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IMO - it is still a combination of this two. Bare bottom means much lesser space for benthic bacteria film to establish itself and Red Seas mature kit favour heterotrophic bacteria that compete out the nitrifiers from the much lesser available space,I don't know whether to think it was the bare bottom or the Red Sea starter
One thing just pop up in my mind - there has been some reports from stalled cycles (between first and second step) that a very small PO4 addition get the second stage to work in a day or two. And adding Dr Tims is a good idea too - if it is nitrospira and no combination mixture. Do you have reef roids for your other aquaria? Its high in free PO4.Yeah, at this point I didn't see any harm in adding the Dr. Tims and waiting since I also just added the sand. It's like a bad book you can't stop reading
My order of Dr' Tim's arrived so last night I changed out approx 50g of the total 70g volume. The look of the bare bottom finally got to me so I also added approx 1.5 - 2 inches of sand (a mix of CaribSea Arag Alive sizes) before replacing the water and let everything settle overnight.
This morning I did a fresh set of tests and these were the results which I found a bit surprising considering the amount of water swapped out:
Nitrite: 1+
Nitrate: 20+
Ammonia: .02 - .04
I was expecting the nitrate and nitrite to fall much lower after such a big water change.
So, today I'll be adding Dr. Tims and see where this goes.
I've had at least 20 reef tanks in my life so far and this is the only one that's had an odd cycle. I don't know whether to think it was the bare bottom or the Red Sea starter or maybe I just did something wrong but I'm looking forward to getting the cycle completed.