My ammonia and nitrites are both now reading zero. Nitrates are around 30. First added live sand on March 8th. Then dry rock on march 17th. First added dr tim's ammonia on march 23rd. I am planning on using bio-spira also before adding my clownfish just to be safe. Should I still dose the ammonia back up to 2 to make sure it goes down within 24 hours? Or would that just add too many Nitrate?
strange way to have done the cycle, not sure why you didn’t add the rock from the start so it could matured with bacteria from the start? But it’s been in there a good time now so no issue with that.
30 nitrates is low, so adding more ammonia to test would be a good thing to do, a water change at the end will soon get rid of the nitrates.
Never used bio, I have used Fritz turbo start which is very good, if the tank is cycled you could just add a little of the Fritz 9 which is less powerful but still good for a tank that is already cycled as the turbo start is meant for an uncycled tank, if you want to be totally safe.
But if you have added the correct about of ammonia you should be cycled but it is easy to get the amount wrong with Dr Tims so again I would be tempted to do a test, no harm, unless your tank is huge, then a big water change would be off putting, I would probably just add the Fritz at the same time as adding the fish.
Oh and remember “live” sand in almost all cases is just dead sand with a bottle bacteria added to the bag, so don’t go thinking the sand was alive from the start, it would only start to mature when added to the tank, just like your rock etc
