I am a patient person, but I have a hunch that I am waiting in vain. I'm asking a question that may be very difficult for the community to answer. With that said I am asking it anyways. Is the live cured rock that I purchased from the lfs enough to cycle my tank? Read below for more details on my set up.

After 3 months of research I took the plunge and bought a 24g Nano Cube. I got a great deal on the tank/stand/(saphire)skimmer/sunpod 150W HQI so i decided to spend some money on the vortech. I purchased 30 lbs of live cured rock from my local fish store. The rock smelled like the ocean. It had been at the LFS for at least two months. It did not smell nasty like so many other threads I have read when it comes to "Live cured rock." that has quite a bit of die off. The Live rock was out of water (inside buckets w/lids) for about an hour. I have only seen one worm so far. I check late at night and of course during the day for more livestock. The rock is for the most part covered with coraline algae and some macro algae.

Summary of what has taken place:
-24g Nano cube leak test
-all working parts tested
-30lbs of Live cured rock added to tank
-Caribbean sea sand added
-oceanic salt mixed with R/O water, added to tank
- 100W Stealth heater set to 79 degrees

Skimmer runs 24 hours a day
lights are on 6 hours a day
vortech/maxi jet run 24 hours a day
using Filter floss instead of sponge filter

water temp. is 80 degrees

After 5 days
Specific Gravity is 1.024
Ammonia is 0ppm
Ph is 8.0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0

I have tested every day and have not seen the ammonia level change from 0 ppm.



If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

How long has it been?

5 Days

It takes time, wait another week and it you should notice a spike in the levels or algae growth and if you really doubt you have enought biological components go back to your lfs and ask for some reef additives.

Thanks for your advice.

Put a small, uncooked shrimp in there from the grocery store. Just rinse it off first. That should either kick start your cycle or show you that your tank is already capable of handling ammonia and nitrite (if you still don't get big spikes). Also, you might want to question the accuracy of your test kit - what are you using? I started out with a Marine Labs POS that always registered low for ammonia and was difficult to decipher for the other parameters. I switched to the API saltwater master test kit and my readings started making a lot more sense. If you add the shrimp and don't see something spike, I'd probably start questioning the test kit.

Oh, and the tank looks nice, but you might want to check how close some of the rock is to the glass. I made the mistake of having my rock a bit too close in certain area's and now those places are really hard to keep clean (i.e. certainly can't use a magfloat). Better to adjust now before you start adding things...

Thanks
I am using a cheap 5 in 1 "Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Saltwater Master Test Kit" so that may be the problem. I didn't even think about that.
I have been tempted to do the deli shrimp "thing" but have been hesitant to make any moves. You are right about the rock being too close to the glass. I'm going to try repositioning and getting rid of the flat white rock on the back left of the tank.

Please keep the comments coming. This community is a great help.

If you are intact using cured rock/ live sand, and the rock was not out of the water for long. The likely fact is that you won't see any change to ammonia and nitrite levels. Having cured rock straight from the Lfs usually results in very minimal die off, which inturn results in undetectable amounts of ammonia. Wait a while for some nitrates, and algae bloom. Add a cuc. And continue to test.

Cool. That makes perfect sense. What do you think about getting a better test kit?

API test kits are generally considered to be pretty good....they aren't Lab Standard quality, but have been tested veary accurate and precise in a number of trials.....

Fow what it's worth....I use Salifert......

I placed a raw cocktail shrimp into a nylon stocking and placed it in my tank. Turned off the skimmer. Temp is 82 degrees, increased the flow on my vortech. Less than 24 hours I have an ammonia that reads .25 ppm.

Do I remove the Cocktail shrimp after a large ammonia spike or do I keep it in through the entire cycle?

DON'T PUT SHRIMP JUST SO YOU CAN HAVE A CYCLE.

This is an old, outdated, hackeneyed, etc. method that has no benefit whatsoever and only serves to waste time creating another cycle and fueling nuisance algae growth. Also, IIRC, someone said this can induce disease organisms to proliferate. This is also why reef additives are bad.

If you bought fully cured live rock, then chances are there was no noticeable cycle. THIS IS A GOOD THING. You should immediately remove any shrimp in your tank and hope that you don't cause a long cycle. There may be many things, like the coralline algae, that will be stressed from the cycle. If you didn't add the shrimp, then you would have been able to start to add your cleanup crew members.

Sorry for the use of all caps. I have never seen so much misinformation for a long time; some of the answers provided here haven't even been discussed as reputable in the beginners forum.

The API saltwater master test kit tests are sufficiently accurate for hobbyists.

