Aquavitro Seed lacking results - new tank

[rmoore311]

anyone have experience with Aquavitro Seed on a new tank?

I recently started up a new to me waterbox 135.4 and decided to start fresh with dry rock and live sand. One of my LFSs recommended Aquavitro Seed to get the tank cycled, and considering it’s a concentrated bottle for under $20 I decided to give it a shot.

I’ve gone through the directions for 7+ days and haven’t seen much in my results. I’ll be honest, I didn’t test the first 4 days knowing that it just needs to take time but I’m over 10 days into it now and hardly test any results of ammonia, nitrites or nitrates. The tank developed a very slightly algae bloom that made a few spots on the glass and sand but hardly anything at all.

everything I’ve read and the directions from aquavitro just recommend dosing the concentrate but I’ve seen a few people mention ghost feeding. I think that’a my next shot to get this tank cycled but is there anything I’m missing? Seed is sold like it’s a one stop shop to get your tank cycled but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

 

[14 foot reef]

I used it on 850 gallon system. It was a full 30 day cycle.

 

[brandon429]

"The tank developed a very slightly algae bloom that made a few spots on the glass and sand but hardly anything at all."

I claim this makes your tank cycled. we can prove it though/fun for this forum:

 

[brandon429]

100% Water Change

So in my previous thread, I had an ammonia issue that was out of hand. As suggested, I did a 100% WC and now i’m wondering when I should start adding fish back. If anyone has suggestions, let me know!

www.reef2reef.com

your tank will do what that one did

options:

go through the hassle of verifying then changing out water / algae feed for clean, as it is now, its why you can't get much of a reading. nobody trusts bacteria or their clear visual associates, we re-verify because we doubt what water bacteria do when added to water.


or

add some fish if that's your plan, visual benthic verification cycling runs 26 page threads we haven't failed yet


if you want tests to work, ammonia only is all that matters specifically not the other two, then that thread above will make your tests work.

because you have new growths in the system, nitrifying bacteria came first that you could not see. But now you can see what's on top of them, secondary and tertiary colonizers of the reef.

having to re-prove the cycle after we can already see its done (you used wet sand, also transmits in cycled materials, factored here) its pumping nitrogen into a system already selecting for growths, so expect more non reef growths if its left in place.

if that was my tank I would reef now vs later, because accurate microbiology sets the rules not uncalibrated colorimetric testing.

 

[rmoore311]

I used it on 850 gallon system. It was a full 30 day cycle.

Did you use it as directed through the full 30 day cycle? Any idea when you started to detect ammonia/NO2/NO3?

The tank developed a very slightly algae bloom that made a few spots on the glass and sand but hardly anything at all.

I claim this makes your tank cycled. we can prove it though/fun for this forum:

I threw in an extra Utter Chaos frag just to see how it would do and it hasn't melted yet but hasn't opened either. I feel like it hasn't really gone through it's cycle yet....

 

[brandon429]

We specialize in breaking the rules here heh.

Your reef is cycled, per above you can prove it, its not a guess. check out that thread. let me know which aspect sounds questionable after seeing his results

 

[brandon429]

when you have new growths in the tank, on the glass, its cycled. the way to prove it is really easy too


waiting 30 days would not have required bottle bac, they wrote those charts in the 40's I think. before bottle bac...


bottle bac speeds it up, to within a few days, per Dr. Reef's 90 page bottle bac comparison threads and the uses shown above too by 14 fr

bottle bac work, our testers dont work very well though, its why we only use 1/3rd of your testers above to know about a cycle, to prove it again if required beyond visual verification, actively keeping corals alive etc.

You dont have to reverify...its ready. if you added a fish, it lives normally. or if you add corals, they do what the current one does. the reason you must go slow in adding fish has nothing to do with nh3 control, the only param that matters, its due to disease control and adding any fish before fallow violates the only method currently known to work best.

if that was my reef, order of stocking would be:
more corals, practice light direct feeding, algae removal vs uglies setting in, practice water changes and keeping things clean.

some clean up crew if you were going to get some, they can go now.

begin reefing as you choose fish disease protocols, add them when the time is right, its ready for fish now though if disease was not a risk. We have many, many threads like yours on file from prior cycles, this is the summary.

 

[rmoore311]

@brandon429 I've gone through the first two pages now, while trying to work lol, and that process makes sense. If you're tank is cycled and you add some ammonia to it, it should drop within the 24-48 hours and confirm the cycle. I'll have to play around with that theory this weekend. Not saying it's incorrect or doesn't prove itself, just curious. I'd hate to throw in even a tester clownfish just to kill it if my tank weren't ready. Appreciate the link to that page and experience!

 

[taricha]

"The tank developed a very slightly algae bloom that made a few spots on the glass and sand but hardly anything at all."

I claim this makes your tank cycled. we can prove it though/fun for this forum:

I'm going to be wrong, but to play devil's advocate, i'll take the opposite side on this.
The OP has a bag of wet sand that's never seen ammonia. Had some algae consume a little N that came in the salt mix.
This tank is not cycled.
If OP spikes ammonia to a ppm or 2, lets see how long it stays.

 

[rmoore311]

I'm going to be wrong, but to play devil's advocate, i'll take the opposite side on this.
The OP has a bag of wet sand that's never seen ammonia. Had some algae consume a little N that came in the salt mix.
This tank is not cycled.
If OP spikes ammonia to a ppm or 2, lets see how long it stays.

interesting view. I honestly don’t think my tank has properly cycled yet so I plan to ghost feed for the next week or so and see what happens. Something just doesn’t seem right yet and after all, nothing happen last fast in this hobby

 

[brandon429]

why not do the specific test mentioned above which is 24 hours confirmation

then after it passes, still ghost feed three more weeks to a standard month charted cycle
we could already know your status with the easy 24 hour verification, then continue feeding

the verification run tests the predictability of ammonia control linked to new benthic growths, fast and easy.

if it fails you’ll have a large cheering crowd lol id run it

those speedy ammonia control timeframes were tested nicely here

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Call me old school, back in the day we placed a deli shrimp in a tank to kick start the cycle. When tank reached 1.5-2 ppm ammonia we pulled it out and waited sometimes weeks to months for bacteria to colonize and drop ammonia and nitrites down to 0 to make tank safe for livestock. With recent...

www.reef2reef.com

water bac is water bac pretty much, varying states of dormancy agreed. Fun to predict n test to hone down the mechanism