2 weeks into cycling- help!

[joed77]

Hey everyone!
So I am about 2 weeks into cycling my Red Sea nano. I’ve got a good set up (equipment wise) and no live rock- just gravel and hard (dried) rock.
I’ve been using the Dr Tims products to cycle the tank. (Ammonia and Bacteria).
I follower the guide, and after dosing the ammonia for the second time, is where i have run into issues.
After the second dosing, I installed a seneye reef. Ammonia is low (0.01), but nitrites and nitrates are off the scale (have been for about 5 days) and pH is sitting at 9.0.
I’ve also got brown algae growing with a few small areas of green, and water had gone cloudy.
I did a 33% water change 24 hours ago, and the numbers have not changed (did this as per Dr Tims site saying I likely overdosed the ammonia).

i have a skimmer running and filter sock, I also have a mp10 wave maker and a radion 4 th gen light that I do have on for periods of the day (I’m not sure what setting).

Do I just keep going and give it some time? Or should I do anything else?

any advice would be appreciated!

happy new year- Joe

 

[glency]

Did you remove the filter sock when you added the One and Only?

Did you shut the skimmer off when you added the One and Only?

What kind of water did you use to mix with your salt?

Did you test ammonia before the second dose of ammonia? If so, what was it?

Im new too but used Dr. Tim's method. I actually found some of the instructions unclear, especially the PDF recipe. There were some steps in testing that were left out, or at least not clear, to me.

 

[joed77]

Yeh I did mate- all as per Dr Tims. (Skimmer off and no sock).
Water is fresh sea water from top of the tide (I’m lucky enough to live on the Australian east coast)

yeh agree about that PDF recipe!

 

[brandon429]

Wonderful seneye post

this cycle is fully done

change all your water so it won’t be cloudy and the ready filter remains stuck to surfaces given this long of a wait.

any time new benthic growths exist thats visual proof of cycling even if you didn’t have seneye…the algae you mention is a key bio marker of being ready to carry life once the wastewater is cleaned out.


post a full tank pic please and a snip of your seneye nh3 reading. This cycle was able to carry initial bioload safely on day one if fish had been input vs two ppm ammonia, and by day 5 ish all the dosed bac have moved into attachment.


nitrite doesn’t matter in marine display tank cycling, and we expect nitrate to read high or low it doesn’t matter. Fully running reef tanks in the forum run zero nitrate when cycled, it doesn’t matter what nitrate and nitrite read your cycle is all done. It doesn’t matter if nitrite is falsely boosting nitrate, both take a back seat to your verified ammonia control after dosing a suspension guaranteed to control ammonia.


before adding fish select a fitting disease prevention protocol or you can see in the disease forum they’ll likely die in a few months if this is skipped in dry start setups. Your tank is able to carry fish right now, prior to today in fact.

 

[brandon429]

Joed can you help us by getting a non digital reading of ammonia on your tank with the water as it sits now, so we have a live time comparison to the seneye reading? We study in other threads the different readings per sample between digital and non digital kits for assessing ammonia, if you could land a Red Sea or api ammonia reading to post as a pic so we can see it’s tube color against the chart you will help forward cycling science study.



Even the local lfs can run the test on your sample if needed, they’ll have a non digital reader of some type. We need the ammonia test, forget about pH measure for a few months here. I don’t run it ever, not once. pH is for fine tuning it’s not needed up front.

we don’t expect your pH to read correctly off the bat in an untrimmed seneye, in fact if we search out stated pH reading posts here pretty much everyone is approximating.

pH comparison posts exist there are many for searching, they show ranging reads on a given sample using different kits and even calibrated lab probes are found giving pH misreads routinely in the chemistry forum.

Is a 9.50 PH BAD?

Hello everyone , So my ph has been consistent at 9.50 for the last month I haven't done anything about it because my SPS are looking great but my zoas aren't opening at all some are even dying is it possible that the oh has anything to do with this ? Here are some pictures of my SPS;

www.reef2reef.com

It takes a very carefully calibrated machine to read pH correctly so don’t make reactions to the seneye pH your system isn’t at nine at all.

you need to focus on fish disease now that your cycle is done, constant detailing over further cycle status will take away focus from what really kills fish on Internet forums (they don’t die during a cycle they die a few months after we can see in trend)

post tank pics so we can gauge surface area and it’s activation by the benthic growth details mentioned

 

[joed77]

Joed can you help us by getting a non digital reading of ammonia on your tank with the water as it sits now, so we have a live time comparison to the seneye reading? We study in other threads the different readings per sample between digital and non digital kits for assessing ammonia, if you could land a Red Sea or api ammonia reading to post as a pic so we can see it’s tube color against the chart you will help forward cycling science study.



