I think I put hermit crabs in before cycle. Need a place to put

[bhayduk]

Hey all.

 

I just started a new 28G Nuvo Mini 38G.

 

I put 6 hermit crabs in after 5 days, but am not sure if my tank has started cycling yet. I got test kits and my nitrate and ammonia levels are both zero. My tank has been clean the whole time and after reading some forums I think my tank has not cycled.

 

Anyways where could I put my hermit crabs to let my tank cycle? I only have 1 tank, heater, filter, and powerhead so I am not sure where I can put them.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thank you!!

[Horerczy]

any temporary dwelling you set up wouldn't be cycled either.

 

If you didn't start with any live rock or sand add some to help seed benificial bacteria to jumpstart the cycle. preferably live rock as live sand is a pita to add to a tank with moving water and not make a sandstorm.

[bhayduk]

Half of my rock is live rock and it has been in there for the whole time. One of the 6 hermits was a hitchiker from that liverock.

 

It actually has some algae growing on it.

 

So there is no way I could safely set up a temporary dwelling for the hermits? Hopefully my lfs will take them back.

[seabass]

If ammonia isn't detectable after a week, why do you think the tank isn't "cycled"? Maybe it's because people improperly substitute cycle with ammonia spike. However, the two aren't the same thing. Establishing the nitrogen cycle means that there is enough nitrifying bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrite, and nitrite to nitrate (for the existing bio-load). However, when there is more ammonia than the nitrifying bacteria can process, there is a resulting ammonia spike.

 

Half of my rock is live rock and it has been in there for the whole time.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. However, if you used fully cured (or established) live rock, the bacteria has already established on the rock, and is capable of processing the ammonia that is currently being produced (which is pretty small at the moment).

 

Since nitrate is also undetectable, it indicates that there isn't a lot of ammonia being processed. This is understandable if there is no die off from your live rock. So this doesn't mean that your tank doesn't have an established biofilter, just that it hasn't had to process much ammonia.

 

For your crabs, they are perfectly safe in there as long as ammonia continues to be undetectable. Wait another week (feeding the crabs a very small amount of fish food), and if ammonia is still undetectable, then slowly start adding more livestock. Start with a small cleanup crew, wait a week, check for ammonia (if there is none, then add a small fish).