Saltwater tank cycling problems.

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Hi, im starting a 15 gallon tank with 1 clownfish, 1 yellow clown goby and 1 cleaner shrimp. Im wandering if you need to cycle a tank wich is BRAND new and has never been used. Im having leather corals, zoas and palys. If you need to cycle the tank than maybe give me other things instead that are quicker like a link to an ammonia killer or something else. Remember the tank has never been used.
 
Assuming you are having corals you will need liverock with good water movement (X30 tank volume).

This is both your filter and what will start your cycle. When you buy liverock it will have a bunch of stuff living in it. When you set it up in your tank you will get a lot of die off and this will naturally cause an ammonia spike to kickstart the cycling process. In marine aquariums this is often referred to as "curing" the liverock.

From this point on it is the same more or less the same as a freshwater tank. Test your water regularly and do water changes as necessary if your ammonia is going over say 2 to 3ppm. Wait for ammonia and nitrites to spike and zero out and then slow stock your tank.

There is no safe way to speed up this process and it will take several weeks. Ammonia killers should NEVER be used in a marine tank. In fact you should do everything you can to avoid using all chemical products in a marine tank unless you know exactly what they do, how they work and how they will interact with what you have.

That is of course assuming you are using live rock. If you are using Dry rock or artificial rock then just cycle it using an ammonia source the same as you would a freshwater tank. This again will take a good few weeks and should not be skipped or attempted to speed it up. If you are going this way and can get a small amount of liverock it will help to seed the bacteria and jumpstart the process a little,
 
As mentioned above, having live rock will greatly speed up the cycling process. (In your case, I would aim to get around 40% live rock and 60% dry rock)

There’s also bottled bacteria that you can buy, which will cycle your tank very fast. I used Instant Ocean Bio-Spira, and cycled my tank in just 4 days.

After adding the bacteria however, I monitored levels for 1 week before getting my first fish.

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I don’t recommend you get any coral until your tank has been successfully running for at least 1 month. (During that one month, be testing your levels at least once a week)

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Do you have any saltwater test kits?
 

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