Cycling and Feeding

[hypertech]

I've been going at this the patient and what I believe to be the right way - I bought my tank in March and just finally put water in it 2 weeks ago - but now I am getting really impatient.

It doesn't seem to be cycling. I ran it for a week with just water and sand. Then I added the live rock. After a couple days of no sign of ammonia I added a fish hoping to trigger a cycle. Its been a couple more days and still no measurable ammonia, nitrite, or nitrite.

I'm even feeding my one fish what I think is heavily (quarter cube of brine every day) in hopes that the extra food might decompose and give me some ammonia.

I am getting some hair algae and brown stuff I'm assuming is diatoms so at least it is doing something.

I don't mind waiting out the cycle as long as it takes, but I'm beginning to get impatient for it to at least start. How long is it supposed to take to start?

My live rock was from an established system and only out of water for about an hour and a half while under a wet towel. Maybe I won't have a nitrogen cycle?

[epidemic]

I would ot push it. Rather than try to force it to cycle I would just start stocking it very slowly. If you have one fish and theres no ammonia problems try one more, or perhaps find a cheap frag or two to put in there. Then wait like a week and if it's still good try again. My last tank was up for about 4 days before I started adding livestock. By the time it whent through the cycle it was almost fully stocked and the cycle was very quick.

[epidemic]

BTW I had about 50lbs of fully cured LR from my old tank

[wes]

I agree, I setup a new 40 with 55lbs or so of LR and I had 0 cycle. I would cut back on the feeding to slow the algae, make sure no flake and rinse all frozen food, no pack juice. Go slow with hardy frags--I have a condylactis anemone, some mushrooms and a toadstool leather that have been through HELL and still look great. I think at this stage, getting your care consistant and having good husbandry will help you. go slow with the livestock and you should be fine. :-)

[wolmutt]

If the rock is still alive, which is probably the case, there is probably already enough bacteria on the rock to clean the water of amonia and nitrite. I've done this with several tanks. I move the live rock directly into the new tank and treat that tank as I did the more established tank. Haven't had a loss that I can think of.

[wolmutt]

I mean to say that "live" rock = instant cycled tank.

[wes]

with the

live rock=instant cycle

wouldn't bioload have to be similar, if smaller, wouldn't some of the bacteria die off causing a small cycle? or if a larger, obviously it'd take a short bit for the bacteria to catch up, right?