Cycling a tank
 

I've just started my first reef tank four days ago. I went and did a water test today and found 0 ammonia, nitrates at 5 or less, nitrites at .1 or less. The live rock in the tank has been cured, as for the live sand it did have a smell and I thought it would be enough to start a cycle. Should I have seen a rise in my water parameters already or may I have to add something to kick it off ?

How big is your tank? If you started with live rock and live sand you could have cycled that quick. I would still wait a bit for the nitrites to come down and complete the cycle

When I started my 29 gallon with live rock and sand it only took like 6 days and everything was leveled out

It's 150gallon tank.

how much live rock did you use

140lbs of live rock and 100 lbs of live sand.

Maybe someone else will chime in but i bet you cycled that quick give it a few more days and see what the parameters do

you can dose prodibio start up,if you like?also,PATIENCE is also good:wink:

I'm in no rush, I was just told that I should have seen some kind of higher readings when checking within a couple days of starting the tank.

It could be fine right now, it depends on how cured the live rock was.
If the live rock was taken from a mature tank and immediately put into your new tank you could have very little die off to give you much of an ammonia spike.
It's good you're not in a rush, and whatever the state of the cycle, make sure to add new additions spread over a period of time, not all at once.
Keep testing the water every few days to be sure.
You could try a fishless cycle to make sure that the ammonia gets consumed and that the bacteria colonies are established.

Your tank probably has not started to cycle. Throw in a dead shrimp and wait.