cycling

[phoenixhieghts]

Hi All

I bought a qt and put the filter media in my main dispaly.
A few days ago i took some sand out of my main dispaly and placed it in the qt along with the filter media and a small peice of krill.
I have not witnessed an ammonia spike or nitrite spike, but the nitrates are going up.

Is it possible that because of the way i have done this the tank has cycled, so i havent had the spikes???

[MDeth]

Should not have put the krill in there for starters IMO.
What tank + filter is the QT tank? Not all filters are equal, so its possible its not cycled.

You say the nitrates are up, what are they at? And what test kits are you using?

[phoenixhieghts]

Oh, i've always been led to beleive that placing something in the tank to rot is a good way to kick the bacteria off.

Im using a moby **** as a qt - when i first started marine keeping i had one of these with 5 small fish in. Did me great until i upgraded! It has an internal drip filter and heater.

http://www.sicce.com/foto/prodotti_allegati_133.pdf

edit - the nitrates are at 12.5 mg/l compared to being at 0 when i first started

[phoenixhieghts]

bump

[Marlin65]

Sound to me like it is if you used sand and water from your main tank.
You were just waiting for the glass to become live. Its a small tank and by adding the sand from your main tank you helped it along a long way. (if you have good culture in your main)
It would not hurt to wait a few more days though just to make sure.

[Jason McKenzie]

A QT tank does not require sand really. In mine it's just a crappy penguin filter with carbon and a sponge Then some pieces of PVC elbows for the fish to hide.
You don't want anything that will hold medication like copper or other none reef safe stuff.
I do not run the QT all the time. When I need it I do a water change on the main tank and use that water in the QT. That way no stress to fish or inverts that need to be removed from the main system. or the other way around if it's a new fish/invert you will not need to acclimate it twice from QT to main.

J

[phoenixhieghts]

Hi

Thnaks for the advice - I know that they dont need sand or ornaments of anysort and i dont plan to put any in - i just did the sand to help the cycle (oh and to hide any fish poo)