Young tank Nitrogen questions & advice

[Tigershark22]

Howdy!
I am looking for advice on how to proceed with a young 60gallon tank (3 weeks old). It has been reading zero ammonia, zero nitrite, and slowly building nitrate for about a week and a half. But over the past couple of days I have seen nitrate drop to zero. And this morning, ammonia is reading 0.25ppm. Still zero nitrate and nitrite. Phosphate reads zero as well. API test kits for what that’s worth.
After reading more context of setup and more parameters, have I made some rookie mistakes or is this nothing to be too concerned with? What am I looking at and how should I proceed? Huge thanks in advance.

Context:
50/50 dry rock & live rock for a total of about 70lbs, supplemented for 1 week (week 2) with Microbacter7. Have not dosed in about a week.
Fishless until end of week 2 after over a week of reading zero ammonia, zero nitrite, and building nitrate.
Current bioload, there’s a full cleanup crew (added shortly after I presumed the cycle to have stabilized) of about 15 hermits, a variety of about 10 different snails, a fighting conch, some brittle stars and pencil urchin from live rock. Small Caribbean Rock Mantis came with the live rock. As well as 2 clownfish, and a bicolor blenny that I added about a week ago.

Since the addition of fish, have been feeding Marine Cuisine once per day that all seems to be taken care of between fish and CUC.

Have noticed some of each of the uglies throughout the process but have been kept at bay by CUC, with the exception of green hair algae that became pretty prominent until I did some manual removal yesterday.

Operating Parameters:
80°F at between 1.022-1.026 SG (don’t have ATO yet).
8.0-8.2 pH
Alkalinity stays between 8-12
Calcium has stayed between 300-400

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

API test often shows .25 ammonia..... the fish are always pooping and food rotting, so there is always some trace amount of ammonia which quickly gets converted into nitrite/nitrate.

You mention you have algae, so the algae will consume the little bit of nitrate in your tank.

It all sounds good.

 

[danreef55]

Feed more. Multiple times a day if possible. Just do not feed more than can be consumed within two minutes. What fish do you have?

 

[Tigershark22]

API test often shows .25 ammonia..... the fish are always pooping and food rotting, so there is always some trace amount of ammonia which quickly gets converted into nitrite/nitrate.

You mention you have algae, so the algae will consume the little bit of nitrate in your tank.

It all sounds good.

Okay thanks for taking the time to read all of that lol. Just new and nervous because everything has gone seemingly well thus far.

 

[Solo McReefer]

have I made some rookie mistakes or is this nothing to be too concerned with? What am I looking at and how should I proceed? Huge thanks in advance.

I didn't see any mistakes

You're looking at a new tank. I am not going to tell you what to do. I'll tell you what I would do

Add a couple tester corals. I wouldn't epoxy them to the rock

I want to be able to pull the rocks out and clean the algae off them when that starts growing.

I would add a lot more CUC. And a couple small fish

I would not waste my time doing measurements. I would be doing 5 gallon water changes. Adding copepods


Add bacteria every night. Baster everything a couple times a day. Clean the skimmer cup and mechanical filtration as needed

And I would be adding more corals if the tester corals do ok

 

[Tigershark22]

Feed more. Multiple times a day if possible. Just do not feed more than can be consumed within two minutes. What fish do you have?

I have 2 Ocellaris Clownfish, one about 3in length and the other probably a bit less than 2in.
And a bicolor blenny of about 3in.

I have seen the 2 minute recommendation but I don’t really understand how to gauge that. Have been feeding marine cuisine after thawing, probably 1/4 of a cube, but the clowns seem to chew on a mysis shrimp piece for a while before moving on to another. Some sinks to the bottom for CUC but I’ve been letting the clowns graze for about 10 minutes since they seemed slow. Is 1/4 of the frozen cubes too much for one feeding?

 

[splunty]

We might be jumping the gun just a bit here.

Is this tank really only three weeks old? What "live rock" did you add? And after adding the live rock, did you add ammonia (and how much?) How long did it take for that ammonia to drop back to zero?

I can assure you everyone else who has responded is more experienced than I am, but it seems unlikely that this tank is cycling efficiently at three weeks old, even if it was seeded with true live rock.

 

[Tigershark22]

We might be jumping the gun just a bit here.

Is this tank really only three weeks old? What "live rock" did you add? And after adding the live rock, did you add ammonia (and how much?) How long did it take for that ammonia to drop back to zero?

I can assure you everyone else who has responded is more experienced than I am, but it seems unlikely that this tank is cycling efficiently at three weeks old, even if it was seeded with true live rock.

These are the discussions I hoped to bring about, in case there are any mistakes that need to be addressed.
I made the post out of fear I may have moved a tad too quickly lol. Fingers crossed that I haven’t.
But I ordered live rock from KP Aquatics. Incredible looking rock, and loaded with life.
I did not add any ammonia because it seemed that the die off was taking care of that. It registered at 2ppm starting after a couple days and remained at that mark consistently for about 5 days when I saw it begin to drop and start registering nitrite. This was shortly after I began dosing Microbacter 7 at the recommended dosage for tank cycling. Within 2 days from that it had reached 0ppm ammonia and nitrite had peaked and then went to zero. I did not add any more ammonia after this, but this is when I introduced the cleanup crew after seeing a good amount of uglies for them to consume.
Those parameters remained and I watched nitrate build. Added fish a week later, stopped dosing Microbacter7 at this point. Began to notice nitrate drop, but did have a good spread of green hair algae that consumes that. Fish in tank for almost a week now. And ammonia has read zero on API kit until today.

