fully cycled in 15 days?

[BigJay]

I have my daughters tank running now for 15 days. Testing calcium, alkalinity, harndess, PH , ammonia ,nitrite and nitrate since the get go.
I started the tank with nutri-sea live water , 17 lbs of natures ocean bagged live sand, a 3 lb live rock with a couple feather dusters and a mushroom out of a long running tank, and 3 turbos. woops forgot to mention a percula.
About 4 days later I added a 3 lb piece of live rock loaded with feather dusters, about 9 mushrooms ,1 sea squirt and a couple sponges, I also bought 2 emerald crabs and a brittle. Rock came from another tank thats been running for years.
2 days ago I added a skunk cleaner and another 3 pound piece of rock from the same tank the second came off with just a couple feather dusters and 2 polyps. Both pieces had really nice coraline. One had a little bit of nuisance algae but thats almost gone.
So 15 days in
9 pounds of rock
10 mushrooms
2 polyps
1 brittle star
2 emeralds
1 clown
3 turbos
1 skunk cleaner shrimp
a ton of nerrites and feather dusters and more copeopods then I have ever seen in 9 pounds of rock.

Alalinity and PH has been slightly unstable but I am adding marine buffer every other day.
doing 5-6% water change every 4 days. Replacment water is nutri-sea ocean water.
I cut a piece of filter floss and put it over the bio ball area everytime I feed and throw it away an hour after feeding. Feeding only every other day with a frozen food.
I never had a huge ammonia or nitrite spike but nitrates were steady at about 20 for the last 7 days.
Changed the acitivated carbon for the protein skimmer.
add a calcium and total reef supplement 2 days ago.
I top the tank every day with RO water that I tested for 0 nitrates.

As it stands now my calcium is at 405, alkalinity is at 3, Ammonia 0 , Nitrites 0, Nitrates 15. I've heard of fast cycling before using rocks out of other peoples aquarium but this is at best 10-11 gallons of water which seems to be teaming with life. I test pretty much daily and everything looks healthy and happy. I do have some brown diatom algae present but nothing more then I'd expect. I'm still hoping to see a reduction in the nitrates. But I am really amazed that this worked. I'm not going to celebrate yet and gonna continue testing, but right now I am stoked.

 

[PEMfish]

NEVER ADD ANY LIFE AT ALL UNTIL THE CYCLE IS OVER!!! tsk tsk tsk

 

[BigJay]

hehe I knew someone would chime in there on that. Try explaining that to a 3 year old. I still fight with my wife everyday about adding more fish. I told her thats it for the tank and she doesn't get it. Seriously though I monitered the tank religiously and it never really spiked I woulda yanked it all at the first sign of trouble since I have a LFS less then 4 minutes from my door. My last tank I did took about 6 weeks to cycle but the LFS assured me with this set up it would be a very subtle cycle.

 

[Stacef]

You are seeing the brown diatom because your tank is still cycling. Did you ever see amm/nitrate/nitrite spikes? If not, you jumped the gun and your system has yet to go through them most likely.

You should leave your system alone to cycle, no more living things added, take the current ones out to your old system if possible.

You mentioned that you have heard of systems going through quick cycles using others rocks. This may happen, but you had all new water that is still going through the nitrogen cycle. For your tank mates sake. I hope everything turns out ok.

 

[PEMfish]

But moving the life in, subjecting it to bad water, then moving it again would severely stress it probably to point of disease.
As for peer presser, don't give in. I really am irritated about how they don't understand.
But you may still go through a cycle yet.
Best of luck to you. And to your new tank

 

[Stacef]

:smack:

hehe I knew someone would chime in there on that. Try explaining that to a 3 year old. I still fight with my wife everyday about adding more fish. I told her thats it for the tank and she doesn't get it. Seriously though I monitered the tank religiously and it never really spiked I woulda yanked it all at the first sign of trouble since I have a LFS less then 4 minutes from my door. My last tank I did took about 6 weeks to cycle but the LFS assured me with this set up it would be a very subtle cycle.

LFS will tell you anything to get you to buy.
Anything LFS is throw it out, Mine still tries to say it's ok to cycle with damsels. NO it's not!

Nothing has spiked yet? Get those guys out of there, just let the cycle continue. You are only 2 weeks into it, there are at LEAST 4 weeks left. Trust me, in this hobby patience IS a virtue. When I first started mine, I wanted to do the same thing also, the empty tank was boring, but 15 days is to early IMO.

 

[Stacef]

But moving the life in, subjecting it to bad water, then moving it again would severely stress it probably to point of disease.
As for peer presser, don't give in. I really am irritated about how they don't understand.
But you do seem to know what your doing so good luck with the tank.

Sorry Paul, you have a point, I didn't think about that. It could inflict disease easily swapping them between tanks caused by stress.

At this point, ride it out. :biker and see what happens. Best of luck

 

[BigJay]

it cycled but never spiked. with every new add I saw a subtle increase in ammonia followed by a subtle increase in nitrite then to 0. Not to sound like a douche but I got too much money invested already so I'll continue to monitor it daily and at the first bad sign they'll get pulled.
I haven't reefed in a while but when I did none of this stuff was available. I live a few minutes from the ocean but we were always told to never use ocean sand or water so we had to start from salt mix and dead sand and we cycled using damsels(was a common practice then).
I was really skepticle when buying this stuff that you could add fish from day one. But everything tested so far is showing that its true. ALl the cycles have shown up like adding a fish to any existing tank.

