A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

brandon429

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THE GOLDEN EXAMPLE OF A SKIP CYCLE DAY 1 REEF

read that entire thread before you read ours. that's the heart of skip cycling. Everything we do going forward in this thread reflects on that ability above, in the #1 example of a no-bottle bac NO AMMONIA TESTING skip cycle reef.

It's cycle didnt EXPIRE, notice he's out to ten pages of updates and about ten thousand dollars in coral, started day 1 of the build. that's so key to what we're doing



second example


third example


this thread is solely to log predictions and outcomes in soon to be several skip cycle reefs. Macna conventions use this method to align hundreds of reefs on time, for decades.

among reef cycles, there’s one type that has none. Moving live rock among tanks does not cause dieoffs, even if an eight dollar test kit says otherwise. Here we will log visually- proofed cycles, not factoring any test kits whatsoever.

living vs dead animals will be the final say, not a test kit.


it will take a while to build this thread, as 80% of new tanks are dry rock starts and then fast dinos challenges. These are the old school holdouts dealing in pre cycled pre cured aquarium rocks covered in life and coralline, those transfer tanks without issue.


even if a common reef test kit says otherwise, watch as reefs are built during the process as we ignore false read test kits, which is all current cycling test kits.


The hobby, all formal written works on cycling, and any writing you can find on scholar does not account for skip cycling, so consider this the first account. If we are using bad science, expect gray water cloudy smelly dead reefs, lost money, unhappiness


but if you see happy reefs, bright clear vibrant and diverse, then you’re seeing truth in what bacteria do

its not about the test kit here, following those leads you to triple waits and retail purchases. There are visual markers on live rocks that tell you by EYE if the rocks are already fully cycled for filtration bacteria, that’s the kind of cycle we want to feature here. The easy ones, these are the simplest cycles in reefing as the total mode is lift out of one tank, set into another, welcome to instant skip cycling.

you dont add ammonia to this kind of rock, ammonia is for dry rock. This kind of rock is alive, even when you set it in new water, so enjoy it and quit stressing about not being given prior permission to skip cycle, we now have it.

to add bottle bac in this kind of cycle represents a profound waste of time and money and above all it represents pure doubt in what bacteria do


watch as the pages unfold how much doubt there is about what bacteria do. Read what the posters offer each other in example threads, see the trending. All cycles must be patiently re verified, only test kits give allowed start dates, this is what the hobby rules have set.

those are buyer’s rules, here we will be applying seller’s rules to each cycle in question.

this is how my lfs sells skip cycle live rock, and you can tell by its uneven pigmentation and associated fanworms and snails and pods crawling over it and real ridged coralline that it’s cured live rock.
B9C48132-CC3E-480C-BC90-C7C90449991A.jpeg

everyone’s rocks in this thread look just like these



here below is an example of common (and incorrect) cycle training common in internet forums



old cycling science is designed to sell you bottle bac at every whim, twist and turn in reefing. Our thread is a study in the polar opposite. 100% of every example here is a no bottle bac skip cycle, no wait transfer.

Your new reef can meet the start date for any reef convention using this method, its a zero wait time arrangement.
show up at the convention with your stuff in buckets, set up a tank, voila you have a ready reef for the same fish you'd be able to carry if you waited out another year. Showing up ready, means ready.

Or you could complete a move over to a new tank from your old one, at a new home you just moved to, and complete that arrangement on time because all these setups are simply allocations of already cycled rock. Nothing we do uncycles them.



Our friend Romadov was able to skip his cycle by bringing in cured liferocks that had the telltale attachments


here’s a skip cycle

A surprise popup skip cycle post where at week six cycle umps were in doubt of readiness:

 
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brandon429

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Second reference link


I think there are ten or fifteen sublinked skip cycle reefs ranging two years in that work thread of pure visual cycling, cured rocks, no tests with outcomes logged.

the trend: there is no allowance in anything written for reefing regarding what we did there for pages. Macna and all conventions use this method, it’s not mine, I just recognized 0% of the hobby caught onto the deal as I was strolling through Aquashella looking at reefs who never stood a chance of stalling and rows of buyers picking up bottle bac half destined for rock that doesn’t need any

Leaving out core cycle info from the books was convenient for initiating cash flow, in the least.




this method costs the sellers 0$ to implement a skip cycle to the convention, and back home, and they never stall or fail or miss a start date...but forums always stumble every single possible post.

isn’t that a fascinating market driver?!?
 
