Cycle question

[Ruzoko]

Currently have my 125 gallon + 20 gallon sump tank cycling (pretty sure it cycled fully a week ago), but here's explanation for my curiosity. Got the tank off someone out of town, they brought live rock/sand and about 50 gallons of saltwater of the tank from move. At the time was remodeling where tank was going and didn't expect to get it so fast, thus the water, rock, and sand all sat in a bucket for a month - month 1/2. After room was done, I just took everything and stuck it back in the tank despite sitting, no powerheads or heater 30 gallons of water btw. Reason being is ya it smelled tad funky (rock did at least water slight smell), but figured I could use that standing water to get a jump for ammonia and nitrites/nitrates. Once tank was filled, got powerhead, salinity, PH, and temp where they needed to be and dumped 2 full bottles of Biospira in. Been testing every few days from day 1 and had slight ammonia then zip, and continued to have nadda, not even nitrites rising, at current its at a constant 40 ppm for nitrates (hadn't bothered to water change just yet). So curious if my tank did truly full cycle in under 2 weeks. I've used Biospira before on a 60 and cycled in 2 days, but this time I'm using a sump with Miracle Mud as well.

 

[GaryE]

raise the ammonia level to 2 ppm and test in 24 hours, if the ammonia moves down toward zero, your cycle is complete.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed you can retest as Gary said and it will pass bc nothing in the arrangement above is antibacterial to kill off the original bac

plus new was added etc, easy cycle done here. What it would take to kill bac on your live rock is submerging it in bathroom cleaner, something that actually kills bacteria, water and wait never does.

 

[Ruzoko]

Agreed you can retest as Gary said and it will pass bc nothing in the arrangement above is antibacterial to kill off the original bac

plus new was added etc, easy cycle done here. What it would take to kill bac on your live rock is submerging it in bathroom cleaner, something that actually kills bacteria, water and wait never does.

Good to know! Probably sped things up then, ill need to post some pics of my setup soon. Been bit busy and still tryin to get my hands on chaetomorpha for my refugium.

 

[Ruzoko]

raise the ammonia level to 2 ppm and test in 24 hours, if the ammonia moves down toward zero, your cycle is complete.

Ill def try that, ill have to check around local stores for some ammonia for it never had to do dosing before

 

[brandon429]

Updated cycling science vs 1998 has this one tweak on your test:

any degree of ammonia movement down from any setpoint your ammonia test can detect, after dosing, proves cycle done.

specifically the old rule of required api 2.0 ppm to zero is retired, todays cheap tests nearly always show free ammonia anyway.

examples: if you dose 2 ppm and it’s zero next day, cycled.

if you dosed 2 ppm and it’s .5 next day, cycled


if you dose .5 and tomorrow it’s .1, cycled


if you dosed .5 and in three days it’s still .5 that’s not cycled, no movement down.

*you aren’t winding up with trace free ammonia above, that’s test misread at the low end. Ammonia that moves down any trends to safe zone by rule of updated cycling, no cycles stick or stall.

i strongly advise not to dose to 2 ppm but rather a very small degree up, if you were using a seneye ammonia meter that would be different
due to today’s test kit issues, making your cycled rock go to green ammonia is going to mess up the assessment

take a starting pic so we can see your api baseline color.

second pic is after you dosed the tank to .5 max, a slight change from pic 1


what the third pic does tomorrow / next day is the key tell