My cycle is not happening according to the starter kit

i am hoping for some advice, I have a 160 liter reeftank which I have had from new for 4 weeks, the local LFS said put in live rock wait 4 weeks check your parameters watch for the spike when that comes back to zero then go fish. I watched for the spike and nothing. só to be sure I bought Red Sea reef mature starter kit. I am at day 10 and it says I should have readings of ammonia 0 nitrite 0 and nitrate 10, my readings say ammonia 0.2, nitrite 0.2 and nitrate 50. my instructions for today is to add in Bactrim start nitro bac and morre. Do I continue with this given my numbers seem so far off. Im not in a hurry just want to get it right. The tank has one brittle star in it that moved in with the live rock, gave me a bit of a surprise when we met! I do give him tiny pieces of prawn to eat; he loves it. any advice would be appreciated

Surprised no one had responded to this yet..

Did you get the cycle to balance itself out then?

Koglin said:

Surprised no one had responded to this yet..

Did you get the cycle to balance itself out then?

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Hi my ammonia and nitrite levelled out at 0 but my nitrate is hovering between 25 and 20. I have done acouple of water changes but no real impact. I have continued with the reef starter program

Kohl in - yeah usually cycle threads are a hotbed of replies.

I’m going to take a stab at it and wait for the flaming.

The LFS was expecting the live rock to have a bacteria colony present so when the ammonia built up the bacteria would convert to nitrite and then to nitrate at which point you would do a water change.

First you need to do a water change to get the nitrate down. Then i would personally carry on with the Red Sea kit. It will contain the bacteria needed to do the cycle. If your nitrates are 50 then the bacteria is present as its converted the ammonia into nitrite and then into nitrite.

Throw in the stuff and do some test in a day or 2. You can always add something to create some ammonia - frozen shrimp etc and watch to see if it gets converted into nitrite and then nitrate. If it does and your ammonia / nitrite goes back to zero with a spiked nitrate then your cycle is done.

People are going to think I’m getting back handers if i mention this particular product any more so if you DM me ill send you a link to something I stumbled upon and will sort out the cycle.

As always I’m not an expert but i try to help where i can

J

Lyn100 said:

Hi my ammonia and nitrite levelled out at 0 but my nitrate is hovering between 25 and 20. I have done acouple of water changes but no real impact. I have continued with the reef starter program

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If the ammonia and nitrite and spiked and then dropped to zero with a corresponding spike in nitrate then your cycle is done ?

Do a light (20-25%) water change to replenish some of your trace elements and give it a bit of a gentle clean.

Add some livestock but very slowly, if you add to much it will overload the bacteria and you’ll get the new tank syndrome of cloudy water

Make sure your recording the test results - even if its in a notebook or excel spreadsheet. It doesn’t need to be a fancy app.

When you see the results in a graph you’ll get a better idea of what is happening