At the beginning or end of the cycle, I can't tell

SteveG_inDC · Dec 7, 2020

I thought I would have a precycled tank because I started with >100 lbs of rock that I took out of a mature tank and put in a bin for 9 months with powerheads. But I dosed ammonium chloride on Day 1 and the tank is still high in ammonia today on Day 3. Not only that, but to be sure, I dumped in 16 oz. of Dr. Tim's One and Only on Day 1.

This is a 240 gallon tank with a 100 gallon sump, which I estimate to hold about 210 gallons of water in the whole system. That's how much saltwater I needed to fill it after sand, rock, and equipment taken into account.

I'm using API test kits, but also a Seachem ammona alert badge, which is showing green. I dosed up to 2 ppm ammonia three days ago and it's reading in the 1-2 range today. I'm also showing zero nitrites (every day) and, weirdly, 10-20ppm nitrates, which makes me wonder if the rock is in fact cycled. I'm very confused. The picture may be misleading. In real life the nitrite is completely blue.

When I said the rock was in bins, I did not regularly dose any ammonia source, just a very occasional ghost feeding of flakes, like once every two months. Also, I took the rock out for a few days to build the aquascape, so any live bacteria could have dried out. I did cover the aquascape-in-progress with saltwater-soaked towels overnight, but who knows if that worked.

So now I'm not sure what to do. I may dump some more ammonia in, as the Dr. Tim's instructions say, but ammonia is already reading positive so I hope this isn't a dumb idea. At least it's fishless so I guess I don't have much to lose except running out of NH3Cl.

Any advice here? I keep hearing about bad tests, but I don't feel like buying 3 brands of tests for every parameter.

brandon429 · Dec 8, 2020

Steve I wanted to chime in. Cycles don’t do unpredictable things, they’re consistent tank to tank and since you’ve got a tricky one here

I wanted to chime in an idea

hardly any nitrate and very high ammonia no movement looks strange topically agreed -but- in pattern with cycle status threads we only have api and no verifiers aside, so the deal is not sealed

every action you took wasn’t antibacterial kp aquatics mails live rock just that way above. The bac didn’t die during two hours in the air.

first step imo is mini modeling. Take out a few rocks and put them in a paint bucket of new sw then in two hours after circulating take an ammonia pic, this is baseline zero bc the bucket is for sure zero

then add cycling ammonia just a tiny bit in intervals, test five mins after adding, and pic #2 is slightly moved up ammonia we are getting ready to test movement with this calibration. Don’t make pic two as dark as it is above make it barely darker than pic 1

then in 24 hours take pic 3 of ammonia let’s see if it stalls or matches pic 1. **if it’s moved up heavy on pic 2 give api a full two days to show down trend

the mini model allows total control over calibration and water column control vs the massive tank, plus in this test we are measuring adhered bacteria vs dosed bacteria

here is sample test from Jackalexander. He accidentally dosed eight ppm ammonia and thought he fried his cycle. He didn’t
we changed out the tank water and tested via movement

Pic one after wc

pic two he drove up ammonia barely

his cycle was fine it moved back

brandon429 · Dec 8, 2020

We didn’t factor any param except ammonia and now he has anemones and fish.

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

nitrate is a very handy confirming param for action it’s off kilter you show none, but then again yesterday we had nitrate test comparison posts showing fifty ppm spread among reads. You might actually have fifty ppm lol

updated cycling science only wants to know ammonia control. MACNA tank entrants who skip cycle to the show, then back home, only factor ammonia as well or they’d never make the start date.

in 100% of cycle ? posts Ill be on he hook for assuming the bacteria lived through what we did, not that they’re dead or stalled.

Some recent brightwell cycling tests that couldn’t move until barely one month wait had me doubting though, slow as molasses

SteveG_inDC · Dec 8, 2020

brandon429 said:
Steve I wanted to chime in. Cycles don’t do unpredictable things, they’re consistent tank to tank and since you’ve got a tricky one here I wanted to chime in an idea

hardly any nitrate and very high ammonia no movement looks strange topically agreed -but- in pattern with cycle status threads we only have api and no verifiers aside, so the deal is not sealed

every action you took wasn’t antibacterial kp aquatics mails live rock just that way above. The bac didn’t die during two hours in the air.

first step imo is mini modeling. Take out a few rocks and put them in a paint bucket of new sw then in two hours after circulating take an ammonia pic, this is baseline zero bc the bucket is for sure zero

then add cycling ammonia just a tiny bit in intervals, test five mins after adding, and pic #2 is slightly moved up ammonia we are getting ready to test movement with this calibration. Don’t make pic two as dark as it is above make it barely darker than pic 1

then in 24 hours take pic 3 of ammonia let’s see if it stalls or matches pic 1. **if it’s moved up heavy on pic 2 give api a full two days to show down trend

the mini model allows total control over calibration and water column control vs the massive tank, plus in this test we are measuring adhered bacteria vs dosed bacteria

here is sample test from Jackalexander. He accidentally dosed eight ppm ammonia and thought he fried his cycle. He didn’t
we changed out the tank water and tested via movement

Pic one after wc

pic two he drove up ammonia barely

his cycle was fine it moved back

Clever idea! Unfortunately I can’t remove rock as it’s all glued together in a giant structure.

I dosed some more ammonia in the tank last night but like a 2/3 of the 2ppm dosage since I just want to raise it a little more and I am running out of ammonia chloride.

For reference I am using the same test kit to measure parameters on my QT. Those Paramus have been as I expected. Very low ammonia despite many feedings/day, no nitrite and high nitrate. That has been cycling (filter media) for over a month. By the time I started testing it was already at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and high-ish nitrate so I never saw the ammonia or nitrite spike.