I believe that’s every bit of additional info, sorry for the length. Appreciate your input!

 

[danreef55]

I do not think your tank is still cycling.
Re-test for ammonia and nitrite just to double check.
The fish additions are a small bio-load.
Have you checked if any of the CUC have died in the tank?
Do the fish appear to be stressed?

Regarding the two minutes. Note if the fish stop 'picking' on the food. If they do don't feed as much. Smaller more frequent portions are better than one or two large feedings.

 

[splunty]

These are the discussions I hoped to bring about, in case there are any mistakes that need to be addressed.
I made the post out of fear I may have moved a tad too quickly lol. Fingers crossed that I haven’t.
But I ordered live rock from KP Aquatics. Incredible looking rock, and loaded with life.
I did not add any ammonia because it seemed that the die off was taking care of that. It registered at 2ppm starting after a couple days and remained at that mark consistently for about 5 days when I saw it begin to drop and start registering nitrite. This was shortly after I began dosing Microbacter 7 at the recommended dosage for tank cycling. Within 2 days from that it had reached 0ppm ammonia and nitrite had peaked and then went to zero. I did not add any more ammonia after this, but this is when I introduced the cleanup crew after seeing a good amount of uglies for them to consume.
Those parameters remained and I watched nitrate build. Added fish a week later, stopped dosing Microbacter7 at this point. Began to notice nitrate drop, but did have a good spread of green hair algae that consumes that. Fish in tank for almost a week now. And ammonia has read zero on API kit until today.

I believe that’s every bit of additional info, sorry for the length. Appreciate your input!

That's some excellent detail. Your tank thread is also super interesting and distracted me for a while.

It sounds to me like the live rock is handling your cycling for you. (It looks very nice too!). I would also recommend lighter, more frequent feedings like Dan suggested. Keep an eye on ammonia and don't let it keep rising. How much bio-load that live rock can handle while the rest of the tank begins to mature is kind of an unknown at this point.

If it's not obvious, don't add any more bio-load until your ammonia remains undetectable. As long as you go slow and steady, you should be good. And keep updating your tank thread for us!

 

[Tigershark22]

I do not think your tank is still cycling.
Re-test for ammonia and nitrite just to double check.
The fish additions are a small bio-load.
Have you checked if any of the CUC have died in the tank?
Do the fish appear to be stressed?

Regarding the two minutes. Note if the fish stop 'picking' on the food. If they do don't feed as much. Smaller more frequent portions are better than one or two large feedings.

Thank you. The fish do not appear stressed at all.
But now that you mention CUC dying, I forgot about a peppermint shrimp that has disappeared. It is possible the small Rock mantis got him, not sure how much a 2” mantis would eat at one time, but perhaps he is hoarding the carcass somewhere?

 

[danreef55]

Thank you. The fish do not appear stressed at all.
But now that you mention CUC dying, I forgot about a peppermint shrimp that has disappeared. It is possible the small Rock mantis got him, not sure how much a 2” mantis would eat at one time, but perhaps he is hoarding the carcass somewhere?

Doubtful but when is the last time you ran the tests? When did the shrimp die?

 

[Tigershark22]

That's some excellent detail. Your tank thread is also super interesting and distracted me for a while.

It sounds to me like the live rock is handling your cycling for you. (It looks very nice too!). I would also recommend lighter, more frequent feedings like Dan suggested. Keep an eye on ammonia and don't let it keep rising. How much bio-load that live rock can handle while the rest of the tank begins to mature is kind of an unknown at this point.

If it's not obvious, don't add any more bio-load until your ammonia remains undetectable. As long as you go slow and steady, you should be good. And keep updating your tank thread for us!

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it!
I’ll keep it updated for sure. It will either make for a unique “how to” with the sunken ship or (hopefully not) a “what not to do” lol.

And I’ll definitely be keeping the bioload where it is. I’m sure I’ve been risky enough up to this point lol

 

[Tigershark22]

Doubtful but when is the last time you ran the tests? When did the shrimp die?

Last test was this morning. Have been testing daily. Will do another one shortly as you suggest.

Can’t confirm the shrimp to be dead. I have pretty intricate rock work where he could be hiding, but the mantis also likes to roam the various live rocks daily. Last seen 2 days ago after a successful molt.

 

[Tigershark22]

Doubtful but when is the last time you ran the tests? When did the shrimp die?

Tested again. Ammonia back to zero. Nitrite, zero. Nitrate around zero as well.

Thanks to everyone for the advice!

 

[Tigershark22]

I didn't see any mistakes

You're looking at a new tank. I am not going to tell you what to do. I'll tell you what I would do

Add a couple tester corals. I wouldn't epoxy them to the rock

I want to be able to pull the rocks out and clean the algae off them when that starts growing.

I would add a lot more CUC. And a couple small fish

I would not waste my time doing measurements. I would be doing 5 gallon water changes. Adding copepods


Add bacteria every night. Baster everything a couple times a day. Clean the skimmer cup and mechanical filtration as needed

And I would be adding more corals if the tester corals do ok

I completely missed this yesterday! Thank you as well for the advice! Wasn’t sure if more CUC was necessary or not but it does seem that the rocks are significantly cleaner where the blue leg hermits are.