Startup with no cycle time ?

[Kinesthesia]

My sister set up a 110 gallon Oceanic tank on June 6th. Tidepool2 with Mag 12 return. 25 lbs of base rock, 17 lbs of locally purchased live rock, 60 lbs of aragnonite sand and 10 lbs of sand from my tank to seed it. She put in about six damsels to kick things off.

To my surprise, she has had no ammonia at all, and she's starting to get a little bit of nitrite (.1) and a bit of nitrate (8ppm).

Do you think she can expect to continue to have no ammonia and little or no nitrite ? Do you think it's safe for her to add more hardy fish (damsels, clowns, etc) ?

Thanks. I posted a couple of pics, but there's not much to see since she's just starting. http://www.kinesthesia.com/Fish/Cindy/index.html

Thanks.

[MontanaRocknReefer]

Cindy: Be very careful here, I doubt your tank has cycled completely yet. PATIENCE is the KEY here. Take your time and wait 2-4 months before you add anything else. JMO Johnny
P.S. That is a nice tank and nice pic of Rock with cave!

[Doug1]

I also would add words of caution. It appears there was enough bacteria on the liverock to convert the ammonia as evidensed by the nitite nitrate levels. 6 damsels in that much water with the limited amount of rock is prolly OK but I would still wait at least a mont for the bacteria population to spread over the rest of the substrate before adding to the bioload. If she plans on more rock in the future it will have to be seperatly cured to avoid nasty spikes

Yeah exactly what doug said. You need to show a bit of patience in the begining. Rushing in with more livestock will do more harm then good. As a general rule with me I do not add anything till I get 0 across nitrate, nitrite and ammonia.I would add more live rock if your going to add anything.

[Kinesthesia]

Thanks for the responses, and I can understand the caution. I would still like to know if anyone has any idea what she can expect in terms of readings.

I gave her husband, hereafter referred to as "the plumber" , plans and materials to install stand pipes but I don't think they are in yet. And I recommended the WonBrothers Titanium heater, even though I haven't had a chance to get one myself... does anybody have one that can say whether or not they are any good ?

Thanks.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Kinesthesia:
I would still like to know if anyone has any idea what she can expect in terms of readings.

The tank is probably cycling the ammonia faster than she can catch it. If your reading nitrite you had ammonia at some point. Same with nitrate.
There is no guarantee of huge cycles. Conversely, there's no guarantee that you can't have one later either.
HTH