Question about cycling with LR

[Llamarama]

Hiya!~
This might be a bit of a noob question but having dealt with only FW i'm not sure what the difference is.
We put together a 25Gal tank filled it with sand and SW and added about 20 LBS of cured live rock to start with and get the cycle going....
It's been 3 weeks and ammonia is reading 0 but nitrite is 5ppm + and nitrate is 0
Could there be some reason the bacteria turning nitrite to nitrate is not growing? is there a way to speed it up?

you are on your way it takes time I would add a bit more LR to help along the process. your nitrate should start going up but if you have algae growing you can get a false negative as algae uses the nitrates as food so it is there but it is being consumed.

When i start a new tank I start with some live sand and the second week I add some Live rock and the 3 week I add more live rock. I barley notice a cycle at all I also use cycle in week 1 and 3 this helps the bio filter get established.

Bill

[Llamarama]

thanks I was told to stay away from live sand from the chain stores since there's no expire date on them so we just got a big bag of aragonite sand ...planning on getting about another 10-15 lbs of live rock in the next few days so maybe that will help

thanks

[naesco]

Originally Posted by Llamarama

Hiya!~
This might be a bit of a noob question but having dealt with only FW i'm not sure what the difference is.
We put together a 25Gal tank filled it with sand and SW and added about 20 LBS of cured live rock to start with and get the cycle going....
It's been 3 weeks and ammonia is reading 0 but nitrite is 5ppm + and nitrate is 0
Could there be some reason the bacteria turning nitrite to nitrate is not growing? is there a way to speed it up?

Patience. You are almost there.
You do not have to add more sand or rock at this time and you will not risk a re cycle.
Remember wait a month after the cycle to add your first fish and add one fish each month unless they are tiny.