Cycled?

[djm]

AwHi all,

could you give me you opinion as to whether you think my tank is now cycled?
I’ve been cycling for coming up to 5 weeks and I have the 60 litre Fluval Spec Marine.

It’s been running at 25c and 1.024 salinity.
On day one I dosed with Microbe-Lift Special Blend and then dosed weekly as per the instructions on the bottle.

I added more ammonia and a bottle of Dr Tim’s One and Only but that doesn’t seem to have had any affect on bringing down the ammonia I dosed.

attached is my testing results which I used an API saltwater master kit for at the start and recently been using a Salifert Ammonia and Nitrate test kit more recently.

I would have thought that if it had cycled my ammonia levels would have decreased after dosing the second lot but this doesn’t appear to be happening.

 

[coastalnanoreef]

Your ammonia levels should be at 0 for your tank to be cycled. Any ammonia is bad. Give the Dr. Tims some time.

 

[brandon429]

if you change out all your water and refill with new, youre cycled. what's testing above is a stewing mess of metabolites, what's laid down on the rocks when a cycle chart says it would is the full filter. change/begin/ready. you met the dates on all bottles, and a cycling chart

the old rules said you had to wait for the wastewater to clear itself, we for sure do not.

how do we know when the date allows for the full water change? the dates on the bottle bac. there's no way you added two dead doses, and you've met unassisted timeframes anyway, were they dead. its all been well fed, it just needs the wastewater changed out now vs in eight weeks.

then you have clean water, over a full attached bed of filtration bacteria adhered to all surfaces, and a reasonable bioload will run just fine. right now you have a cycling brew, we gotta get rid of it or wait it out.

* you have the same bacteria left on rocks making it ready now, or waiting more weeks. you don't get more bac by waiting longer, surfaces only hold so much and cycling charts show when/how they fill up, not aquarium test kits. cycling charts.

 

[brandon429]

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

try and find a tank in that thread not like yours, stuck. its ten pages of this exact issue being fixed with one big water change, and then happy reefs soon after updated.

the single most telling aspect of your cycle was the timeframe stated five weeks. the test kit readings were not factored other than having a bunch of nitrate and nitrite too means all the machinery has been turning for a week longer than a cycling chart says it takes.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Because you have dosed ammonia and verified a detectable drop of ammonia levels and increase of nitrate we can be certain that you have established the bacteria in your tank. I trust my ammonia test kit as much as I trust my ex (i don't). Detectable and comparable is what I look at so I would say you are cycled.

You have two options, wait and let all of that nasty ammonia convert into nitrate then do a large WC to bring nitrate levels down or do the large WC now and get started. I do not suggest that you add fish to an ammonia filled tank but rather that your tank is cycled.

 

[djm]

Because you have dosed ammonia and verified a detectable drop of ammonia levels and increase of nitrate we can be certain that you have established the bacteria in your tank. I trust my ammonia test kit as much as I trust my ex (i don't). Detectable and comparable is what I look at so I would say you are cycled.

You have two options, wait and let all of that nasty ammonia convert into nitrate then do a large WC to bring nitrate levels down or do the large WC now and get started. I do not suggest that you add fish to an ammonia filled tank but rather that your tank is cycled.

Because you have dosed ammonia and verified a detectable drop of ammonia levels and increase of nitrate we can be certain that you have established the bacteria in your tank. I trust my ammonia test kit as much as I trust my ex (i don't). Detectable and comparable is what I look at so I would say you are cycled.

You have two options, wait and let all of that nasty ammonia convert into nitrate then do a large WC to bring nitrate levels down or do the large WC now and get started. I do not suggest that you add fish to an ammonia filled tank but rather that your tank is cycled.

Great thanks, I think I will change out all the water this weekend then let it settle for a week and look to add a small CUC before adding any fish.