7 Weeks- No Cycle: could I have done something which would prevent my tank from ever cycling?

[Steve Carlson]

1) Problem: (Growing Despair)
75 gallon, bare bottom, dry rock fishless cycle using Microbacter7 (per instructions) using new API tests.
Now at 7 weeks I still have a consistent 2ppm ammonia (initially from raw shrimp, and now Dr. Tim's ammonia)
but the ammonia level never drops, and I've seen no sign of any conversion to nitrite or nitrate (Api tests have always shown 0.00)
My 75 gallon cycle tank has no light, 80 degree water, lower salinity (1.020) and 2,500 gph powerhead flow.
It half full of Pukani rock (from BRS), I have a couple hundred 1" bio balls (for future quarantine tank use).

2) Background: (Bleach and Citric Acid)
I had a reef tank for 3 years, started with live rock, quick cycle, but too many pests made me decide to shut it down a couple years ago.
Now I'm restarting trying my best to avoid pests this time.
So after watching hundreds of online videos (i.e. BRS) I have been aiming toward a bare bottom, dry rock for a 120 gal display tank with a 40 breeder sump.
I prepared myself for the long "4 month cycle"
So I bleach soaked everything for a week in a 40 Gal Brute can (10% basic Clorox - no fragrances)
I rinsed and rinsed, then soaked for another week in city water, then used plenty of Chloram-X to remove bleach/chloramines.
I sat all the rocks out to dry in my furnace room for a full month hoping any embedded remaining bleach would evaporate.
I have a Hanna chlorine checker and my cycle water reads 0.00 chlorine (my tap water reads 1.98)
All this was due to fear that I wouldn't be able to get the bleach out of my rock and it would kill any nitrifying bacteria as soon as it appeared.
I also cleaned my pumps, heaters and protein skimmer in citric acid (and thought I rinsed and soaked them adequately - another 24 hours in RODI)

3) Last Friday (Ricochet)
After listening for months to BRS videos advocating the virtues of bare bottom, dry rock cycling, last Friday they put out a video saying they personally had now abandoned that approach because it was just "too sterile". What they didn't realize was that the bare bottom/dry rock model they thought they were emulating (from world wide corals) was missing the part where they were actually dumping a bunch of mature live rock into the tank to seed everything! (Cheating...) So the BRS host Ryan, bought a ton of Ocean Direct live sand and threw it all into his own bare bottom tank and encouraged his listeners to start using live rock or live sand.

Well, that's fine, but the whole point was to avoid starting your brand new system with all the pests from somebody else's "mature" system. I do understand this prior approach is just too sterile and the lack of the massive surface area of sand will create more problems than the ongoing maintenance it will definitely require. So I ordered a couple 40 lb bags of CaribSea special dry sand -- but instead of trying to get my live bacteria from live rock, sand or off coral frags, I ordered a bottom of Dr. Tim's Only and Only live bacteria hoping it will accomplish the same thing, except avoid the potential pest problem.

4) Two questions rear their ugly heads (Advice?)
A) Is my cycle normal or broken?
Is my unchanging cycle conditions unfortunately "normal" for a sterile cycle?
Or how likely is it, that I may have introduced some sort of bacteria killer to my system?

B) Cycle tank: Keep going or restart?
Should I just add the sand and live bacteria to the existing 7 week tank to push it to finally cycle?
Or does no drop in ammonia levels and the absence of any nitrite/nitrate indicate something is killing my bacteria
and given time, would kill Dr. Tim's live bacteria too?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer.

 

[terraincognita]

1) Problem: (Growing Despair)
75 gallon, bare bottom, dry rock fishless cycle using Microbacter7 (per instructions) using new API tests.
Now at 7 weeks I still have a consistent 2ppm ammonia (initially from raw shrimp, and now Dr. Tim's ammonia)
but the ammonia level never drops, and I've seen no sign of any conversion to nitrite or nitrate (Api tests have always shown 0.00)
My 75 gallon cycle tank has no light, 80 degree water, lower salinity (1.020) and 2,500 gph powerhead flow.
It half full of Pukani rock (from BRS), I have a couple hundred 1" bio balls (for future quarantine tank use).

