Cycle Parameters

[Mike628]

Hello everyone! Getting back into the hobby after a 8 year or so hiatus. My knowledge…gone. I’m currently cycling a tank and I did this one differently than I did my three prior tanks. I did dry rock, live sand, pre mixed water. I used Fritz fishless fuel and fritz zyme turbo start 900 to start the cycle. Dosed both according to the instructions.

I am wanting to make sure I don’t stall my cycle which was started 5 days ago. Parameters are as follows. Ammonia looks to be 0.50 ppm or lower, Nitrite is 5 ppm (maybe more) since the kit maxes out there, Nitrate around 80 ppm. (I did a 15% water change yesterday because nitrates read 150 ppm). I’m using API currently but will be switching in the future.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello everyone! Getting back into the hobby after a 8 year or so hiatus. My knowledge…gone. I’m currently cycling a tank and I did this one differently than I did my three prior tanks. I did dry rock, live sand, pre mixed water. I used Fritz fishless fuel and fritz zyme turbo start 900 to start the cycle. Dosed both according to the instructions.

I am wanting to make sure I don’t stall my cycle which was started 5 days ago. Parameters are as follows. Ammonia looks to be 0.50 ppm or lower, Nitrite is 5 ppm (maybe more) since the kit maxes out there, Nitrate around 80 ppm. (I did a 15% water change yesterday because nitrates read 150 ppm). I’m using API currently but will be switching in the future.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Sounds like your tank is progressing properly, but the high nitrates is unexpected, and may be a function of your test kit. In some cases, the cycle stalls out, where the ammonia is being converted to nitrite, but then, that builds up and is not converted to nitrate. In those cases, I've added 66 milliliters of coca cola per 100 gallons of tank volume every 24 to 48 hours. This serves as a carbon and phosphorus source and can "jump start" the cycle. You can't do this in a tank with any animals in it because you're likely to see a massive bacterial bloom for a week or so. In your case, you may just need to add more of an ammonia source (1 ppm daily is what I usually go with).

Jay

 

[Mike628]

Hello everyone! Getting back into the hobby after a 8 year or so hiatus. My knowledge…gone. I’m currently cycling a tank and I did this one differently than I did my three prior tanks. I did dry rock, live sand, pre mixed water. I used Fritz fishless fuel and fritz zyme turbo start 900 to start the cycle. Dosed both according to the instructions.

I am wanting to make sure I don’t stall my cycle which was started 5 days ago. Parameters are as follows. Ammonia looks to be 0.50 ppm or lower, Nitrite is 5 ppm (maybe more) since the kit maxes out there, Nitrate around 80 ppm. (I did a 15% water change yesterday because nitrates read 150 ppm). I’m using API currently but will be switching in the future.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Sounds like your tank is progressing properly, but the high nitrates is unexpected, and may be a function of your test kit. In some cases, the cycle stalls out, where the ammonia is being converted to nitrite, but then, that builds up and is not converted to nitrate. In those cases, I've added 66 milliliters of coca cola per 100 gallons of tank volume every 24 to 48 hours. This serves as a carbon and phosphorus source and can "jump start" the cycle. You can't do this in a tank with any animals in it because you're likely to see a massive bacterial bloom for a week or so. In your case, you may just need to add more of an ammonia source (1 ppm daily is what I usually go with).

Jay

It is a 21 gallon AIO and there is no livestock present if that helps at all. I’m just new to cycling this way. I’ve always done live rock with live sand and went from there. LFS told me to not touch it for a week and go from there…I just don’t want to stall it out.

 

[EnterName]

Nitrate readings are off when nitrite is present. Ignore them until nitrite is undetectable.

Simplified explanation: Nitrate test kits don't measure nitrate directly. They turn a small fraction of the nitrate into nitrite (often only a few percent) and measure that nitrite. The color chart is calibrated to make up for the small conversion, so it effectively multiplies the measured nitrite by a large factor to estimate your nitrate.

The test can't tell the difference between nitrite it made from nitrate and nitrite that was already in your water. Any nitrite already present gets multiplied by the same large factor and shows up as extra "nitrate". So even a tiny bit of nitrite can throw nitrate readings off by a huge amount.

For example: if you measure 50ppm nitrate with the Tropic Marin nitrate test kit and have only 0.5ppm nitrite, the actual nitrate is only 25ppm (source). The 0.5ppm nitrite added 25ppm to the reading, a factor of 50. The factor depends on the brand and even on how you shake the tubes, so this table can't be used for your API test, but it shows the problem well.

 

[Fish Fan]

Agreed that your nitrate appears high due to nitrite interference; I wouldn't do water changes at this time.

Nitrite is non toxic in marine tanks, so you can safely disregard nitrite (except, that it interferes with nitrate testing).

The API ammonia kit will often show about 0.25 ppm to 0.50 ppm when the concentration is likely lower (based on the age of the tank, for example).

And the Fritz TurboStart 900 is the one bacteria product that does work very, very quickly. At 5 days in, I would suspect you're in good shape.

How high was the ammonia concentration when you first added it? If the ammonia went from about 2.00 ppm to about 0.50 ppm or under, I'd say you can safely start to add some hardly livestock.

