Test the water during cycling

[Maine Reefer]

I ordered the rest of the supplies I needed to start cycling my tank. Everything is gonna arrive at my house this weekend or early next week, except for the Saltwater Master Test Kit I ordered. It won't arrive at my house for two weeks. Should I wait for it, or can I start to cycle my aquarium and test the water when I get it?

 

[Tallison]

It's best to probably do it when you have everything at once that way you can track day by day but I don't see why you couldn't. You can go with pure ammonia and some bio spira and just test when you get them in. Will need a refractometer though

 

[zachxlutz]

I ordered the rest of the supplies I needed to start cycling my tank. Everything is gonna arrive at my house this weekend or early next week, except for the Saltwater Master Test Kit I ordered. It won't arrive at my house for two weeks. Should I wait for it, or can I start to cycle my aquarium and test the water when I get it?

Get things going! No need to wait on the test kit. Depending on how you plan on cycling your tank you're looking at weeks to months of waiting for the tank to get it's biological filter going before you add any livestock. Go ahead and get a jump on it and when you get your test kit you can see what your progress is. Cycling a tank isn't rocket science and testing the water during the cycling process isn't the most important thing.

 

[Maine Reefer]

It's best to probably do it when you have everything at once that way you can track day by day but I don't see why you couldn't. You can go with pure ammonia and some bio spira and just test when you get them in. Will need a refractometer though

Yeah the refractometer is coming in.

 

[Crabs McJones]

You can start now, cycling takes weeks to months depended on the setup, and you don't have to start testing right away
Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[AKReef]

Get things going! No need to wait on the test kit. Depending on how you plan on cycling your tank you're looking at weeks to months of waiting for the tank to get it's biological filter going before you add any livestock. Go ahead and get a jump on it and when you get your test kit you can see what your progress is. Cycling a tank isn't rocket science and testing the water during the cycling process isn't the most important thing.

+1 on getting things going. Depending on the rock you're using, getting things going is likely to take months, even with biospira or other starter. I just tested my curing rock about a month after starting, and nitrates are still off the charts. I'm not going to bother checking again for a while. I figure I have at least another month or two. I also have over 200lbs or rock curing, and it had a lot more dead stuff in it than I realized.