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brandon429

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Agreed it’s that simple. Not one single bad outcome can be attributed to the act

I wish you had some api data though during one, so we can see the panic meter show greenish yellow

live rock transfers commonly show positive for ammonia or nitrite traces

due to detritus casting, and over reporting of expected nitrification (just like we can find api showing .25 on years old reefs easily)


since people just moved rocks, they assume the reading must be right this time.

the rarity is finding any tank showing safe readings for both at the same time.

We have never considered a test- free cycling method, where every reef is ready on the requested start date. MACNA has surely considered that, and reefstock, and aquashella etc

all conventions use skip cycling

Third link


see how he was being advised incorrectly, then we discerned it was a skip cycle, and now things w be ok? that's why cycling specific to the type of rocks matters so much. we save time, money, headaches and worry when using updated cycling science.
 
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brandon429

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Here’s number three. We scared OP off from posting pics lol but read the clues in the thread, he tried to tell us a few times the rock was live and we kept pressing for the doubt mode
this was a skip cycle system. He could indeed make a macna start date on time with this rock. We do not add shrimp decay to live rocks, they show up ready.





Here's one where old cycling science made this reefer think that a live rock transfer cycle was not 100% ready:



old cycling science is bad, it takes money from folks by incorrect training and by selling peace of mind that isn't needed.
 
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brandon429

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#4

Directly skip cycle, mad benthics prove this, see his pics and known history for the rock.
 
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#5


Look at his pics.
 
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#6

an old one

look at his first set of proofing pics. There’s a living fish and an open fanworm, fanworms can’t open up if there’s dangerous free ammonia and fish won’t swim and eat normally, you wake up next day and they’re dead, this was yet another ammonia misread we easily identified.
 
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brandon429

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Another




took extra days to see the live rock pictures but it’s complete now. Notice how the live rock in all these different reefs from different sources look the same
 
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#8


Im going to add a label as to whether bottle bac were incorrectly sold to the reefer or not with each analysis going forward. If I wanted redundancy, I'd buy a car with four steering wheels.

or how about next time I order a salad, they give me sixteen spoons-> what harm is the extra right? well if they're charging for them...


bottle bac were incorrectly sold to this customer, old cycling rules at the LFS got them an unfair sale. They should have stopped him. they sold him once on bacteria from live rock, costing more than dry, then again on actual ocean water as their water source, and then again as bottle bac for a skip cycle setup. New cycling science saves us money and makes the man have to work for the sale vs 3x it and get hammered in forums.


#9
 
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NeonRabbit221B

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Brandon has rewired my brain to correct people on reefing and FW fish groups on facebook about cycling rules and misreads. The simple truth is that if you have live rock for a reef or established filters from a mature FW tank then your concerns about cycling are purely based off of retail using fear to generate sales.

If 33 adult cichlids can be skip cycled into a newly ripped clean 75G tank with only a couple filters pads then I should be able to declare "required" bottled bacteria additions to a new tank with live rock a busted myth. Put down the anxiety inducing ammonia test kit and trust in the established bacteria.
 
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brandon429

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Stunning full reef all high end corals, built on skip cycle rock let’s check page one. I think some corals came home with the rock :)
 
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every reef convention reef is the one from post #12, just a full blown reef of all colors... worth thousands, and we're standing there in awe wondering how they got all this compliance without showing up ninety days early to begin a three-parameter classic cycle.

and then the concern shifts to: yea but those only run five days, a convention, and we need the cycle to last longer


watch and see how many rocks from this thread ever uncycle for the life of this thread. they're alive and tradeable as long as wet, simple as that. permacycled indeed, that's the entire point of this thread is permacycling and the audacity of adding paid bottle bac in addition to live rock :) a little elitist cycling poke humor is generally good.

when we say live rock is ready, that means ready. adding bottle bac meant someone thought we had gaps left to accept new bacteria; we did not, live rock remains full even after transport. moving wet rocks among wet tanks never was antibacterial but if we thought it was, we buy bottle bac over and over and over and over and over
 
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Stunning full reef all high end corals, built on skip cycle rock let’s check page one. I think some corals came home with the rock :)
Been reading a ton of your posts on this topic and have to say this is eye opening for me because I had always drank the kool-aid thinking a reef tank cycle took weeks to months. Been away for a few years and came back to this and it makes total sense to me now. Using good quality live rock seems key.
 
