ATM No Spikes?

[tim132]

Good evening everyone. So I'm 5 days into cycling with ATM Colony. Eco Reef rock, coral sand, 90 gallon system (Inc sump)

2 small clowns and 3 small chromis added an hour after ATM, small feed later that day. (Lost one chromis unfortunately but he didn't look good the second he came out the bag.)

Haven't seen any spikes in ammonia, nitrites or nitrates, gave another small feed on day 4.

Surely ATM hasn't just leveled everything out from the offset? Is the bio load enough with only small fish in such a large tank?

Perhaps it's just a case of waiting longer to see any substantial readings? (Salifert)

 

[brandon429]

You have done a successful fish in cycle

 

[brandon429]

It cannot retrograde, become undone or get weaker as long as the water isn’t clouding up, that’s the first indicator of a problem.

Once they make it this far, home free. If the bottle was dead bac they wouldn't have made it. Feed carefully no extra waste they'll be fine, today's bottle bac strains are this good agreed. Keep an eye on water clarity, change water to guide if needed

 

[brandon429]

Post pics please we study these skip cycle threads to better cycling science. You did what ten thousand people have done, and will do by September. It's the new wave.

Where your fish are at in there picture tells us more than any stated parameter, post a pic most current

if we could interject one tiny adjust to the coming wave, it would be to verify the bottle bac were active before adding fish, easily by adding liquid cycling ammonia to a very small degree and seeing if a common ammonia kit will pick up the slight dose. Then, check overnite to see if it’s moved down, that’s active bac can proceed.

how common is it to buy dead bottle bac? Infrequent. Probably as often as when we buy orange juice, open the lid to drink, and bam it’s rotten.

probably happens to some guy, or lots of web folks, but in my forty five years it hasn’t and in many more years it will not. I can confidently expect the next oj I buy from gas station chilled aisle to not be rotten and the next bottle bac any person uses to be alive X10000

 

[tim132]

Thanks very much Brandon, that's some excellent news and great info!! Really appreciate your time I'll try and get a photo up later!

 

[brandon429]

Ok great. How you cycled is where the hobby is heading and we just need to be able to study it from all angles, pics are final tie-in so helpful. You’ll be surprised at the cycling data the picture will provide as soon as we link animal placement, apparent surface area and number of days the tank has been running. We don’t need a single test kit to define your cycle status, also very 2020. *To do the pre verification of bottle bac we do need a test* but we don’t need a test to see what ammonia is doing after this long, in your tank.

these are updated and enduring 2020 cycle rules which make your tank predictable, even before pictures:

- ammonia non control is lethal, always, there isn’t an ‘irritation’ level free ammonia level sustained in new reefs. They either have the bacteria and surface area to handle X bioload, safely, or the reef tank doesn’t and the fish die long about when any other organism with lost kidney function would die, a few days max. number of days underwater plus fish in your tank plus pictures showing them distributed all around vs up top on their sides, we know your ammonia never hit pain or lethal levels. Pained fish act pained and we can see it.

- cycles will attain feed even if we provide none. A rain puddle cycles itself, no aquarist with their all-mighty fish food and liquid ammonia standing over, telling the puddle it can now cycle, required #of days with water known and from the time axis of a common cycling chart we can locate the expected ammonia performance. You got to skip that eight day wait due to using bottle bac, which moves it up to instantly controls, owing to your fish still being alive.


-having one tiny fish in 500 gallons or ten fish in 500 gallons is the same impact on cycling, the one fish version doesn’t cycle weaker, or slower, as rain puddles attain food from the surroundings so does every reef in every home open to the environment for exchange.

-nothing we do in a home shy of using bathroom cleaner in the tank stalls, retrogrades, or makes a cycle not complete. 100% of cycles complete on a predictable date relative to the arrangement, this is how they get MACNA reef conventions set up on time and why all cycling charts use the same date no matter which book or post we see them in, it’s how earth works. No booth that pays entrance fees to be there ever misses a start date due to failed nitrite or nh3, they use merlins magic I guess lol.

Reef forum cycles and cycle rules are 1978 mode, they wouldn’t make a projected start date for any amount of incentive. If a reef poster gets invited to tank up at MACNA, on time, they’ll miss. But if they change into MACNA cycling rules, they'll make the start date.

we are using MACNA rules here.

 

[tim132]

Hopefully a video and a few photos will be useful, certainly no lethargy in this tank!

I'm completely new to saltwater fish, having only cycled a tropical tank beforehand - which was cycled the traditional way, it didn't take long though. The general consensus looking online, youtube and one of my local fish shops (the other is old school and advised dropping a shrimp in cycle) seems to be pushing people down the nitrifying bacteria route.

Who wants to wait 4-6 weeks looking at an empty tank, when there's no need these days and with no detriment to the fishes health. If it's good enough for the Sea-life centres when setting up new tanks quickly in emergencies and whatnot, then it's good enough for me!

Oh, if you were interested. There's full box of TMC Eco Reef Rock and 25kg of Samoa Sand. Filtration was just 2 felt socks during the cycle. I'll be turning on my skimmer soon I think.

 

[brandon429]

Very sharp setup! This is a great representation of todays updated reefing gadgets and gizmos and dosers. This cycle simply can’t be undone, what has been dosed to the water took care of fish waste live time while in suspension, we can see—and by now has already moved to all surfaces where no degree of water change will undo the status.

the way I’m making that judgement call is by factoring in Dr. Reef’s bottle bac measure thread where each brand was tested after a full water change and found adhered by this many days underwater, plus the attachment point surface area I can see in the pictures and video. We know by inference your primary free ammonia levels weren’t much past .0x hundredths ppm at most, owing to the clarity of the tank and the fish health. no reef fish will tolerate reaching tenths ppm, as so commonly reported among wrong-reading ammonia testers.