Kessil

120 startup help?

Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum so please bear with me if this is answered somewhere else. I have been looking for weeks and can not find the answer, so here it is. I set up a 120 gallon tall tank about the first of the year ( perhaps late December 2017). I have a 40 g sump, coral vue ac20287 octopus skimmer, coral base rock, live sand and seeder rock, plus filter media from my 75g in the sump all on startup. I have been testing about once a week and have not seen any spikes, ammonia, nitrite etc. Is it possible that my tank is cycled since levels are zeroed now or more importantly what can I do now?
 
One cube for 160 gallons of total volume isn't much. Usually you need get your ammonia levels to at least 2ppm to start cycle. It's likely your tank is not cycled, especially if you see zero nitrates.

I'd throw in three to four frozen table shrimp form the grocery store or dose ammonia until you reach 2ppm of ammonia. If your tank can completely convert 2 ppm of ammonia to nitrates within 24 hours, your tank is cycled.

You can get ammonia from the hardware store. This is what I used (less than $5) from my local Ace.

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Not sure if that amount of food is enough to to start a cycle on that large of a tank. Maybe that's why you didn't see a spike? Then again sounds like you started with established media. I think generally the recommendation is to feed the tank as you would have if their was fish in there, which would be more than one cube a week. I might up the feelings and see how the parameters do.
 
I will add some shrimp or ammonia and see what happens, as far as the nitrate goes my other tank needed an emergency water change and my lfs said it would be ok to put that water in my new tank so I am reading nitrates now in it but that may be because the other tank was extreme. I don't know if i should do a water change yet since I'm not sure its cycled and I don't want to delay the cycle any longer. I am not going to add and fish or coral until this thing is ready, but the 75 is running canister filters and no sump, so it is really producing the nitrates. I want everything healthy( fish and corals) so I am anxious to get the big tank done and ditch the canisters. Sorry only been doing this for less than a year, so I am sure I'm a real rookie.:(
 
I will add some shrimp or ammonia and see what happens, as far as the nitrate goes my other tank needed an emergency water change and my lfs said it would be ok to put that water in my new tank so I am reading nitrates now in it but that may be because the other tank was extreme. I don't know if i should do a water change yet since I'm not sure its cycled and I don't want to delay the cycle any longer. I am not going to add and fish or coral until this thing is ready, but the 75 is running canister filters and no sump, so it is really producing the nitrates. I want everything healthy( fish and corals) so I am anxious to get the big tank done and ditch the canisters. Sorry only been doing this for less than a year, so I am sure I'm a real rookie.:(

If you use ammonia go real easy. There are dosing amounts you can find online. I don't recall exactly how much I used, but I think it was in the 1-2ml for 20G of water.
 
Ok so on the 14th I added two jumbo shrimp, as of yesterday they were almost gone and the ammonia was at about 1 ppm maybe a bit more but my API kit goes from 1 ppm to 2ppm so it's a bit hard to tell exactly. Today it appears to be between .50 ppm and 1pmm, still no nitrites registering. So if the ammonia goes to 0 can I do a water change and slowly start stocking it?
 
So I need to wait for nitrites to register then zero before I start stocking? I ask because I don't know if it already cycled and I just added more ammonia now or not. How long does it typically takes to register nitrites?
 
My curing and cycle took 31 days from dead dry rock (dried straight from ocean - so lots of dead organics) without any bacterial supplements. I have heard others use Dr. Tim's for their cycle and it took them the same time (@Gablami).
 
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I used like 8 jumbo shrimp and used 2 big bottles of Dr. Tims at separate times in the hopes that it would go faster, but in the end it still took 4+ weeks.


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