2) Background: (Bleach and Citric Acid)
I had a reef tank for 3 years, started with live rock, quick cycle, but too many pests made me decide to shut it down a couple years ago.
Now I'm restarting trying my best to avoid pests this time.
So after watching hundreds of online videos (i.e. BRS) I have been aiming toward a bare bottom, dry rock for a 120 gal display tank with a 40 breeder sump.
I prepared myself for the long "4 month cycle"
So I bleach soaked everything for a week in a 40 Gal Brute can (10% basic Clorox - no fragrances)
I rinsed and rinsed, then soaked for another week in city water, then used plenty of Chloram-X to remove bleach/chloramines.
I sat all the rocks out to dry in my furnace room for a full month hoping any embedded remaining bleach would evaporate.
I have a Hanna chlorine checker and my cycle water reads 0.00 chlorine (my tap water reads 1.98)
All this was due to fear that I wouldn't be able to get the bleach out of my rock and it would kill any nitrifying bacteria as soon as it appeared.
I also cleaned my pumps, heaters and protein skimmer in citric acid (and thought I rinsed and soaked them adequately - another 24 hours in RODI)

3) Last Friday (Ricochet)
After listening for months to BRS videos advocating the virtues of bare bottom, dry rock cycling, last Friday they put out a video saying they personally had now abandoned that approach because it was just "too sterile". What they didn't realize was that the bare bottom/dry rock model they thought they were emulating (from world wide corals) was missing the part where they were actually dumping a bunch of mature live rock into the tank to seed everything! (Cheating...) So the BRS host Ryan, bought a ton of Ocean Direct live sand and threw it all into his own bare bottom tank and encouraged his listeners to start using live rock or live sand.

Well, that's fine, but the whole point was to avoid starting your brand new system with all the pests from somebody else's "mature" system. I do understand this prior approach is just too sterile and the lack of the massive surface area of sand will create more problems than the ongoing maintenance it will definitely require. So I ordered a couple 40 lb bags of CaribSea special dry sand -- but instead of trying to get my live bacteria from live rock, sand or off coral frags, I ordered a bottom of Dr. Tim's Only and Only live bacteria hoping it will accomplish the same thing, except avoid the potential pest problem.

4) Two questions rear their ugly heads (Advice?)
A) Is my cycle normal or broken?
Is my unchanging cycle conditions unfortunately "normal" for a sterile cycle?
Or how likely is it, that I may have introduced some sort of bacteria killer to my system?

B) Cycle tank: Keep going or restart?
Should I just add the sand and live bacteria to the existing 7 week tank to push it to finally cycle?
Or does no drop in ammonia levels and the absence of any nitrite/nitrate indicate something is killing my bacteria
and given time, would kill Dr. Tim's live bacteria too?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer.

Just curious why dry sand? If you didn't want the sand originally don't forgo it now, tons of BB systems running just fine. They just take longer to get "mature" / Super stable. If you want to add bacteria Live Sand would've been much smarter?

If you're 100% Positive no bleach remains, Dr. Tims or even Fritz Turbo Boost should get you going fine.

I have no experience with MB7 for starting a Sterile cycle.

Dr. Tims though is a 11/10 for me in terms of product quality.

IMO I'd dose the Dr. Tims, and then just say "**** it" for 7 days and not even test your tank. Take your mind off it, just go do other stuff in life.

Come back and check again on your cycle.

 

[Jekyl]

Could soaking in city water be the culprit? Can be full of various forms of chlorine and things like copper.

 

[terraincognita]

Could soaking in city water be the culprit? Can be full of various forms of chlorine and things like copper.

I don't think so. He took like 3 precautions to cancel that.

Additionally, I started up my recent 40G By using pure tap water to kill off all bristle worms and pests and let my rocks and live sand sit in that in my tank for 2 weeks.

Then added the salt after the fact, with Prime.

My bacteria also survived the tap water..... so... hard to think it's that.

I also live in LA. We use so much chloramine and Florides it's sick.

 

[arking_mark]

Give it a minute and the cycling police will be responding... Enjoy.

 

[Tamberav]

Always been able to cycle a tank in days with biospira ... I use it to set up QTs.

Glad to see BRS is ditching that approach. The cycle bacteria are not the ones they are having issues with..it’s the millions of other organisms we don’t test for. Dino or random unexplainable coral deaths are worse then pests.

Live rock for me all the way. I just keep it in a bin and inspect and trap then add pest eating fish and continue to monitor and in the end I have no issue with pests and can actually enjoy my tank as it is easy for a large amount of animals and coral, even difficult ones to thrive.

Have you tried adding prime? In case some is in there? My QT tank I cycle with biospira, tap water, and prime and it works great.

