nothing on it died off, then you don't have the bio load to cycle. I found this link on using ammonia;

http://www.csupomona.edu/~jskoga/Aquariums/Ammonia.html

 

[mike_dani]

Randy, I am doing a 35 gallon H2O change when do you want the water I will put it in 5 gallon buckets and you can have it........ Give me a call and let me know

 

[hawkinsrgk]

Hi Murfman

Will do my best to explain, just keep in mind that Im a newbie and dont know what Im doing.

The 160 LBS of Marco Rock went into the tank and set there for around a week while I got the skimmer to work. Basically the skimmer pump was too far down in the sump so it wasn't making bubbles.
I got the 40 LBS of Live Rock from a friend to help me get the cycle going. He had around 150LBS of Live Rock (Mostly Figi) with about 300 LBS of Marco (Tongo) Base Rock. He cooked the rock for approximately 6 months. At some point 3 400 W MH were added and when I got the 40 LBS of Rock it had solid Coralline algae growth. The Rock also sat in a box without water for 2 days before I put it in my tank. After the Rock was added I started getting skimmate.

 

[hawkinsrgk]

Thanks Mike, I will give you a call today.

 

[rvlockhart]

That live rock won't have much die off on it to give you a good ammonia spike. I would start adding fish slowly and buy another ammonia kit to double check the first one. Make sure you keep a garbage can full of salt water on hand in case of a spike.

 

[FishyFarr]

I would do the ammonia for a day then how about adding a small cuc to start things off? if you have some brown diatoms then you have something they can eat. YOu can also cycle by adding the cuc and some food for them to eat.
feed heavy for about a week. the extra food they dont eat will degrade down causing ammonia then nitrate etc. I am cheap and I don't like chromis so CUC and feeding worked for me.

 

[BlazinNano]

I would do the ammonia for a day then how about adding a small cuc to start things off? if you have some brown diatoms then you have something they can eat. YOu can also cycle by adding the cuc and some food for them to eat.
feed heavy for about a week. the extra food they dont eat will degrade down causing ammonia then nitrate etc. I am cheap and I don't like chromis so CUC and feeding worked for me.

+1 on the CUC and Feeding.

 

[hawkinsrgk]

Thanks everyone for the help on how to proceed and let me know whats going on. Based on what everybody has said let me list what appears to be the root cause and see if anybody disagrees with the next steps.

Whats going on conclusion - The 40 LBS of live rock that I got from a friend was cured and transferred from his setup to my setup rather quickly. This resulted in very little die-off and therefore even though I was getting skimmate the tank did not cycle. The dead shrimp in the overflow is enough for the 40 LBS of live rock to handle so the way Im doing things now I will never get a cycle. Either that or I have already had a little mini cycle.

Mike gave me 30 G of water from his 300 that was added last night.

The lights have been ordered so hopefully everything will be all squared away by this weekend.
Going to add substrate this weekend - Will be a mix of livesand and crushed shell
Get a CUC and feed until the beautiful Brown Diatom goes away.

If I get bored with this approach I could always tell the 5yr old that I think his little brother pooped in the tank.

 

[hounddog01]

Sounds about right, except for the poop. lol

 

[beaslbob]

Hia randy :bigsmile:

You know me. If you had enough plant life (macros and other algeas) the normal cycle is to not have ammonia nor nitrIte spikes. Because the algae actually prefers to consume ammonia over nitrates.

I usually do get an initial nitrate spike which drops down to unmeasureable levels in three or so weeks as the aerobic bacteria builds up and "steals" the ammonia from the macros.

But that just my thoughts and experiences.

Could be you just have a low bioload also. :smile:

Worth at most .02

 

[hawkinsrgk]

Hi Beaslbob

I think I am just going to add a CRC and go from there. I checked the dead shrimp last night and it was no more. Only the tail was left. I'm starting to think my freshwater fish are not feeling enough love from me. My 3.5 year old goldfish decided to take his life and jump to his death 2 days ago. I know its just a goldfish, but I really hated to see him go. The kids really liked him. Then on the cichlid tank the jewel jumped into the overflow. I started to just leave him there because he bullies the other cichlids, but then Gavin started talking about how he deserves a second chance so I got up early this morning and was able to get him out.

Sorry to get way off topic. Havent talked to you in a while and I know you play the freshwater game as well

Randy

 

[beaslbob]

Hi Beaslbob

I think I am just going to add a CRC and go from there. I checked the dead shrimp last night and it was no more. Only the tail was left. I'm starting to think my freshwater fish are not feeling enough love from me. My 3.5 year old goldfish decided to take his life and jump to his death 2 days ago. I know its just a goldfish, but I really hated to see him go. The kids really liked him. Then on the cichlid tank the jewel jumped into the overflow. I started to just leave him there because he bullies the other cichlids, but then Gavin started talking about how he deserves a second chance so I got up early this morning and was able to get him out.

Sorry to get way off topic. Havent talked to you in a while and I know you play the freshwater game as well

Randy

sorry to hear about the FW fish but those do happen in this hobby.

And nice talking to ya also.

I'm actually tankless now with just a 10g planted and 55g with 2 mollys left. Both are at the old house as we are moving into new house and selling old.

Isn't CRC a cyclic Redundancy Code?

my .02