how to figure when your cycle is done

hm? wht do you mean didnt notice? And Im gonna make it ree tank.
Gonna keeep fish, aman, and corals =). How much longer do i wait?

 

i didnt remember whatyou said when you first started the thread in regards to tank type. you will need to check for phosphates and since its gonna be reef. you will also need to check for calcium and dkh for your corals. eventually you will want to get one for mag also.

 

when poeple usually refer to cycles being over that is for ammonia and nitrite only, nitrate levels can be present, but should be under 20ppm really. One thing to watch though is ph, ph will swing on every tank, but after awhile the daily changes should be pretty low. In a newly cycled tank they tend to be a little further and in some tanks even after ammonia and nitrite settle, the ph is swinging wildly. Just some things to consider, I think all the members here are alluded to this but I went through all the trouble of typing....

 

So..what can I do at the moment? Should I do water chance? or just leave it alone?

 

leave it alone until your nitrites drop to 0

~Will.

 

any idea how many weeks that can take?

 

The best thing to do is start working on the things that will keep your levels in check.
1. Add as much pre established live rock as you can. Check craigslist and your local paper for people getting out of the hobby or selling rock
2. If you have a refugeum add some cheato to start the nitrate reduction
3. get your calcium alk and ph levels up
4. get your test kits for calc, alk, phosphates, ph, nitrate

Remember the most important things for coral are calcium at 420, DKH at 8-12, ph 8.3, phosphates 0
When those things are done you can add a toadstool or other leather coral. If they stay open all day your levels are good.
Algea and bacteria are not a good judge of cycle because they may continue even after cycle is done.
Your test kits will tell you when your cycle is done.
Even after the cycle is done though add life to the tank slow. Give a week between different life additions until the reef is at least 6 months old. At that point you need to only limit your self by the max water volume.

At least thats what I was told

 

the initial cycle lasts until the NH3,4 and NO 3,4 is almost 0, every time you feed or when the fish do what they do a small cycle happens, having a system set up to handle it is important.

 

can i add chaeto in the biocube mid section of the filter? Where the bio balls are?