I was kind of wondering this, but wouldn't there be some colour change in water in the test tube when I tested for No2 and No3? Even if it was only a soft cycle?

My problem with adding the fish I want to keep is that I already have the fish that are going into this tank. Right now they are in my main tank (which is overcrowded at the moment) the fish I'm adding are my four large angelfish (Queen, Emperor, Blue Ring and Blueface) which cost about $150-200 each. I don't want to take any chances with them, plus they all get along (for the most part) so adding them all at the same time would be better in order to keep the peace. My two perc.'s are also going into this tank, right now they are hosting in my large frogspawn. I would like to move them over but I don't want to risk killing off my/their frogspawn. I was thinking of getting a wrasse on boxing day... hummmm maybe I could add one of those?

I would get another test kit to see if the test kit is the problem.
I would not add your angels until you are certain.
BTW you have been around enuf to know that the dated practise of using fish to cycle a tank is simply not acceptable.

I used the test kit on my main tank and it worked fine, there simply isn't any readings of No2 or No3 in my new tank.

No worries my angels wont be going in until I'm 100% certain it's cycled. Even if it means waiting a few more months.

I know fish (even chromis who can haddle it) shouldn't be used to cycle a tank, but since I had the LR curing in a rubbermaid for 3 months before adding it to the new tank and since I used live sand and since I added some large pieces of LR from the main tank, I didn't think there would be too much of a cycle.

BTW if the No2 and No3 spike will it kill off the pods etc. that are already in the tank?

PS I do plan on plumbing the new tank together with my main tank once the new tank is ready.

It won't kill the pods.

Good to know thanks.

i think it cycled so fast you missed the NO2 spike after the ammonia spike and straight to NO3 but with the large tank and large amount of liverock you even missed this spike in the 2 weeks between tests.
as you said the LR was dead so nothing coming from it for ammonia in the cycle so the only ammonia was from pods and the chromis, and there just is too much water for them to create an ammonia spike.

Well if you were to plumb them together before you moved the fish you wouldnt have to worry about cycling the new tank. The old tank would look after the bio-load.

what were you thinking 3 chromis :surprise:

you need at least 3 tangs to cycle a tank that size.. :mrgreen:

Steve

Maybe, but on the other hand if the rock in the new tank causes any major spikes or problems (think of when Chin added just a few pieces of uncured rock to his large tank and he lost a lot of his nice fish) I could lose thousands of dollars in fish and corals. Not a risk I'm willing to take.

:lol: I'll keep that in mind for next time :wink: