Tank cycled?

Hi guys how can i know if my tank is cycled? I had started the tank 1 week ago. With 50% LR from my previous tank. Tank was cloudy n smelly since i add in water and cleared on the 4th day. Dosing microbacter 7 daily. I'hv put in market prawn to kick start the cycle. Prawn was gone in 3 day. But ammonia was 0.25(salifert) nitrite and nitrate 0(api), no spike in any. 1 of the LR had a polyp of zoas still openning. Copepods starting to multiply already.

 

Nope not cycled. You will end up with nitrates. You have a detectable ammonia value so nope not cycled.

How big is the tank and how much rock approximately?

 

It about 1300l tank. I shd have about 200-250kg of rocks

 

Sorry it shd be 100-150kg of Rocks

 

wow 343 gallons of water, that is a big tank. Naw that does not sound right, are you sure about those numbers that would give you a ton of rock. If you added 100kg of cured live rock than I would expect a short cycle.

 

I would say 50% live rock from my previous tank. The rest are dead rock. Thats the problem when i did not see and spike in ammonia or nitrite after a week and the prawn was gone in just 3 day.

 

So do you need to move stuff from the other tank over?

I would give it at least another week with no detectable ammonia. If you have ammonia now and you move over live stock now you run the risk of a more significant ammonia spike.

 

I wont be moving anything in for the moment. Until confirm cycle is done. Probably i try to put another dead prawn in again and give it another week.

 

what happened to the prawn? it just dissolved??

 

Yup it was gone on the 3rd day. I just found the intestine floating around. And gone the next day too. Then my sump had a layer of dirty film so i assume it shd be ammonia. I tested for a few day the reading keep shoing 0.25 and 0 nitrite n nitrate.