^^^I agree that API should suffice for hobbyists, especially when just trying to detect a cycle. In all the tanks I've set up I purchased "cured" live rock from a local fish store or from another reefer. I have never had a major die-off and ammonia spike. Quite likely you could have introduced a CUC and had some life in your tank rather than postponing it for a few days/weeks by spiking the ammonia with a dead shrimp. It's no big loss other than some time, but there is a good lesson to learn here...do some serious reading before doing anything serious to your tank.

There will be a ton of opinions about which test kit is best. Personally, I look at it like I do drug trials (sorry, I'm a pharmacist)...there's a big difference between non-inferiority and superiority. I've used many kits with API consistently being non-inferior. They've worked great for me for the past 5 years.

I feel like Han Solo and Chewbacca when the he Millennium Falcon is pulled into the Death Star by a magnetic tractor beam.
I'm caught in a trap and I'm trying to get out.

ok. raw shrimp has been removed.

ammonia .25ppm
nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 5-10ppm

skimmer is back on
added sea gel, chemi pure, purigen. replaced floss.
heater set to 79 degrees
1 gallon water change

I hope I can reverse the damage, but only time will tell.

I would be careful about not having an ammonia spike- the point is to encourage and feed the bacteria that process these wastes and remove them biologically. If there is nothing to feed them, they will of course die back and when you start adding livestock you WILL get a spike then.

So either spike it with livestock and possibly kill them or spike it with a shrimp, your choice. either way, gotta feed those bacteria~!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...rogen_Cycle.png

If there is a reading of nitrate at this point then the cured live rock and live sand are ready to process ammonia. When I set up my newest 55g, I brought buckets of saltwater with me to a shop that had a great deal on rock that was 2 hours away, placed rock in tank, pretty much never saw a proper cycle. Tank was ready for livestock within a week or two. I wouldn't do anything but wait a few more weeks, and buy the API Master kit. You will need most of the tests eventually and should save money buy getting the whole kit. Add some hermits and a snail or two maybe and see how they do. Read up on how to acclimate snails, they need some special attention when being added.

Thanks. API kit is purchased. I think I'll wait another week just to be careful.

You're on the right track. For me, having setup 3 reef tanks and on my 4th. Even If my #'s are good after a week or two. I still wait it out, at a minimum of 1 month, and usually more(2 months on my last tank). But that's just me being extra careful, and knowing the trouble that happens when you add too quickly.

good luck,
-Mike

your rock was good and the reason you're not seeing a cycle is because THE ROCK WAS ALREADY CYCLED.

DO NOT PUT IN SHRIMP. omg... people still do this pointlessness??

Yeah people still advocate this all the time. On freshwater forums they even have a system that includes actually dumping ammonia in the tank. Seems drastic. Also, Biospira works awesome if you HAVE to have it cycled that day. I've used it in emergencies twice and it was great.

not just drastic, which it is, but pointless. microbial populations will naturally equilibrate to a given tank's bioload over time, all by itself.

Also, freshwater tanks have nothing exactly like live rock. They have to use filters (and possibly plants later on) which don't come with bacteria already present. However, even freshwater tanks can benefit from taking used filter material, like a biowheel, from established tanks.

You may want to do water changes to limit any algae blooms.

If he put fresh LR in the tank and did not get a massive ammonia spike... then the bacteria is surviving in equilibrium already. As long as he adds livestock slowly and from the bottom of the food chain --> to the top of the food chain so as not to over-bioload the tank (which everyone should do regardless of their cycle length) he should be fine.

Any "bacteria" that die off would create an ammonia spike so if he didn't see one, they didn't die in any significant amount, thus the tank only swung back and forth between nitrate and ammonia spikes a very small amount and equalized quickly.

Wait for your algae bloom. If you've got algae... awesome, add a few snails and a few hermits and see how they do. If they survive, then you should be fine to put more expensive livestock in.

Roger that. I'm waiting another 1.5 to 2 weeks before I add my cuc.

or you could test like the rest of the world...

What is this TESTING you speak of?

Okay. I just learned a couple new things (Setting up a nano. Mom decided to be nice and get my CUC 2 days after i added live rock and apparently dead sand.) So, Thanks for the information.

To be clear on the freshwater thing (I have a 55 gallon live planted puffer tank) The ammonia part is called a "fishless cycle". Its kind of like what you with live rock. What most people do is get tetra safe start for the bacteria, Add it, And add a small amount of ammonia to feed the bacteria, Let the colonies grow big enough to be able to handle the bio-load, Add fish. Just thought I would clarify that.