Even the local lfs can run the test on your sample if needed, they’ll have a non digital reader of some type. We need the ammonia test, forget about pH measure for a few months here. I don’t run it ever, not once. pH is for fine tuning it’s not needed up front.

we don’t expect your pH to read correctly off the bat in an untrimmed seneye, in fact if we search out stated pH reading posts here pretty much everyone is approximating.

pH comparison posts exist there are many for searching, they show ranging reads on a given sample using different kits and even calibrated lab probes are found giving pH misreads routinely in the chemistry forum.

Is a 9.50 PH BAD?

Hello everyone , So my ph has been consistent at 9.50 for the last month I haven't done anything about it because my SPS are looking great but my zoas aren't opening at all some are even dying is it possible that the oh has anything to do with this ? Here are some pictures of my SPS;

www.reef2reef.com

It takes a very carefully calibrated machine to read pH correctly so don’t make reactions to the seneye pH your system isn’t at nine at all.

you need to focus on fish disease now that your cycle is done, constant detailing over further cycle status will take away focus from what really kills fish on Internet forums (they don’t die during a cycle they die a few months after we can see in trend)

post tank pics so we can gauge surface area and it’s activation by the benthic growth details mentioned

Thank you so much- I’m at work today, but will post those details later

 

[joed77]

Hey!
So having got home after being away for 48 hours regrowth of algae on glass (more green tinge coloured) and water cloudy- this is after doing a 33% water change 48 hrs ago.
non seneye ammonia is <0.02 and dip stick pH is 8-8.5. Nitrites and nitrates remain high.

attached pictures show algae as best I can- very difficult to get clear images with cloudy water. They are trying to show brown algae which is all over the tank and wave maker and stringy green algae which is on the glass.please note baseline colour of rocks purple (purple tinged)
What should I do going forward? A further partial water change? Give it time- is this just the ugly phase and will pass?
TIA Joe

 

[Jubei2006]

Hey everyone!
So I am about 2 weeks into cycling my Red Sea nano. I’ve got a good set up (equipment wise) and no live rock- just gravel and hard (dried) rock.
I’ve been using the Dr Tims products to cycle the tank. (Ammonia and Bacteria).
I follower the guide, and after dosing the ammonia for the second time, is where i have run into issues.
After the second dosing, I installed a seneye reef. Ammonia is low (0.01), but nitrites and nitrates are off the scale (have been for about 5 days) and pH is sitting at 9.0.
I’ve also got brown algae growing with a few small areas of green, and water had gone cloudy.
I did a 33% water change 24 hours ago, and the numbers have not changed (did this as per Dr Tims site saying I likely overdosed the ammonia).

i have a skimmer running and filter sock, I also have a mp10 wave maker and a radion 4 th gen light that I do have on for periods of the day (I’m not sure what setting).

Do I just keep going and give it some time? Or should I do anything else?

any advice would be appreciated!

happy new year- Joe

You're cycled! As soon as nitrates show up, you're good to add fish slowly....

 

[brandon429]

Nice agreed. That tank needs cleaned out top to bottom before beginning. Time to export the feed and waste from cycling


lift out rocks. Swish them in clean saltwater and brush off those dinos make the rocks clean. It doesn’t undo the cycle


put in a sandbed vacuum siphon and clean out that sandbed refill tank with 100% new water. No it won’t undo the cycle, this gets the tank ready for use.


even if nitrates didn’t show up you’re cycled, we don’t depend on cheap test kits for cycling permission when a $180 tester for ammonia has shown compliance and the systemic growths indicate completion. Nitrate is absolutely not required to be detected in cycling, or that would mean tanks in the general forum stocked with fish and corals that post zero readings for nitrate aren’t cycled.

 

[brandon429]

Before you clean it out can you get us a non digital ammonia reading, say from api or red sea

we want to be able to compare what seneye reads there to what a non digital test kit would read on that wastewater sample before the tank is changed out and made ready for use.

 

[joed77]

Thanks for all the advice.
Just an update. I haven’t done the water changes, but I adjusted my skimmer and the water is crystal clear. The algae is more green now (see pic) and there is little/none on gravel.
Water change still necessary??

 

[Jubei2006]

Trochus snails and a tuxedo urchin would clean that up.

 

[joed77]

Trochus snails and a tuxedo urchin would clean that up.

Thanks- I was wondering that. Only issue is my nitrite remains high - any ideas? Was thinking I’d ride it out until it starts to come down

 

[Jubei2006]

Nitrite is usally quickly converted to nitrate and transient. I never saw the nitrite spike on my 525. It went from ammonia to nitrate. Have a fish store check it or get a different nitrite test. Bet its low or not found. But you should be good for .