Shangolife Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Hey guys, I am very new to the saltwater community and I recently purchased a used biocube 29 on Craigslist, great tank love the way it looks. So I did a lot of reading online and I noticed a lot of people doing dry rock and dry sand and me being new to the saltwater community thought that this would be a good way to start a tank and see everythis start from scratch. I am currently on day 17 and my ammonia level has been at 1 ppm since day 2. How long should an ammonia cycle take? I used Fritz-Zyme 9 live bacteria and the ammonia chloride that came with it. Please help me I want to know if I'm doing this right or if I should just drain the tank and buy some life rock. Link to comment
Pinner Reef Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 The bacteria will grow if the food (ammonia) is there. Keep dosing ammonia up to 2ppm every two days until that can all be converted within 24hrs. You should have a pretty good start to the bacteria so it would be less beneficiary to restart with new rocks at this time. I would like to know which test kits you are using. Link to comment
Shangolife Posted November 23, 2015 Author Share Posted November 23, 2015 I'm using the api saltwater kit. what should I use to keep the ammonia up and how do I know they're still bacteria in the tank I haven't taken any water out. Link to comment
Pinner Reef Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 API kits are known for being inaccurate, especially the ammonia kit. You can find unscented pure ammonia in almost any drugstore. Keep adding some until the API kit reads better than 2ppm, then test again in 24hrs. If the ammonia drops down to below 1ppm in that time frame have your LFS check it with their more accurate kit. Assuming they confirm the result as being at zero... you can take home a lil fishy that day. Hope it goes well for you. Link to comment
Shangolife Posted November 23, 2015 Author Share Posted November 23, 2015 Okay thank you. Now one more question don't I have to wait until I get my nitrate and nitrite spike before adding fish? Link to comment
Pinner Reef Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Yes. They should have also spiked somewhere along the last two weeks. If there is a robust enough bacteria population it could be processing the nitrites just as quickly at this point. Have the LFS check for these as well to ensure that is not a problem. Nitrates should be slowly climbing upward throughout this process, not "spiking". If the trates are above 15ppm, do a waterchange before you get you fish/ clean up crew. Just noted that your tank has a good growth of diatoms, another sign of a well cycled tank. Link to comment
Deadhand Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 I may be a little late. When I started my reef, I used a combo of dry rock and live rock to start my cycling. I don't know if that was necessary but I thought I'd do it to get all the bacteria, coraline algae, hitch hikers, etc that came with live rock. Link to comment
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