Help Cycling new saltwater 10 gallon

Hi guys, new to the site and the hobby, I just started a 10 gallon fowlr. I started by mixing the salt and I have a salinity of 1.025, and I added reef sugar grained size sand, and 2 pounds of live rock and am going to add more once I get it cycled. I have 0 ppm of ammonia, 0 ppm of nitrites and 0 ppm of nitrates. My tank has been running for about 4 days now, Do I need to feed the living things in the live rock? Also I bought the live rock from a lfs and I did the smell test and it's been in a tank and they said it was cured, but I don't see anything in them. I didn't add a shrimp to rot because I searched online and it's not necessary for a tank cycling with cured lr. I'm just wondering when I should add some clean up crew.

 

Welcome to 3reef.

There is no need to add Live rock again. Dry base rock will be fine. Your live rock will seed the base rock.

 

welcome to the reef. 4 days is not very long for a tank to up and running. It takes a good year foreveything to seed itself and cure. I would get a cup of sand from a freinds tank or the lfs to activate you sand bed and wait. go slow let it grow!

 

At this stage, I would be putting a little food in there, like you're feeding a fish, to make sure the bacteria is processing the ammonia.

Do you have test kits for testing ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate? If not, get those ASAP so you can keep up with the cycle's progress.

 

Thanks FishFinder! Just a quick question, I've read everywhere online about seeding base rock, A lot of people have mixed answers about it. Like for instance that the live rock will never seed the base rock, other say yes and you do too!

Thanks Pennstatereefer! I plan on getting some live sand from the lfs, not the stuff from the bag

And Sushigirl, I posted my water parameters in my first post. And I dropped a few pellets of spirulina in there also. Thanks for the heads up!



Well today the tank is looking rather clear, I will post some pictures of it up soon! I'm off to get some live sand and base rock.

 

Yeah, I hadn't finished my coffee yet when I wrote that LOL.
The live rock will seed the other rock.
My point was, 4 days in and all parameters are zero means your cycle likely hasn't gotten started yet.

 

It's alright lol

From what I read, Since I added the cured live rock, it should start my cycle almost immediately due to the die off on the live rock? But I could be wrong..... Should I drop a raw shrimp into the tank? If I don't get any readings on the ammonia?

 

If it was a really short trip between where you bought the rock and your tank, there likely wasn't much die off. Pinches of food will work just as well as a shrimp.

 

Yeah it wasn't no more than 20 mins, If the mods see that I have 2 topics posted can you please remove the other one? Sorry Must've hit the submit button twice