 

[Stacef]

I am glad it's working for you!

Things sure have changed over the years. Keep us updated on how things are going. How about some pics??

 

[BigJay]

absolutely I just took some. Let me switch computers. And I'll definetly keep you posted.

 

[BigJay]

first mushroom that went in the tank

second group. I can't get an exact count on these cause there looks like theres a few new ones but they are super tiny.

polyps

here you can see the diatom

 

[Stacef]

Looking good!! Very clear, keep it up!

 

[BigJay]

thx. I am on the hunt for the the right rock for the backpiece. I am half tempted to make my own cause I am looking for just the right shape.

 

[kimm]

I believe that you are not seeing the spikes in the water prams because you are doing water changes. You should not be doing them while cycling. Idealing you should add, water, sand and rock at once at let it be for the next 45 days, or more possibly.

 

[BigJay]

No matter what there is no way my ammonia would be 0. Even with a 6 percent water change every 4 or 5 days could not dillute the ammonia to 0. If my tank hasn't begun its cycle my ammonia would be through the roof after 15 days. I meant to end that with "right?" lol.

 

[goldenmean]

What size tank is that? 12g? 24g? I cant tell from the pic.
You need more Live Rock.
You should have 1-2 pounds per gallon.
With a nano tank I would go with closer to 2 pounds per gallon

Ideally you would add all LR before any livestock then add a piece of raw deli shrimp to kick off your cycle. 4-6 weeks later after the cycle is over you add your clean up crew. A couple of weeks after that you start adding livestock. slowly.

Here is some good reading on the cycle
just-exactly-what-cycled-tank

This info may be a little late for this tank but it will be good to know for the next tank after the addiction kicks in.:grind:

If you have any problems ask away.
There is a lot of great experience here on RS

 

[BigJay]

its a 14. Like I said I've done a few reefs in the passed and lots of SW fish onlys. This stuff is marketed as basically your just transfering one tank to another. I tried to find info on it over the net but it seems very few people that have tried it have posted about it. So I'm guinea pigging I guess. I talked to a lot of people that have used the live water on up and running reefs and they all said they liked it but its too expensive for all the time water changes. In theory the only thing that isn't live in my tank is the bio balls but a lot of people don't use them anyway.

I plan on adding more rock but none of the stores are currently stocking anything I want. I am looking for a specific shape for the back piece. The 3 rocks I bought were bought only because they came out of up and running for long time home aquariums. I've looked at 100's of pounds of cultured live rock but nothing. I'll be heading to Orlando this weekend and pass through Tampa so I am gonna look around at what the are stocking.

 

[BigJay]

let me go back a second. I'm where I am at now.. its not going to change tonight... everything appears to do what it has said. I promise to keep you posted on how things go.
Like I said in the first post I am not claiming victory, I am not that cocky.Last thing I wanna do is come on here in a week and eat crow, cause I will give you a gods honest assesment since I have nothing to loose or gain by not telling you exactly how it goes down. I was very skeptical at first. I know how to test water and it looks to have done exactly what it said to do so far ,which had I not been the one doing the tests daily I probably woulda called shanigans.
I'll blog it from today forward as much as I can with updated pictures. Fair nough?
Sorry if I sounded defensive in any of those posts. I maybe ignorant to some of the advances in reef keeping over the last 5 years but I do have experience in aquaria and growing up on the water in Florida (and I mean spending all my free time for 32 years enjoying the altantic and gulf waters) I am somewhat educated on natural marine biology.

EDIT- god I sound like a jerk. I really do appreciate input..

 

[BigAl07]

Hang in the Jay.... one thing you DO want to do is keep up with the water changes. Since you already have livestock in there you want to "Soften" the cycle. The cycle WILL happen at some point regardless of what you do or are told. It's one of those "Things" that IS guaranteed in life. By maintaining the water changes you may have "hidden" part of the cycle but it IS happening and it IS hard on your fish.

Also keep in mind that you don't have enough algae and "goop" for much of a clean up crew. You have enough stock in there for a 6+ month old tank. Let's just sit back... enjoy it and TEST TEST TEST!

good luck and hang in there!!

 

[BigJay]

thx Big Al. I just checked the tank a few minutes ago and the emeralds have already cleaned all the diatom off the sand. They went to town when the lights went off. They were an addition I didn't want to add. I got talked into them. If it wasn't for the presence of a little bit of nuisance algae on the one rock thats got amazing life I wouldn't have them. I never kept emeralds before I had no idea how voracious consumers they are.
I think down the road I'll swap the bio balls for an algae refuge but I really want to see the tank stable for a couple months before I touch them. If I do that I think the emeralds are outta here.
I 'm negotiating with on a couple up and running reef tanks right now a 90 and a 125 that I might buy this weekend. That will give me a great swap tank if things go sour in the middle of the night. I've always been addicted to live rock so I babysit it constantly so I should be able to catch it at the first sign of distress.
I just did a nighttime test right after the lights when out and I am still 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and 15-18 nitrates, my PH is right on but I added buffer today. My skimmer still isn't producing skittam though.will continue to posts test results. Keeping my fingers crossed.