Is my tank even cycled!?

Ahbaloch · May 21, 2018

hello everyone,

My tank is 2 months old,

I cured all my rocks for 5-6 weeks in a tote and added to my DT 2 weeks ago,

I had high ammonia for 2 days after that for 10 days,

Put 2 bottle of dr tim, bio spira, fluval ..everything i could to bring ammonia down.

Ammonia is finally down,

But i dont see any nitrate or nitrite? Its zero

What do i do?

All the rocks are green, now

I have tried to over feed like there is no tomorrow, but nitrates wont go up!

How do i know if my tank is even cycled?
Can someone help me please

ReefSlice · May 21, 2018

Once your tank can reduce ammonia from 2 ppm to 0 in 24 hours, you're good to go. If you're feeding and not getting any ammonia reading, I'd say you're good to go. 2 months is a long cycle. Now work on getting those phosphate levels down a bit!
Also just realized you have some shrimp and coral in your tank already. I would advise against adding things prematurely, but the fact that they're alive and your ammonia is reading 0 now confirms your cycle is over.

WWIII · May 21, 2018

Looks like you're cycled to me. Gonna have to keep an eye on that green algae on the rocks. It's probably using whatever nitrates you have in the tank and so they don't show up on the test kit. What did the ammonia spike to?

Flexin · May 21, 2018

Just a note, your tank is two weeks old not two months. You added live rock two weeks ago. The reason I say this is in order to help, saying it’s two months old is misleading.

Ahbaloch · May 22, 2018

Even before adding all my rocks i couldnt get any nitrates,

So after i added all the rocks, i think that caused a cycle

Ahbaloch · May 22, 2018

So how can i test my tank to make sure its cycled? Lol

Can i add something or dose something to he sure?

P-Dub · May 22, 2018

Add a sacrificial damsel or three. I'd say you are well cycled though and I'd take bets against anyone that says those damsels wouldn't thrive.

Ahbaloch · May 22, 2018

Well i had 2 damsel for the first month,

Took thise out,

Added two clowns, noticed some whites spots, decided to run a QT and run my dt fallow for 60 days,

And i am day 35

I added the rocks after i removed my clowns btw

Ahbaloch · May 22, 2018

I got a few inverts in the tank right now,

2 cleaner shrimp,
1 pistol

A bunch of blue leg hermits,
Snails

Ahbaloch · May 22, 2018

How can i lower the phosphorus?

P-Dub · May 22, 2018

Refugum and GFO or the like...

NinnJinn · May 22, 2018

Ahbaloch said:
Well i had 2 damsel for the first month,

Took thise out,

Added two clowns, noticed some whites spots, decided to run a QT and run my dt fallow for 60 days,

And i am day 35

I added the rocks after i removed my clowns btw

If you have ich( white spots on fish) it would be best to run fallow for 76 days to make sure your DT is free of ich

ReefSlice · May 22, 2018

You've had multiple fish in there already and you're wondering if your cycle is over, this is kind of backwards.
A few things, if you don't get any ammonia registering after feeding or having fish in there, the nitrogen cycle is over, so that solves that. This hobby takes a lot of patience, you are adding and taking away too much introducing instability to a new tank. Stop doing everything, just let the tank run for a few weeks and test. If everything stays stable, you can think about adding A fish. Keep up the qt process and make sure you go the full 76 days before adding fish.

Ahbaloch · May 22, 2018

Ohh okay,

If my nitrates are zero, then how is all this algae growing?

ReefSlice · May 22, 2018

The algae will use the nitrates before they are registerable on your test. Don't worry about it for now, in a few months when you have some fish and bioload in there, I'm sure it'll all balance out. By heavily feeding you could be adding to the algae problem. Just another patience thing, the algae will pass if you just continue with a good routine.