Question about cycling with LR
 

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

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

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.