Bare bottom cycling

[BeanAnimal]

Pretty easy to source them as CB, that’s what I have. Actually several in stock aquacultured online. My male actually has eggs in his mouth at the moment.

But sure damsels are fine too…

I would suggest anybody getting cardinal fish to stick to captive bred only. The only other issue is that cardinals are are deepwater fish that really prefer to hide in the dark, but that is not here or there in context this thread. I had 3 stoplight cardinals... saw them when I put them in and literally did not see them again until a year later when I happened to be using a flashlight early in the morning. I don't know if they are still alive or not three years later.

 

[TheSheff]

Just tossing this out there but many will disagree. I don't own an ammonia or nitrite test kit. Once I see nitrates present I slowly move forward with stocking. I also cycle with household ammonia used for cleaning that has no soap or scents added.

same, I've never bought ammonia or nitrite. Pointless.

 

[Sixin]

What are your nitrate levels? As several have said in this thread, and as RHF has said, if ammonia disappears you're ready for fish. Nitrites don't matter.

More discussion on why nitrites might not be going away:

Help! New tank, really confusing cycle

Help please! New reefer, first tank: 55G, 34salinity, 79degrees, dry rock, wet (live) sand 1" - 2", cannister filter (running), no lights on, no skimmer, no UV. 26 days into cycle. See my chart below. Key points: - I started too slow, then added too much ammonia (my mistake). Two doses of...

www.reef2reef.com

Hi Mate,

just did a nitrate test and solution was going red instantly, also checked doing rodi only to make sure hanna nitrate HR was not faulty it read 0, did 4 tests had to eventually dilute it to 2.5ml tank water and 7.5ml rodi to get a reading of 50.2 x5 = 251ppm of nitrates so guessing its cycled and needs a 50% water change and quite a few over the next 4 weeks to get nitrates down to 10ppm or less

 

[BeanAnimal]

Why do nitrates need to be at 10 ppm or less?

 

[Sixin]

Why do nitrates need to be at 10 ppm or less?

just what i was told, please educate me and point me in the right direction

 

[BeanAnimal]

Nitrate is not toxic to marine fish at any reasonable level. We are talking ranges near 1000 ppm.

I would not discourage you from wanting to bring it down from 450 if makes you feel more comfortable, but I would not waste the water or effort to try and drop it to 10 ppm in the short term.

I would also not obsess with testing for it in the short term. In a few weeks if it is still very high then we discuss possible reasons why. But for now, I would just move on to adding a fish and letting the system mature and come into balance.

 

[sgdnycct]

Will this be a reef? FWLR? Fish only? What’s your introduction plan(ie full quarantine, observation, fish only). Will you be adding any live rock?

I can see you’ve researched a lot on the technical chemistry of a saltwater tank, but maybe missing a little on the biology. That’s why I asked the questions.

I wouldn’t start with fish. As someone else said better to start with a hardy coral, which, depending on your plans, may introduce some biome variety. Right now your tank is very sterile. Sterile often causes instability.

IMO this type of cycling is over complicated and not helpful for a healthy biome.

 

[Sixin]

Will this be a reef? FWLR? Fish only? What’s your introduction plan(ie full quarantine, observation, fish only). Will you be adding any live rock?

I can see you’ve researched a lot on the technical chemistry of a saltwater tank, but maybe missing a little on the biology. That’s why I asked the questions.

I wouldn’t start with fish. As someone else said better to start with a hardy coral, which, depending on your plans, may introduce some biome variety. Right now your tank is very sterile. Sterile often causes instability.

IMO this type of cycling is over complicated and not helpful for a healthy biome.

Hi Mate,

its going to be a like a frag tank set up for LPS so more heading towards a grow tank, just racks for growing corals and clean up crew/utility fish, the only stuff in the display are 4x ceramic arka caves (2x 15cm & 2x 20cm) https://www.arka-biotech.de/en/products/reef-cave for somewhere for the fish to hide in and are hidden by the racks

 

[sgdnycct]

Will this be a reef? FWLR? Fish only? What’s your introduction plan(ie full quarantine, observation, fish only). Will you be adding any live rock?

I can see you’ve researched a lot on the technical chemistry of a saltwater tank, but maybe missing a little on the biology. That’s why I asked the questions.

I wouldn’t start with fish. As someone else said better to start with a hardy coral, which, depending on your plans, may introduce some biome variety. Right now your tank is very sterile. Sterile often causes instability.

IMO this type of cycling is over complicated and not helpful for a healthy biome.

Hi Mate,

its going to be a like a frag tank set up for LPS so more heading towards a grow tank, just racks for growing corals and clean up crew/utility fish, the only stuff in the display are 4x ceramic arka caves (2x 15cm & 2x 20cm) https://www.arka-biotech.de/en/products/reef-cave for somewhere for the fish to hide in and are hidden by the racks

Ah. Ok.

I’ll leave any tips the grow out tank experts.

IMO I agree with others. Looks like your cycle is done.

 

[Sixin]

Nitrate is not toxic to marine fish at any reasonable level. We are talking ranges near 1000 ppm.

I would not discourage you from wanting to bring it down from 450 if makes you feel more comfortable, but I would not waste the water or effort to try and drop it to 10 ppm in the short term.

I would also not obsess with testing for it in the short term. In a few weeks if it is still very high then we discuss possible reasons why. But for now, I would just move on to adding a fish and letting the system mature and come into balance.

thanks mate

 

[schooncw]

Hi Reefers,

Cycling a new bare bottom tank 395L with a dr tims fishless cycle, at day 48 of the cycle and ammonia been constantly zero for the last 27 days, apart from the initial dr tims ammonium dose at day 0 and was detectable for about 20 days 0.25ppm on the 2nd day then ranged from 0 to 0.5ppm with a spike on day 5 of 1.5ppm then from there its gone gradually gone to zero around day 20 on a salifert kits just milky cloudy water now

Nitrites been stuck at 0.5ppm since day 20 with 4 spikes on days 20,27,47,48 to 1.0ppm but last few weeks every day nearly has been 0.5ppm at day 38 chagpt said to try and give it a shunt/bump so dosed more dr tims ammonia at 0.5ppm the tank consumed it all by the next day (24hrs) but nitrites still stuck at 0.5ppm since ORP been at 285 now with a peak of 300 for a couple weeks,
day 47 and 48 nitrites seem to have crept up but it might be just my eyes misinterpreting the pink colour its a smidge darker than the 0.5ppm of the chart so would say somewhere in between 0.5 to 0.75pmm 1.0 at the absolute highest- I'm leaning towards eye and colour fatigue

My question is should i just be waiting it out more for nitrites to get below 0.2ppm to do the 2ppm final ammonia dose for the 24 hour challenge?
or is the tank cycled and do the 2ppm ammonia chloride challenge as thinking the nitrites are just stuck ( testing on salifert kit) the tank is bare bottom but has 135 maxspect bio balls and 4x maxpect nano tech blocks and 4 arka caves (ceramic media) 10 plastic media balls,
running no filtration at the moment while it cycles, currently skimmer on but I'm not taking any skim out just shallow running to increase oxygenation of the water and to run the new skimmer in
tank temp being run at 26 degrees Celsius for the cycle
no water changes either

cheers and thank you

For a BB, live rock is essential moving forward and for proper cycling. Cycling is one thing, maturity and stability another.

 

[Darklad]

I cycled my bare bottom Nano aquarium with dry rock over 14 days using three different brands of bacteria in bottles