holy saltwater, batman!

phishboy

phishboy

Registered Member
Feb 23, 2006
3
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Borneo
i am VERY new to marine aquarium and after a little wee bit of reading i got myself,

55 gal tank
2-3 inch of crush coral
44 lb of live rock
skimmer
eheim 2126 external filter
powerhead to move the water around
3' uv light


it took 2 days for the water to be very clear without debris floating about.


the question is...

with the reading below, tested using SERA test

pH 8.0
NH4/NH3 0.0
NO2 0.0

...why is NH4/NH3 and NO2 at 0 when the tank is only 9 days old?

the salinity is 1.022

ammonia did show some reading the first few days and so did NH4/NH3.

the only thing i did out of the ordinary is that i added live rock every 2-3 days from different vendors while cycling the water. one set of live rock looks extremely dirty but it carried lots of snails and strange lifeforms on it.


8-9 days later,
snails, tube worms, clams, fanworm, etc etc are everywhere. algae are starting to grow on the rocks.

i have repeated the tests exactly as the instruction says, but i get zero for NH4/NH3 and NO2 on the 8th day.

i have not tested for nitrate as all the marine aquarium vendors do not have it in stock. seems like those sells like hot cakes.

anyone can help me understand why the readings are at zero after 9 days instead of the "3-4weeks" i keep reading about? what am i doing wrong?
 
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You're not doing anything wrong, some rock is well-cured (or extremely fresh and was shipped in water to minimize dieoff) and cycles quickly. There are still going to be mini-cycles when you add livestock and things will be a little unstable for a while but I'd say if you continue to see zero NH3/NO2 you should be able to safely start adding some clean-up critters.
JMO, but I'd raise the SG a bit. I think even in FO or FOWLR tanks, especially if you're keeping inverts, it's better to be closer to NSW values (35ppt/~1.025).

ADD-->I'd also ditch the CC while the tank is empty, it can be a detritus trap. Sand also looks more natural, but again, JMO :)
 
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There is no set rule of how long it takes for a aquarium to cycle, if you are getting those readings after 8 days it means there was already a large enough bacteria population to handle the bioload.
 
live rock will contain the bacteria needed to cycle the tank, especially if it's fresh, that sounds like a good idea to go to a few different vendors.
 
Keep SG higher and PH at 8.2 is what i prefer, i would still wait the usual 3-4 weeks for the cycle and then slowly add clean up then add hardy fish at first, but remember do it all slowly. :)
 
thank you all for the infos.

at the moment all there is in the aquarium are snails (lots & lots of tiger trochus snails that came with one of the live rocks) and a banded coral shrimp (just got it today).

i had to add the shrimp in today cause it gets old jumping up and down with excitement when i see a featherduster appears all of a sudden or spotting clams with the ultimate camouflage seems to appear out of nowhere. 9 days-i had to summon the patience of a franciscan monk..and another 2 weeks? if that would help with the happiness and joy of the future tenants, ok.

i am so tempted to run down to the beach and grab those hermit crabs thats all over the beach but stop short for fear that they may carry some strange disease.

right now, i am just plain paranoid about those algae that is starting to pop up. after seeing some nasty pictures of algae-ised aquariums online, that is something i worry about before going to sleep. :(
 
Ummm...You didn't like being excited about the feather dusters, so decided to add a shrimp that will eat them? Weird....

Honestly--CBS are not the friendliest occupants. They will pose a threat to any othedr crustaceans, and make short work of many of the smaller worms.
 
I like the CBS i think they are better than worms etc, although, they have been known to kill corals and eat the food inside them when they are hungry, so keep him fed up.
 
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