Cycle Issues!

[RAVCASS]

I'm having issues with cycling. I used microbacter xlm, marine pure bio brick and dry rock. The tank is going on 3 weeks cycling. Ammonia was at zero at day 8, but my nitrite is through the roof and has not came down. Any ideas what's going on here? Or what I should do from here? Currently I'm just letting it ride out.

 

[KrisReef]

First post! Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Are you by any chance using API test kits?

@brandon429 -Have you ever heard of this issue?

 

[Azedenkae]

I'm having issues with cycling. I used microbacter xlm, marine pure bio brick and dry rock. The tank is going on 3 weeks cycling. Ammonia was at zero at day 8, but my nitrite is through the roof and has not came down. Any ideas what's going on here? Or what I should do from here? Currently I'm just letting it ride out.

What is your ammonia source, how often do you add/dose it, and how much?

 

[Idech]

Do you have nitrates ? Have you tested new saltwater for nitrites to see if the result is 0 ? If it’s not, then your test is faulty.

 

[RAVCASS]

First post! Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Are you by any chance using API test kits?

@brandon429 -Have you ever heard of this issue?

Thank you! No I'm using a Red sea kit and also a Sera kit.

 

[RAVCASS]

What is your ammonia source, how often do you add/dose it, and how much?

Ahh forgot to mention my ammonia source. It's Dr. Tims ammonium chloride. I added once when I cycled tank.

 

[RAVCASS]

Do you have nitrates ? Have you tested new saltwater for nitrites to see if the result is 0 ? If it’s not, then your test is faulty.

Have high nitrates. I tested rodi before adding salt.

 

[RAVCASS]

Have high nitrates. I tested rodi before adding salt.

And rodi is zero for everything.

 

[Azedenkae]

Ahh forgot to mention my ammonia source. It's Dr. Tims ammonium chloride. I added once when I cycled tank.

How much did you add?

Either way, if it is off the charts nitrite may actually be coming down, you just can't actually see it (because regardless of how high it is it'll register the same on the test kit).

Fine to just wait it out. ^_^

 

[RAVCASS]

How much did you add?

Either way, if it is off the charts nitrite may actually be coming down, you just can't actually see it (because regardless of how high it is it'll register the same on the test kit).

Fine to just wait it out.

How much did you add?

Either way, if it is off the charts nitrite may actually be coming down, you just can't actually see it (because regardless of how high it is it'll register the same on the test kit).

Fine to just wait it out. ^_^

I used 6 ml. I believe it recommended 10 ml for 50 gal. I under dosed it. That's what I was thinking, just wait it out. Thank you for the reply.

 

[Azedenkae]

I used 6 ml. I believe it recommended 10 ml for 50 gal. I under dosed it. That's what I was thinking, just wait it out. Thank you for the reply.

Ah. Correct me if I am wrong, but the Red Sea nitrite test kit only goes up to 1ppm right? What about the Sera?

 

[RAVCASS]

Ah. Correct me if I am wrong, but the Red Sea nitrite test kit only goes up to 1ppm right? What about the Sera?

Yes the red sea goes up to 1ppm. The sera goes up to 5ppm. It reads 5 ppm on the sera kit.

 

[brandon429]

This tank will carry its intended bioload right now easily, as nitrite is neutral in marine cycling. The reason we don’t have any issues like this in my threads is because we omit nitrite measurement in all aspects of display tank reefing, exactly as we’ve omitted factoring argon measurements in the cycle heh

we are able to carry bioload on the assigned start date for years and years going on now in pattern oblivious to any nitrite presence, because it doesn’t matter in display tank cycling, if things died or acted stressed across genera we’d stop ‘rushing’. It’s harmless to skip the measure, then nothing will seem out of the ordinary here. Randy’s 2006 article on the neutral impact of nitrite in marine tanking is where I got the idea to test. I‘m aware of YouTube videos claiming we must wait for nitrite compliance in reef cycles: they’re recommends that come from bottle bac sellers so I valued the recommend less than Randy’s article saying it’s ok to not measure it.

 

[brandon429]

this reef is ready to add fish, don’t skip disease protocols or we will be reading about a velvet wipeout by March ‘22


for 28 straight pages below we stock up nitrite-positive reefs. None were in compliance for nitrite, only ammonia.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-unstick-any-seemingly-stuck-cycle.742202/

all fish, corals, assigned start dates, clean up crew: happy. Many of our recent entrants already had disease preps in planning, those will be good systems to check updates as the months go by


I figured the best way to test Randy’s article was to recruit hundreds of folks willing to use their arrangements to list outcomes and I can’t find any bad outcomes in the logs. Based on years of direct testing and feedback posts it honestly seems nitrite presence is of neutral impact in display tank reefing, like the article said.

 

[RAVCASS]

This tank will carry its intended bioload right now easily, as nitrite is neutral in marine cycling. The reason we don’t have any issues like this in my threads is because we omit nitrite measurement in all aspects of display tank reefing, exactly as we’ve omitted factoring argon measurements in the cycle heh

we are able to carry bioload on the assigned start date for years and years going on now in pattern oblivious to any nitrite presence, because it doesn’t matter in display tank cycling, if things died or acted stressed across genera we’d stop ‘rushing’. It’s harmless to skip the measure, then nothing will seem out of the ordinary here. Randy’s 2006 article on the neutral impact of nitrite in marine tanking is where I got the idea to test. I‘m aware of YouTube videos claiming we must wait for nitrite compliance in reef cycles: they’re recommends that come from bottle bac sellers so I valued the recommend less than Randy’s article saying it’s ok to not measure it.

Very interesting. So if I wanted to add a couple fish now I can?

 

[RAVCASS]

this reef is ready to add fish, don’t skip disease protocols or we will be reading about a velvet wipeout by March ‘22


for 28 straight pages below we stock up nitrite-positive reefs. None were in compliance for nitrite, only ammonia.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-unstick-any-seemingly-stuck-cycle.742202/

all fish, corals, assigned start dates, clean up crew: happy. Many of our recent entrants already had disease preps in planning, those will be good systems to check updates as the months go by


I figured the best way to test Randy’s article was to recruit hundreds of folks willing to use their arrangements to list outcomes and I can’t find any bad outcomes in the logs. Based on years of direct testing and feedback posts it honestly seems nitrite presence is of neutral impact in display tank reefing, like the article said.

I'm going to spend some time reading this. I really appreciate the info!

 

[brandon429]

I know it seems like above we want to promote cycling anarchy lol but the truth is I wanted to see if forum cyclers could be just as timely as reef convention cycles where for three decades, halls of ready-reefs carrying thousands of dollars in fish and frags for sale are trusted to be ready on the exact start date, no lags stalls or misses. It turns out we sure can, all we have to do is trade the rule set given to buyers in exchange for the rule set the sellers use, then we are all even and nobody has to buy bottle bac over and over or miss a single start date. entrants there above were given an exact start date for adding life vs the classic open-ended wait from old school buyers rules…thats us practicing timely start dates as if we were convention invitees


if you had rocks and or sand (surface area) to a reasonable degree stewing for three weeks in a fed bottle bac setup and it demonstrably moves ammonia, that meets 110% of our start date criteria. Prep for disease before adding fish


a third aspect we study there is the extreme lameness of non digital ammonia testing, I’m wowed your kit agreed ammonia went down, it’s getting harder to find working non digital ammonia kits in cycles nowadays.