 

[arking_mark]

1) Problem: (Growing Despair)
75 gallon, bare bottom, dry rock fishless cycle using Microbacter7 (per instructions) using new API tests.
Now at 7 weeks I still have a consistent 2ppm ammonia (initially from raw shrimp, and now Dr. Tim's ammonia)
but the ammonia level never drops, and I've seen no sign of any conversion to nitrite or nitrate (Api tests have always shown 0.00)
My 75 gallon cycle tank has no light, 80 degree water, lower salinity (1.020) and 2,500 gph powerhead flow.
It half full of Pukani rock (from BRS), I have a couple hundred 1" bio balls (for future quarantine tank use).

2) Background: (Bleach and Citric Acid)
I had a reef tank for 3 years, started with live rock, quick cycle, but too many pests made me decide to shut it down a couple years ago.
Now I'm restarting trying my best to avoid pests this time.
So after watching hundreds of online videos (i.e. BRS) I have been aiming toward a bare bottom, dry rock for a 120 gal display tank with a 40 breeder sump.
I prepared myself for the long "4 month cycle"
So I bleach soaked everything for a week in a 40 Gal Brute can (10% basic Clorox - no fragrances)
I rinsed and rinsed, then soaked for another week in city water, then used plenty of Chloram-X to remove bleach/chloramines.
I sat all the rocks out to dry in my furnace room for a full month hoping any embedded remaining bleach would evaporate.
I have a Hanna chlorine checker and my cycle water reads 0.00 chlorine (my tap water reads 1.98)
All this was due to fear that I wouldn't be able to get the bleach out of my rock and it would kill any nitrifying bacteria as soon as it appeared.
I also cleaned my pumps, heaters and protein skimmer in citric acid (and thought I rinsed and soaked them adequately - another 24 hours in RODI)

3) Last Friday (Ricochet)
After listening for months to BRS videos advocating the virtues of bare bottom, dry rock cycling, last Friday they put out a video saying they personally had now abandoned that approach because it was just "too sterile". What they didn't realize was that the bare bottom/dry rock model they thought they were emulating (from world wide corals) was missing the part where they were actually dumping a bunch of mature live rock into the tank to seed everything! (Cheating...) So the BRS host Ryan, bought a ton of Ocean Direct live sand and threw it all into his own bare bottom tank and encouraged his listeners to start using live rock or live sand.

Well, that's fine, but the whole point was to avoid starting your brand new system with all the pests from somebody else's "mature" system. I do understand this prior approach is just too sterile and the lack of the massive surface area of sand will create more problems than the ongoing maintenance it will definitely require. So I ordered a couple 40 lb bags of CaribSea special dry sand -- but instead of trying to get my live bacteria from live rock, sand or off coral frags, I ordered a bottom of Dr. Tim's Only and Only live bacteria hoping it will accomplish the same thing, except avoid the potential pest problem.

4) Two questions rear their ugly heads (Advice?)
A) Is my cycle normal or broken?
Is my unchanging cycle conditions unfortunately "normal" for a sterile cycle?
Or how likely is it, that I may have introduced some sort of bacteria killer to my system?

B) Cycle tank: Keep going or restart?
Should I just add the sand and live bacteria to the existing 7 week tank to push it to finally cycle?
Or does no drop in ammonia levels and the absence of any nitrite/nitrate indicate something is killing my bacteria
and given time, would kill Dr. Tim's live bacteria too?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer.

So b4 the cycle police inundate you. My thoughts...
1. Your tank rock is fine.
2. Adding dry sand is fine...if that's the way you want to go.
3. Just follow the Dr. Tims instructions and you should be good to go.

 

[Oldreefer44]

My advice: just be patient. Without live rock and or sand cycling can take awhile. Several weeks is not uncommon.

 

[Garf]

According to a post you made here, last week, ammonia was only 0.25;

Does bag of dry sand contain pests and need to be sterilized?

I'm restarting a tank after a 2 year break and want to avoid pests. I've bleached my old rock and equipment but have a 4 year old bag of unused dry Aragonite. Can I consider that substrate pest free at this point to rinse in RODI water and add to my cycle tank? Or should it still be sterilized...

www.reef2reef.com

This may have been an API test anomaly. So you may not have added hardly any ammonia for the first 4 weeks with the shrimp.
Your post on this thread states you’ve waited 7 weeks but the thread last week said 4 weeks.
When did you add the 2ppm ammonia?

