Back into the hobby

[Reef Jedi]

Welcome to R2R! The best community out of the water. Is that a biocube? I haven’t seen on in a while. Personally I tried the fish less cycle, gave up on week 3 and didn’t have the patience. Dumped a bunch of turbo start 9000 and added a pair of clowns. Tank cycled so much faster that way.

Yes sir it's the biocube 32. Wanted to go slow and will upgrade in a few years

I started in 2002 with that same tank and boy did I fall in love with the hobby. 23 years later I’m still In it and have a much bigger tank now lol seeing the picture of your biocube brought back so many memories. Super cool!

 

[Anna K]

Welcome to the community Steve! What made you jump in after a 18 year hiatus?

 

[fishface NJ]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[Tronicsfixer]

Welcome to the community Steve! What made you jump in after a 18 year hiatus?

I miss my clownfish and shrimps. I loved having my tank and watching my babies swim about.

 

[Jimbhoy13]

Welcome to R2R and back to the salty world Steve.

 

[ReefQuestCorals]

Welcome back to your addiction!

Here is how I perform a fishless cycle:

- Set up new tank using RODI (any chlorine/chloramine will kill the bacteria)
- Let fresh saltwater mix at least 24 hours so the PH has risen and wont affect the nitrifying bacteria you will be dosing. Low or high fluctuations in PH can affect the bacteria.
- DrTim's Ammonium Chloride Solution dosed to achieve 2ppm ammonia .
- I used Brightwell MicroBacter Start XLM but other great products such as Fritz TurboStart, DrTim's One & Only, ect.. Dose according to directions.
- After ammonia has started to drop and is under 1ppm or undetectable I dose ammonium chloride again to achieve 2ppm and should see the ammonia lower under 1ppm/undetectable within 24 hours which tells me the nitrifying bacteria are able to efficiently consume the ammonia.
- Once you have achieved 0 ammonia then you are ready for fish and can make a water change if needed.

Some have noticed high levels of Nitrate after this type of cycle, I have not seen this issue and Nitrate was under 20ppm within 1 week after cycle without any water change. This method took my tank 2 weeks to complete the ammonia cycle

I'm using dr tims ammonia, dr tims one and only, RODI water, caribsea live sand and marco rock reef saver. I'm on day 9 where it says to add fish. Going to do a test again in a little while to see where I'm at. Yesterday my ammonia was 1.5 on my red sea test kit and 1 on the nitrite.

Very nice! Sounds like you're trucking along!

Something to look at since you are doing a dry rock cycle, i used AF Life Source and it really has helped my new system get through the ugly phase and give the system that extra bump in the biome. Which is very helpful imo when not using established rock

 

[Tronicsfixer]

Very nice! Sounds like you're trucking along!

Something to look at since you are doing a dry rock cycle, i used AF Life Source and it really has helped my new system get through the ugly phase and give the system that extra bump in the biome. Which is very helpful imo when not using established rock

I'll have to get some. Thank you :)

 

[CoralB]

Welcome !!

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Welcome to Reef2Reef

 

[CoastieCorals]

Welcome!

 

[annaolivia]

Welcome back to the reefing hobby! It’s always inspiring to see people return after years—it really shows how deep the passion runs. I recently restarted one of my own hobby projects and while researching some automation tools, I came across Bloxstrap’s rollback method for managing updates more efficiently in certain scripts and systems. If anyone’s into technical optimizations outside reefing too, this site might interest you: Best of luck with your Biocube 32 cycle—looking forward to seeing updates!

 

[annaolivia]

Welcome back to the reefing hobby! It’s always inspiring to see people return after years—it really shows how deep the passion runs. I recently restarted one of my own hobby projects and while researching some automation tools, I came across Bloxstrap’s rollback method for managing updates more efficiently in certain scripts and systems. If anyone’s into technical optimizations outside reefing too, this site might interest you: Best of luck with your Biocube 32 cycle—looking forward to seeing updates!

 

[annaolivia]

Welcome back to the reefing hobby! It’s always inspiring to see people return after years—it really shows how deep the passion runs. I recently restarted one of my own hobby projects and while researching some automation tools, I came across Bloxstrap’s rollback method for managing updates more efficiently in certain scripts and systems. If anyone’s into technical optimizations outside reefing too, this site might interest you: Best of luck with your Biocube 32 cycle—looking forward to seeing updates!

 

[Ocean_Queenie]

Hello & Welcome!

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

Cool tank Steve. Its 100 here today so I am not really enjoying the day.

 

[Freenow54]

Hello,
My name is Stephen (steve) and after being out of the hobby in 2007 due to an aquarium leak that took out my whole tank, I decided to come back. I also just moved to Mississippi. I never done a fishless cycle before so this is all new to me. Any advice would be awesome :)

Thank you and hope yall are having a great day

Its A Passion Steve. I have an entire article on fishless cycling. There is no Author or any link I can provided. A goggle search should produce lots of avenues. I would be happy to provide you with the article but it will take me a lot of time. If you can find one it would be better. Let me know actually glad to help

 

[Shnetts]

Welcome to r2r!!!

 

[Peace River]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!!!

 

[Buckster]

Hello Steve and Welcome back to the hobby and to R2R! You have been provided with some good advise. I won't say more!

 

[Fish Styx]

Greetings and welcome to the reef!