Tank cycling question

[Hecticdude]

75 gallon with half and half live sand dry sand. 50 lbs rock 40 life rock" the purple stuff" and 10 lbs live rock from lfs.
Dosed Dr Tims and added a half a shrimp.
9th day of cycle
0.2 Amonia
8.2 PH
0 Nitrite
2.0 nitrate
Temp 79 F
Salinity 1.022
Curious because have not measured any Nitrite at all. Any suggestions?

 

[lapin]

Your live rock maybe processing what little ammonia you are getting from the shrimp into nitrite then nitrate. The nitrite gets processed so fast you dont see it on your test kit.

 

[Idoc]

If you have nitrates, then you had nitrites at some point. But, nitrate tests actually test nitrates and nitrites together in the results.

What test kits are you using?

 

[Hecticdude]

Red Sea

 

[Hecticdude]

Should I take out the shrimp? I put one half day one left it 2 days then took out waited 2 days then put it back in 4 days ago.
My assumption is that as long as I keep my Amonia and nitrite low the nitrate is a good sign.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

If you put live rock from the LFS in there and you are seeing nitrate I think you can put some fish in there as soon as the ammonia is getting a zero reading.

 

[brandon429]

here is all it takes to cycle that aquarium, even without testing:

set it all in saltwater, wait 12 days its all cycled and cannot fail to cycle. You've rotted shrimp, so dont base your cycle on rot water, change the algae water/shrimp degredation water out then measure, and params will be clean.

Its best to remove the shrimp, wait 12 days (the hydrated activation time for purple liferock) and go.

the live rock you added can process enough ammonia to make current testing invalid. all you need is the submersion factor, so the greater portion of your surface area activates.

a chunk of already real live rock might be 3x as much as is about to activate, real live rock is skip cycle ready.

at 12 days, if you do a water change, testing does not factor. This arrangement cannot fail to cycle so what tests say wont matter.

You dont need the shrimp, its counterproductive, its making rot algae water with mixed nitrogen species api and red sea will never handle correctly. it will cause mis testing to skew your results, but this tank is done by day 12 and a water change any way we slice it. specifically, starting bioload will not die if you add it in two weeks. it likely wouldnt even die right now, thats how powerful ten pounds of real live rock is--would cover all starting bioload until the liferock alone catches up by hydration (all that is needed is painted on)

 

[Hecticdude]

Thank you Sir! Will remove shrimp and do water change this weekend.
Will post parameters after water change.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

If your nitrates are below 5 I would just skip the water change all together.

But what do I know? Rot algae water mixed nitrogen? Rotting tissue releases ammonia. The same ammonia that is in a bottle, from a rotting fish, or from a handful of flake food... its ammonia,

 

[Hecticdude]

Update. Day 15 Water change
Temp 78f
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
PH 8.2
KH 8
Salinity 1.023

Thanks Brandon!!

 

[Hecticdude]

 

[brandon429]

Hey looks great they've got really good stuff painted on that rock! Nice starting setup looks good

 

[PacoPetty]

Beautiful tank!

 

[brandon429]

This one got lucky the testing lines up

We think most of them won't
Imagine the turmoil if ammonia read: .25!

Or nitrite, 2

I'd be hoping you'd hold course, knowing that the living bioload past 24 hours (fish die overnite in an uncycled system) means it's zero and API disagrees for one or more reasons

Skipping the rules for cycling is most fun when testing disagrees and you look like a lunatic for disregarding lol but the fish still swim, day to day
Feeding should be low, Lasse was right in prior writing about not overloading quick cycle surfaces with any excess feed at all

Make every animal forage no waste at all to guide it and it will work nicely. Any supporting water changes are recommended, they're cpr compressions for the quick cycle tank