Cycled Already?

[rustyfunk]

hi all, im after some advice about my tank 'cycle'

Last saturday i went down the lfs and bought some cured live rock, live sand and cured ceramics to go in my new d&d nanocube, which i had filled and heated on friday.

Now unfortunately i neglected to get any water testing kit as i have some on order which was due for delivery monday (for reasons i wont go into it hasnt yet shown up), so today i went to get some amonia, nitrate and nitrite kits to do my first peram checks. They came back as follows

Amonia - 0

Nitrite - 0

Nitrates - around 30 (difficult to tell from the dipstick but was between 20 and 40)

Not what i was expecting after just 4 days - can it be that it has cycled already?

i dont know if its relavant, but i have brown algae growth appearing on the sand and the LR, green and red coraline (i think) on the LR, and all of my hitch hikers (2 mussels, 3 hermits and a stomatella) are all alive and well thus far

Is it time to go get the CUC, or should i hold fire, or should i throw some dead stuff in there to get some amonia for sure???

Any advice greatfully accepted!

Thanks

Rusty

 

[xxBarneyxx]

If you had good cured liverock then it is possible that you didnt get a lot of die off and it would have cycled again in that time.Personally I would give it another week just to make sure and then get the CUC.

 

[rustyfunk]

If you had good cured liverock then it is possible that you didnt get a lot of die off and it would have cycled again in that time.Personally I would give it another week just to make sure and then get the CUC.

Thanks Barney. Ill keep an eye on it for a week or so.

I have to say that even though i felt id bought the things to enable a quick cycle, this sort of timeframe, if indeed it has cycled, has taken me somewhat by suprise

 

[Squid]

I don't mean to hijack thread, but it was reading your question that got me thinking, and my comment is in the context of yours.. (totally new to marines).. If the Live rock has cured/cycled, what then keeps it cycled/the live stuff alive. I'm used to freshwater, where if the bacteria are not fed they soon die off, and in 24 hours you are in a spot of bother.

Now if the suggestion is to leave it another week (and i am by no means questioning you, just trying to understand ), thats the bit where i get confused and wonder what keeps it going.

Apologies this is a really dumb question.

Squid

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I agree. As far as I know it works much the same way (without a food source the bacteria die off).

However on live rock you also have lots of other critters living and dying which add to the bioload and should at least keep things ticking over. The reason I would wait a week is just incase you have anything big in the LR that maybe didnt die right away from being moved but could do any time over the next few days. If it was big enough this IMO could cause an ammonia spike so waiting a week make sure that there are no spikes after everything looks like it has settled.

Assuming there is a decent amount of LR and that the tank is not going to be fully stocked all in one go I think the bacteria will more then cope with teh gradual increase in bio load.

Just my opinion though

 

[Squid]

So im not totally stupid or barking then...

thank god for that.
Squid