Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperFudge
Melina,
Your ammonia/nitrites may not spike at all, depending on where the rock came from.
If it was already cured, likley you will avoid the cycle altogether.
The skimmer is different for everyone, ive seen them start skimming 10 minutes later, and ive seen them take a week to start.
Make sure the air intake for the skimmer is just about fully open, and the water level in the skimmer is adjusted to (usually) about the base of the cone.
Usually the skimmer is unstable in a new system as the water is pretty much sterile, so i wouldnt expect it to perform normally this soon.
Marc.
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Hey Marc, the rock came from Hidden Reef
but it came by bus and was in transit for almost 36 hours
so when it got to me there was some die off on a couple of the rocks... I had to scrape some black stuff off and I know I didn't do as thorough a job as I should have done. (I asked for the rock to get here on Thursday because my husband was going to be home that day and I wanted him to watch the kids while I cleaned the rock. But instead of arriving in the morning like I had hoped, it only came in on the evening bus, 30 minutes before Patrick had to start his night shift. So, I was alone to clean the rock and take care of my two young kids, which was more than I could handle (my son is 5 months old)... so anyway, I swished the rock around in a bucket of saltwater and scraped off what I could with my fingers but I can see now that the rock is in the tank, there is still some stuff dying on the rock.. I was going to scrape it off with a new toothbrush and do a 20% waterchange... it's not a lot of die-off, just in the holes (pores) on a couple pieces of rock, there is still some greyish dying stuff. So I'm thinking I am going to have a cycle, maybe it just hasn't started yet? I'll check my ammonia/nitrites again today.
I see a thin brownish film forming in the neck of the skimmer now, I guess this coating is what's going to allow the skimmate to rise up through the tube... good sign.