 

[terraincognita]

My advice: just be patient. Without live rock and or sand cycling can take awhile. Several weeks is not uncommon.

He is adding "live bacteria" though, so it's not really an old school "sterile" cycle per se.

 

[brandon429]

its not policing to simply name a date a person can begin safely keeping reef animals. its an artform

especially when 99.9% of the other readers want the op to wait weeks more, as long as it takes for total compliance on all three params.

lots of $ on the line I'd like to think, and not much room for error. cycling predictions are the most fun because things die when wrong.

the tank above was cycled when the date on Dr Tim's bottle bac said it would be ready, we are twice over that wait period. change water as much as you can, that's the standard practice to streamline all the varying things people add for cycles, and begin. you are done. no testing is needed further, you met the time duration portion for a complete cycling chart plus the tests being used are shown on google to misread nearly all the time in some way shape or form. you've met duration timeframes, call it a done day.

 

[brandon429]

why wont ammonia drop here?

same reason it didn't drop for these folks, and nothing was added to spike it either:

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

sometimes non digital test kits just mislead. Look at the seneye readings in the link, there’s no way anyone’s nh3 sticks in place.

 

[arking_mark]

team its not policing to simply name a date a person can begin safely keeping reef animals. its an artform

especially when 99.9% of the other readers want the op to wait weeks, as long as it takes for total compliance on all three params.

lots of $ on the line I'd like to think, and not much room for error. cycling predictions are the most fun because things die when wrong.

the tank above was cycled when the date on Dr Tim's bottle bac said it would be ready, we are twice over that wait period. change water as much as you can, that's the standard practice to streamline all the varying things people add for cycles, and begin. you are done. no testing is needed further, you met the time duration portion for a complete cycling chart plus the tests being used are shown on google to misread nearly all the time in some way shape or form. you've met duration timeframes, call it a done day.

Please read the OP's post. I believe he has ordered and not used Dr. Tims yet. If he is reading ammonia...he probably isn't cycled

 

[brandon429]

even without Dr. Tim's, Ill offer:

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Did the online calc indicate to use one mil in the tank for your gallonage

www.reef2reef.com

duration alone, no bottle bac assistance would still be cycled. He's fed the system. MSteven's work there (page 97 not all the pages, a specific entry for us here before bottle bac added) reminds us how free the cycling bacteria can be.

I wouldn't assume that someone's fed/circulating vat of water and high surface area rocks and sand wouldn't cycle in seven weeks but I know most would assume directly that.

still haven't found that elusive stalled cycle. there are none.

your cycle is fixed now/how is that not fun.

 

[Garf]

even without Dr. Tim's, Ill offer:

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Did the online calc indicate to use one mil in the tank for your gallonage

www.reef2reef.com

duration alone, no assistance would still be cycled. He's fed the system.

With no ammonia?

 

[brandon429]

I thought it was totally relevant to post a cycling thread at 8 weeks ran on a seneye adding nothing, showing to be cycled when tested correctly, and then factor in all the feed added here plus the time wait.

seemed like a logical way to deduce the cycle?


you guys got any links I could read in return>

 

[arking_mark]

I thought it was totally relevant to post a cycling thread at 8 weeks ran on a seneye adding nothing, showing to be cycled when tested correctly, and then factor in all the feed added here plus the time wait.

seemed like a logical way to deduce the cycle?


you guys got any links I could read in return>

Assuming the OPs measurements are correct and there is high ammonia levels, your still willing to say cycled and go add fish?

 

[polyppal]

Some of those bottle bacterias can die from extreme heat/cold or expire. Have heard it happen often with MB7... I had a bottle of Microbacter7 that didn't do anything after a month and the cycle stalled. Switched to Frittzyme 9 and it cycles my tanks in about 2 weeks.

 

[arking_mark]

Assuming the OPs measurements are correct and there is high ammonia levels, your still willing to say cycled and go add fish?

Let me add...because of a related post?

 

[brandon429]

Mark

after his big water change. we always do that for streamlining.

but do I think the tank has free ammonia above hundredths ppm? no, per the false ammonia link that's just another day in the park for api.

I am 100% sure this cycle is done, after he changes water. can begin reefing, the biofilter is simply set by every measure updated cycling science uses.

with that tank pic we need, we can assess water clarity and he can tell us if his house smells from the tank as extra verifiers.

do not buy anything for this cycle or you are throwing away cash. Tossing it out the window, your cycle is done.