Ammonia 0.25 After 1 month of Cycling

[jervismun]

Bro Jervismun, do I have to on the white lights for so long? I'm using 250W MH cos my tank is 3 x 2 x 2.5. I was thinking of turning on my blue lights for 4 hours followed by white light for 2 hrs then blue lights 4 hrs. Is that alright?

Bro TigerShark, the a couple lps was already on the live rocks which I bought from a fellow reefer who gave up reefing.

Err... didn't know you so power leh... got MH somemore... hahaha... forget about the blue light... it will act as a secondary role here, let's discuss about WHITE... 2 hours good for day 1 and 2... increase to 4 hours for day 3 and 4... further increase to 6 hours for day 5 and 6... you can remain at 6 hours for a while until you start to introduce more corals.

[bryanong]

That's to say that normal should be 6 hrs per day? I heard from the reefer who sold me the lights told me to turn on the blue lights for 4 hrs, 250 watts MH for 2 hrs followed by 4 hours blue lights per day. Is that wrong?

[KingFish]

bryan,

I'll make it simple for you.

The LPS attached on the rocks is dying because there is trace ammonia in the water. When it is decaying, it will release more ammonia in the water, thus killing it / everything else faster.

If you ask why isn't the bacteria breaking down the ammonia?

Its because there isn't enough bacteria processing faster than the ammonia production.

Therefore, your ANN is not complete, and it will take as long as any decaying matter remains in your tank.

[KingFish]

Using a protein skimmer or switching on your lights will not help much now as your skimmer will not be effective, and your decaying LPS is more concerned about dying than photosynthesising.

Its either remove the dying LPS from the tank, or wait longer for the cycle to complete.

Meanwhile, you can spend some time reading up the extensive information available in the SRC archives. Try the 'Search' function.

[bryanong]

Thanks for your advise. I have removed the dead lps from the rocks yesterday and hopefully the Ammonia will drop to 0. Will keep on monitoring it and keep you guys updated. Another query that I have is how long should I turn on my 250W MH lights and T5 ligths per day. Thanks once again.

[loster]

since your tank is still cycling and no corals in it... you don't have to turn on your 250W MH light. it is not necessary. you may want to turn on your T5 blue lights for couple of hour a day if you like to have some coraline algae grow on your rocks. but it is just optional and it is not necessary too... it is not necessary to run your chiller since there is not LS in your tank.

your lps that attached on the LR that died off is not the issue of the lighting... it will die when your tank is cycling with high NH3 and N02 in it

don't get yourself confuse. try to read more while your tank is cycling... there is no fix rule. just start it right and you won't have much headache later on