Cycle question.

[madcanary]

first BB tank with an NSA aqua scape so I know it’s minimal so I’ve added a large Xport block.
I added cleanse and one and only and the ammonia. Tested daily then added the second round of ammonia. Tanks been sitting around 5-6 weeks and using Red Sea still reads ammonia reads 2, nitrites 5 and nitrate 2 so is this cycle cooked? Can I add biospira/microbacter to get this going again. I know it’s a time thing just never dealt with this before.

 

[brandon429]

since you had rocks, your cycle is done, there are no rock-in-display cycles that aren't done at 6 weeks per here:

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

non digital ammonia test kit readings (api, Red Sea, nyos, seachem badges) make you think you aren’t cycled when indeed you are if you owned a $200 expensive seneye meter, you’d never be doubting your cycle status. since .01% of the reefing population owns these, we need a way to help the...

www.reef2reef.com

red sea reads that same level of ammonia here, for years old tanks in false stall alert collection threads:

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

nitrite no longer has any factor in reefing, it's not ran or factored. nitrate can't accurately be tested this early and doesn't matter anyway, fully cycled reefs all over the board show zero nitrate. you're cycled due to having rocks in the system within the known deposition timeframe any cycling chart shows.

non digital cycling test kits mislead the masses into thinking cycles are stuck or stalled.

we just hogtied your cycle like a cowboy ties up a medium sized hog in a rodeo

 

[madcanary]

That’s kinda what I and up with when I did my research before asking here. Tests just didn’t make sense and with the price of fish I didn’t want to risk it.

 

[brandon429]

the truth is that system can carry fish right now, it won't be a cycling insult that gets them in six mos it'll be skipping disease preps. to truly care for them I recommend following the stickies from the disease forum, because losses are so bad if we skip em

fallow has already been completed here due to timing/just need the quarantine part + fallowing any entrants into the tank like CUC, fish and corals. you may want to really consider doing what this thread shows:

Has anyone done coral/inverts only and no fish at first?

I get what you’re saying about limiting fish pests, but internal parasites and other hitchhikers you get often lay low and don’t show until the fish is at deaths doors. We will still try to blame the less experienced if something goes wrong, it’s just something you will always find in this any...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[madcanary]

the truth is that system can carry fish right now, it won't be a cycling insult that gets them in six mos it'll be skipping disease preps. to truly care for them I recommend following the stickies from the disease forum, because losses are so bad if we skip em

fallow has already been completed here due to timing/just need the quarantine part + fallowing any entrants into the tank like CUC, fish and corals. you may want to really consider doing what this thread shows:

Has anyone done coral/inverts only and no fish at first?

I get what you’re saying about limiting fish pests, but internal parasites and other hitchhikers you get often lay low and don’t show until the fish is at deaths doors. We will still try to blame the less experienced if something goes wrong, it’s just something you will always find in this any...

www.reef2reef.com

I ordered from Dr Reef. Appreciate the fast response

 

[brandon429]

that thread shows though above that any corals you add or wet items from a pet shop undoes that excellent initial planning

anything wet from a pet shop vectors in disease/something to consider since you're really invested in the disease angle.

this means you need a separate cycled holding system for anything to pass through as hardscape material into the new reef. if this is a fish only setup you're solid as of now though, as solid as can be without doing quarantine and tank transfer methods in the home under your supervision.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'd personally like to see ammonia drop before adding delicate organisms. If the Red Sea ammonia kit is correct, cycling is not done.

 

[brandon429]

how can we know if its correct or not, for eight straight pages all owners of the kit assumed it was correct .2 in their 2+ year old systems

this is why I like/make threads around testless cycling. going on year 8 with no fails/seems more solid than choosing when to believe the color gradients and when not to/they have to make up reasons to decide when it's correct or not

we just need people to actually have rocks in the tank while it stews, then there's no reason a basic cycling chart for ammonia control should be doubted or rewritten to have a 2 month ammonia line

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

how can we know if its correct or not, for eight straight pages all owners of the kit assumed it was correct .2 in their 2+ year old systems

You are asking how we can know if the 2 ppm ammonia is real?

We are not talking about 0.2 ppm, we are talking about 2 ppm.

Any decent kit should be able to detect 2 ppm ammonia.

 

[brandon429]

@madcanary hey can you post a picture of the tank, curious about your surface area/what it looks like relative to other reduced surface area scapes. curious if there are growths in the system/pigment changes on the rocks or sand/ just common cycling changes pics show sometimes.

