Kessil

<1 week cycle?!!

Gomer

Gomer

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This past weekend, I started up a 10g frag grow-out/prop tank.

It has a bag (~1") of aragonite type sand that was dry on purchase (not the "live" wet bags).

I put in 2 large rocks for ~12lb total. These rocks were from Aquarium concepts. Apparently they were in their "curing tanks" at one time. When I purchased them, they were in a holding bin with water and no flow etc.

To start my cycle on the fast track, I set up an aquacleer70 HOB fuge with a handful of cheato from my established BC14 and a couple of ~2" rubble also from my BC14.

Yesterday, my tank started to cover in diatoms and traces of other random algae which previously indicated the end of my cycle on my BC14 at ~ 3weeks.
Today I tested Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrite and they were ALL zero!!

Is a ~5day cycle even possible even with the cheato/rock seeding?
At 5days, I was expecting to see a fair bit of ammonia from stuff rotting.
 
That probably isn't a cycle if your nitrates are at zero.

First question is: WHat test kit are you using, and how sure are you of it's accuracy?

To know if you cycled, would be to have tested your ammonia from the start, and then watch it drop to undetectable, then watch high nitrites drop, and then watch your nitrates shoot up. If you have zero nitrates, you probably didn't really have ammonia to start with.

I'd recommend testing your bacteria population. Dose your tank with ammonia, give it something like 8ppm of ammonia. Test right away so that you know how much you've started off with. If within 24 hours it drops to undetectable, and if nitrites as well, then you're ready. If it takes longer, you may want to let all those levels drop down.

You'll end up with tons of nitrates, do a large water change and you're probably ready.
 
Nitrates can be zero especially with cheato exporting.

The test kits are Red Sea. Not the best but work well enough for these tests.

I'll do the ammonia test though to be sure :)
 
Well if you got rock from an established tank, curing tanks get hammered with ammonia type stuff due to the die offs, you could very easily get a short cycle, hell that's one way you bipass a cycle for a QT, you grab a sponge you had in your sump and toss it in the QT.

Now the rocks may have had an over abundance of ammonia/nitrite eating bacteria, and once it went to the ammonia heavy environment of the curing tanks, to your ammonia poor new tank, you probably got a ton of die off that actually kicked off your cycle, otherwise I wouldn't be surprised if you had no cycle (contrary to belief the water it self does not need to be cycled). So what you might see is a series of mini cycles (which you see anyways), now that the death of bacteria occurred, that fueled the remaining stuff, however as that fuel (food) runs out that new stuff will start to die off as well, etc.
 
[quote author=Gomer link=topic=2866.msg30399#msg30399 date=1200588371]
Nitrates can be zero especially with cheato exporting.

The test kits are Red Sea. Not the best but work well enough for these tests.

I'll do the ammonia test though to be sure :)
[/quote]

that's true, but I've never been able to get my chaeto to export a whole lot so I'm always skeptical =)

I have a lot of ammonia chloride left over from my cycling, if you're near Berkeley you can pickup a bit if you need.
 
Only Bad things happen fast in a reef tank. If there was nothing to die off from the rock and no life in the tank then you get 0 readings. So I bet your cycle isn't done. You could also get a damsel to cycle your tank. Test again in a week see what happens.
 
The earliest something will be put in this tank would be Feb 8th :p so there is plenty of time to wait it out and see. I was just surprised by the reading on this time scale.
 
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=2866.msg30480#msg30480 date=1200605275]
I'm not with Art... I say pee in the tank to jump start the cycle!
:)

[/quote]

I thought of that very thing last night!!!

What is a little more salt in the tank. Plus, Urea is just as good to test :p I think there are documented cases of people actually adding urine to tanks for tests and starting cycles (alternative to adding ammonia or dead fish/shrimp in a fishless cycle)
 
Still no NH4, NO2, NO3. Pods are breeding and cheato growing. I was tired of my hermits knocking over my stuff in my nano so I chucked them into the 10g about 5days ago and they are doing just fine.
 
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