You can "test" your system by dosing the ammonia back up to about 2.00 ppm (measured on your test kit, not just by counting drops) and then checking again in 24 hours. If your tank can process 2.00 ppm ammonia down to about 0.50 ppm or less in 24 hours, your tank should be cycled. If not, you can give the system a few more days to catch up.

I hope that helps and good luck!

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

It is a 21 gallon AIO and there is no livestock present if that helps at all. I’m just new to cycling this way. I’ve always done live rock with live sand and went from there. LFS told me to not touch it for a week and go from there…I just don’t want to stall it out.

I don't think you have stalled out. Just keep adding ammonia.

Remember, nitrite is NOT toxic to marine fish, only FW fish.

 

[Mike628]

Agreed that your nitrate appears high due to nitrite interference; I wouldn't do water changes at this time.

Nitrite is non toxic in marine tanks, so you can safely disregard nitrite (except, that it interferes with nitrate testing).

The API ammonia kit will often show about 0.25 ppm to 0.50 ppm when the concentration is likely lower (based on the age of the tank, for example).

And the Fritz TurboStart 900 is the one bacteria product that does work very, very quickly. At 5 days in, I would suspect you're in good shape.

How high was the ammonia concentration when you first added it? If the ammonia went from about 2.00 ppm to about 0.50 ppm or under, I'd say you can safely start to add some hardly livestock.

You can "test" your system by dosing the ammonia back up to about 2.00 ppm (measured on your test kit, not just by counting drops) and then checking again in 24 hours. If your tank can process 2.00 ppm ammonia down to about 0.50 ppm or less in 24 hours, your tank should be cycled. If not, you can give the system a few more days to catch up.

I hope that helps and good luck!

I dosed to 4 ppm per Fritz instructions. Upon test I got 5 ppm which was the max on the test kit. Three days after I’ve consistently read 0.50 ppm on ammonia with nitrites appearing to have gone down each time I test. I have not dosed anymore ammonia. I think I actually overdid it at the start. 21 gallon AIO with 15 lbs of rock, 20 lbs of sand. Fritz called for 4 drops per gallon which would have been 84 drops. I did 90 to overshoot some but I don’t think I had a full 21 gallons in due to displacement.

 

[EnterName]

I dosed to 4 ppm per Fritz instructions. Upon test I got 5 ppm which was the max on the test kit. Three days after I’ve consistently read 0.50 ppm on ammonia with nitrites appearing to have gone down each time I test. I have not dosed anymore ammonia. I think I actually overdid it at the start. 21 gallon AIO with 15 lbs of rock, 20 lbs of sand. Fritz called for 4 drops per gallon which would have been 84 drops. I did 90 to overshoot some but I don’t think I had a full 21 gallons in due to displacement.

Don't worry about it. You have detectable nitrite so the cycle has begone to work. The nitrite oxidizing bacteria take much longer to start working than the ammonia oxidizing ones. At least that is the observation many people make. I'm not sure what the underlying reason is, but once all ammonia is gone and ammonia gets oxidized reasonably fast to nitrite you can consider the tank cycled.

This doesn't meant the tank's development is over though. The tank will soon grow some brown "dust" on the substrate (diatoms, micro algae) and then green hair algae will overgrow everything. While there might be some ways to get around it, it's considered the standard maturation process of the tank's microbiome.

 

[Fish Fan]

I dosed to 4 ppm per Fritz instructions. Upon test I got 5 ppm which was the max on the test kit. Three days after I’ve consistently read 0.50 ppm on ammonia with nitrites appearing to have gone down each time I test. I have not dosed anymore ammonia. I think I actually overdid it at the start. 21 gallon AIO with 15 lbs of rock, 20 lbs of sand. Fritz called for 4 drops per gallon which would have been 84 drops. I did 90 to overshoot some but I don’t think I had a full 21 gallons in due to displacement.

Sometimes the concentration of the ammonium chloride (Fishless Fuel) is inconsistent, which is why I like to suggest that you confirm the ammonia concentration with your test kit, and not just count drops

 

[Mike628]

I dosed to 4 ppm per Fritz instructions. Upon test I got 5 ppm which was the max on the test kit. Three days after I’ve consistently read 0.50 ppm on ammonia with nitrites appearing to have gone down each time I test. I have not dosed anymore ammonia. I think I actually overdid it at the start. 21 gallon AIO with 15 lbs of rock, 20 lbs of sand. Fritz called for 4 drops per gallon which would have been 84 drops. I did 90 to overshoot some but I don’t think I had a full 21 gallons in due to displacement.

Don't worry about it. You have detectable nitrite so the cycle has begone to work. The nitrite oxidizing bacteria take much longer to start working than the ammonia oxidizing ones. At least that is the observation many people make. I'm not sure what the underlying reason is, but once all ammonia is gone and ammonia gets oxidized reasonably fast to nitrite you can consider the tank cycled.

This doesn't meant the tank's development is over though. The tank will soon grow some brown "dust" on the substrate (diatoms, micro algae) and then green hair algae will overgrow everything. While there might be some ways to get around it, it's considered the standard maturation process of the tank's microbiome.

I figured as much…gonna start with a pair of clownfish and no corals. If algae becomes a problem I will cut lighting + add more clean up crew. I’ve dealt with that before and wasn’t fun.