Where's My Cycle Gone?

[KoiRich]

My Live Rock went in last Tuesday, the live sand (Natures Ocean) went in last Wednesday.

I put a prawn in (no frozen shrimp available) on Saturday.

7 days later I'm still at ZERO ammonia, ZERO Nitrite and ZERO Nitrate.

What's going on?!

There is now brown algae starting to cover the live rock, nothing on sand.

If I don't put some clean up crew in soon it's going to be brown all over.

But I've not seen a hint of the cycling.

Is something very wrong or is the live sand as good as advertised "Needs NO Cycling" ?

I am not wanting to rush things but then again I don't want the algae to take over.

What shall I do? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[SkiFletch]

Its quite possible to never see ammonia/nitrite/nitrate, especially if the rock you bought was extremely cured on purchase and if it spent little time out of water. The brown algae covering the rocks is diatom algae and will be happily eaten by most cleanup crew members out there. Chances are you had minimal dieoff and the diatoms ate all the available nitrate and have thus bloomed. As long as your pH and sg are at a decent value and stable, I'd say go ahead and add your crew.

Btw, how big is your tank and got pics?

 

[KoiRich]

Great !!! Thanks for the quick reply.

My pH was 8.2 when the sand went in but went right down to 7.8, I was getting worried but it's now slowly going back up and tonight it's 8.04.
My SG has been stable 1.023 / 30 for several days.

The rock doesn't seem to have too much life in it, don't know if VERY CURED means poor quality but my guess is it's not the best I could have got (mail ordered, maybe my first mistake)

I'm in the middle of building a website for my pics etc.
Not many interesting photos yet but how do you upload one into the forum!!!??

I guess I need to decide on the first clean up crew members. Any particular ones for this brown stuff?





Sorry, forgot to add it's the 24 gallon D-D Nano

 

[KoiRich]

With mainlights

With moonlights

Hope this works !!

 

[Mr.September15]

NICE TANK! Cant wait to see what your going to stock it with

 

[tmreynolds]

Hi, did you buy the Live rock as cured or uncured?

 

[KoiRich]

Cured. But I was not impressed that it arrived in an oversizes polystyrene box without being wrapped in anything except a loose polythene sheet.

The is a little life on it, I think but not exactly purple like I've seen on some pictures.

 

[SkiFletch]

Give it time, you'll be amazed at what pops out of it. Thats a typical shipping method for LR, and it must have been really well cured before you bought it.

Great rock stack as simple as it may be, really looks like the edge of a reef

 

[KoiRich]

Thanks for the kind remarks.

I have spotted ONE live red THING (in the middle of photo). It has about a dozen bright red hairs to it. Any ideas?

Every time I shine a light onto it it pops back into the rock very quickly, it's not mobile at all.

 

[SkiFletch]

Microinvert of some sort... There are hundreds of thousands of tiny invertebrate life in the sea, could be any one of them. It doesn't look like one of the common ones I see a lot in peoples tanks. Keep an eye on it, it MIGHT be an acropora eating "redbug" but if so, will perish without food

 

[Mr.September15]

If in doubt throw it out. I read that on a costco sign and i stand by it, if your doubtful and don't know what it is...Take it out

 

[new2saltyfish]

my tank was the same way as yours. added the rock and even since 3 weeks have passed, everything has stayed the same perfect levels. i now have a clean up crew and 2 fish all of which are fine and levels still perfect. so I think itd be ok for you to add your crabs and snails.

 

[KoiRich]

Thanks for the advice folks.

I've taken the plunge and put in some clean up crew. Not exactly what I expected though. My LFS sold me three TURBOs and a Red Legged Hermit, well that's what they said and that's all they had. My second closest fish shop is miles away so i'll get some more at the weekend.

However ..... when I got the Turbos home and compared them with pictures guess what? They are all Astrea (the hermits right!!).

I think I'll wait next time and find a not-so LFS that knows a little bit more. ! !

As for the red THING, I think I'll spend a couple of days trying to identify it, if not I'll sling it.

Thanks again ... I'm off and running, at last

 

[SkiFletch]

Off and running indeed . Astreas are very often mis-labeled as turbos, sry. I'd only get one mexican turbo for a tank that size. Concentrate on smaller snails like cerith and nassarius