Quote:
Originally Posted by New2Salt  Im still in a cycling period??? Hmmmmmmmmm...
This tank was established for a year, and I used 50% of the water.
I haven't had a spec of ammonia or nitrites in this tank for 3 weeks. I started with a reading of .25 for ammonia on days 1 and 2, probably because of some LR die-off in transport.
I am new to salt, but I have kept fresh water tanks since I was 12 years old, and I completely disagree. In fact, I will come right out and say you are wrong, this tank is not cycling. Testing to see if a tank is cycling is very objective. Test kits remove the guesswork.
I am well aware the only thing that needs correcting is calcium and phosphates. No offense, but did you read the post? That was the entire basis of this post. I also know that 1450 is great, but I believe either the test tube wasn't clean, or the guy didn't use a full 5ml of my water, because it doesn't make sense that the calcium supplement is doing nothing.
Thanks for replying, but like I said, there is no cycle going on. When I make it to the LFS late this afternoon, I will figure it out (hopefully).
With all that said, I created this thread to see if anyone has any feedback, and since you said you are experiencing "similar" things, Im curious to see what you are experiencing. But if your tank is going through a nitrogen cycle, believe me, we are not experiencing the same thing. |
It does not matter how long the tank was set up before you moved it because if you moved it, you're going to have a mini-cycle whether you like it or not. Using 50% of the water from the existing tank doesn't really add any benefit at all as there is no bacteria in the water, only in the rock and sand. If you moved that rock and sand from one tank to another, it doesn't matter how far the move is, you're going to have some die off and as a result, you will have a cycle. How long exactly were the rock and sand out of the water when you made the move and how far did you move the tank to?
Now, all that being said, you said that the tank wasn't well maintained to begin with so it's quite possible that the rock has absorbed alot of phosphate and other crap which is now leaching back into your system. Ignore the manufacturor's recommendation and run the entire phosphate sponge until it is exhausted and then replace it immediately once it has. Run a good carbon and do water changes with r.o./d.i. water to remove excess phosphates. I assume you're testing your r.o./d.i. water for phosphates, ammonia, nitrates and the like?