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brandon429

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I need to insert a caveat or my chemistry friends w be disappointed:

earning nitrite compliance really does take a long time

and we can eliminate the errors of the dreaded dead bottle of bac by waiting out the proper times, and/or testing as oxidation proof before adding fish (to dry systems, these are all remarks about dry system bringups)

thankfully all my chem friends agree that live rock transfers are legit science and skip cycle consistently. how fast dry systems are legit ready for sure/ still being determined.

*the mailed live rocks can have dieoff we expect, overwhelmed cycling bacteria vs lacking any is the cause... adding more bacteria doesn't afford more attachment points/they're still full but overwhelmed by a dead mollusk.

for all the rocks here they smelled normal, that's big key proof of no dieoff, they were cured already of dying attachments long ago.

they came from a known history at the pet store, or someone else's reef and looking at the holding container itself would probably show brittle stars at the bottom, broken off but live fanworms, some pods scurrying, coralline on the rock in patchy places vs painted-on 100% total purple even color coverage which is clearly not real coralline
real coralline is patchy, whorled at times, stacked in little chip layers we can see up close, other small animals are attached, it has telltale signs that its not paint.

our thread here is 100% about identifying skip cycle ready rocks without any titration testing whatsoever. by vision and by smell and by known history of the substrate we can start every reef convention, testing is not needed when dealing in cured live rock tank transfers.


no cycling rules apply to us, and all the techies agree. but only our niche gets this pass

if you're cycling any other way then the forums want you waiting sixty days even if you've bought 3 day bac for $39 :)
 
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#12 doesn’t know theyre fully cycled yet, discovering so makes it like a Christmas present though


94D94957-25F8-4763-ADB7-CC9128E96E44.jpeg.jpg
 
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brandon429

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Do read that link above I could be wrong we are still tracing out origins of the rock

can visual cues mislead? it’s better than a Nancy Drew novel.




another
 
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@iMi


based on a recent post you made I’m curious for your input regarding the rocks we feature here


when does cycling a new reef require bottle bac, and when does it not? Our thread here is a unique set of rocks to say the least.

if there are cycles that do not require bottle bac to be added, how can we know when that is the case
 

iMi

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@iMi


based on a recent post you made I’m curious for your input regarding the rocks we feature here


when does cycling a new reef require bottle bac, and when does it not? Our thread here is a unique set of rocks to say the least.

if there are cycles that do not require bottle bac to be added, how can we know when that is the case

If the rock is cycled, the tank is cycled. Bottled bacteria is not needed, in my opinion.

Having said that, adding it will not cause harm. One cannot overdose bacteria. Its population will settle into an equilibrium based on available nutrient.

The only way to know is to test the water frequently and assess what's happening. That's just my two cents, but I've never cycled a tank for more than a week, including a heavily planted discus tank I had to move. The media in the canister and the drift wood were enough to maintain the cycle.
 
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brandon429

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In Chris’ ammonia post, he is using this rock above which is full of bacteria and has no attachment points for new. Would he need bottle bac in the context of this thread vs the one he’s titled as an ammonia emergency


there is one certain time we would never, ever add bottle bac to live rocks and it’s this time:


One way our thread is used here for cycle proofing is that it shows at no time can ammonia hover above safe levels for weeks in the presence of activated surface area, it’s why we don’t add bottle bac here or collect posts that do. It’s why we don’t use test kits known to misread as the cycle umpires.

we show that skip cycle live rocks stay locked in, as long as they’re wet, and moving to new tanks does not undo that and it never requires bottle bac. It works always, not sometimes, thats important to know in cycle troubleshoots - there is one kind of rock we immediately eliminate as suspect for free ammonia claims.

I wanted to show here that a soon to be pages long thread with hundreds of skip cycles remarks upon universal patterning for all reef tanks using cured rock transfers. None vary regarding free ammonia. All of them vary when using api or red sea to decide, those are the misreads.

Look at this thread. One single hitchhiker known to be associated with skip cycle live rock was spotted in the pic, turns out this was a skip cycle setup

see how skip cycle live rock is predictable every which way possible

 
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