Is my aquarium cycled

[Tofty189]

Hi all

I am new to saltwater though I have had a tropical tank for a few years

I recently changed over to a marine aquarium and I have puzzled my self a little with reading too many articles
I am 16 days into my fish in cycle (2 clowns) I dosed dr tims one and only and have been testing daily I seem to now be stuck with nitrites 5/6ppm ( my latest reading yesterday were amm 0, nitrites 5/6ppm, nitrates 15/20 ppm, ph 7.8, I have done a 25% this morning..my question is...is my tank now cycled? I have read conflicting info regarding nitrites.
Any help will be much appreciated

 

[Poof No Eyebrows]

I would say so. If those numbers are correct you are converting ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate. I wouldn't go overboard with stocking though. You want to progress slowly so that your bio filter can expand with the load.

 

[Tofty189]

I would say so. If those numbers are correct you are converting ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate. I wouldn't go overboard with stocking though. You want to progress slowly so that your bio filter can expand with the load.

Thanks for the reply I was expecting the nitrites to fall back down to 0 they just seem to have stuck at 5/6ppm it's thrown me a little

 

[Idoc]

Sounds like it cycled... don't worry about nitrites in marine tanks.

 

[BostonReefer300]

Your nitrite reading may be an artifact of the test you're using. Per @Poof No Eyebrows (gotta love that name by the way) it sounds like you're cycling correctly with the production of nitrate. Add more livestock slowly so that your load doesn't outgrow your filter. Have fun!

 

[Tofty189]

Thank you ppl pistol shrimp and watchman goby time

 

[Azedenkae]

Hi all

I am new to saltwater though I have had a tropical tank for a few years

I recently changed over to a marine aquarium and I have puzzled my self a little with reading too many articles
I am 16 days into my fish in cycle (2 clowns) I dosed dr tims one and only and have been testing daily I seem to now be stuck with nitrites 5/6ppm ( my latest reading yesterday were amm 0, nitrites 5/6ppm, nitrates 15/20 ppm, ph 7.8, I have done a 25% this morning..my question is...is my tank now cycled? I have read conflicting info regarding nitrites.
Any help will be much appreciated

Everyone is correct in that nitrite is non-toxic to marine fish, even at what we consider very high levels, and at least for the short term. Here's Randy's article on it: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php, so you can feel very confident about this assessment. Randy is the guy we named our chemistry forum after, so yeah.

I don't do fish-in cycling so I don't know the process and can't really help out too much there, but yeah at least I can say the above about nitrite.