 

[brandon429]

it will be neat to assess surface area + position in the tank via picture to see if it matches what other negative aquascapes use along with their final fish load. I'm claiming that in nearly two months lead up, you can't pack any more bacteria onto those surfaces, they're full. if its much much less surface area than a typical tank would use we will see that quickly in the pic.

if there is any nonperformance of the biofilter we would need to add surface area, not more bacteria nor wait time for bacteria to attach/going off all prior studies for testless cycles using # of days underwater as the gauge vs a non digital test kit. I rate the xport block as fully unhelful/it's a fad trend the bottle bac sellers are pushing. without water being channeled through them they're not helpful as they're low profile and often in the sump. recently I asked BRS to reply and let us know if spreading out a lump of GAC on the sump floor of a reef system would clean it, or does the GAC need to be found inside a filter than pressures water actually through the mix... I expect no reply from them, and ten thousand more biobricks sold anyway just this week alone.

 

[Dan_P]

first BB tank with an NSA aqua scape so I know it’s minimal so I’ve added a large Xport block.
I added cleanse and one and only and the ammonia. Tested daily then added the second round of ammonia. Tanks been sitting around 5-6 weeks and using Red Sea still reads ammonia reads 2, nitrites 5 and nitrate 2 so is this cycle cooked? Can I add biospira/microbacter to get this going again. I know it’s a time thing just never dealt with this before.

You can add more bacteria and probably should. The ammonia should have been gone in less than a week.

 

[brandon429]

check this out. this is a common api reading people get in cycling.

all chemists and reefers agree that's a total fail, it's lethal ammonia off the charts.

or is it

this comes from a thread where exactly at the same time, a seneye calibrated on a years old running nano reef shows .04 nh3 and on that sample of cycling water above the seneye was also .04...the sample had met the submersion timeframes and surface area ratios we find in all false stalled cycle threads.

without the seneye, nobody would believe a misread of this magnitude was possible.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It’s fine if you want to assert that 2 ppm ammonia is either a test kit error or is acceptable, but I would not agree that there is any evidence that the OP tank is sufficiently cycled.

 

[Dan_P]

check this out. this is a common api reading people get in cycling.

all chemists and reefers agree that's a total fail, it's lethal ammonia off the charts.

or is it

this comes from a thread where exactly at the same time, a seneye calibrated on a years old running nano reef shows .04 nh3 and on that sample of cycling water above the seneye was also .04...the sample had met the submersion timeframes and surface area ratios we find in all false stalled cycle threads.

without the seneye, nobody would believe a misread of this magnitude was possible.

A couple thoughts.

An API test failure high is a possibility, but I have no idea of what the odds might be. A test of test would be in order here by making up a 2 ppm total ammonia solution and testing it with the API test kit.

Another factor we tend to forget is pH. A pH of 7.6, a bit low I know, with a total ammonia of 2 ppm would give a Seneye reading of 0.04 and the fish might not be suffering too badly, yet. But as soon as the conscientious reefer starts adjusting the pH, we have an emergency post about dying and dead fish.

A dud bottle of bacteria is not inconceivable. Death by transportation and storage temperatures is not uncommon.

I would err on the side of caution here and treat this as a high ammonia case until proven otherwise.

 

[madcanary]

I have an rsk 900 skimmer and a rollermat along with a dimpled Xport block.

 

[brandon429]

Nice, thats truly bare bones and very beneficial as a throughput system design vs a high storage one where you have to deal with a sandbed storing up waste and housing invaders as the new white rocks mature.

if I had a large reef it would be like that, easy to clean, high flow, low catchment in the display.

can you post the actual ammonia test kit against the card?

take the reading now vs prior if possible

wait the required time before snapping the pic, those tests have specific wait times for rendering the outcome

I want to pull some comparative pictures Red Sea produced on 3 year old sps reefs in perfect running condition with open corals and no lost fish after yours, we can compare.

 

[brandon429]

A rollermat is very helpful surface area as water is channeled through it, the brick not so much

 

[madcanary]

waited the correct time. I hate these color tests. I love my Hanna’s

 

[brandon429]

The shadowing there + the brighter side pic above makes for quite a different outcome appearance that’s for sure. Digging to look for other similar colors and tank pics from the ammonia alert post, thats good for starters agreed.

one thing nice about a seneye, the angle at which we look at the computer screen doesn’t change its report