Cycling an Aquarium

[kmarine]

Typically you want to add your bacteria and then ammonia chloride or a piece of shrimp (shrimp for 48 hours). Then you want to monitor ammonia , When your ammonia is steady for 5 days and Nitrate is steady at 20 or below- You are cycled. Ignore nitrIte Unless sky high
The tank will go through two phases in which ammonia will rise then fall and nitrate will rise and fall which is normal. When fish are added, the bacteria population will increase with the new bio load, converting waste to nitrate.
Overloading tank with too many fish up front will exceed what the bacteria can handle which is why its best to stock fish slowly over the next few months so that the bacterial levels can adapt to the new loads

Thank you for your response. So you would recommend not redosing the ammonia ?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thank you for your response. So you would recommend not redosing the ammonia ?

If you did already and there is detectible now- No

 

[kmarine]

If you did already and there is detectible now- No

Ok thank you!

 

[Azedenkae]

Hello all,

Im new to the hobby and just started cycling my tank. I am using Dr.Tims ammonia and API quickstart. I'm on day 2 and my ammonia is 2.0ppm, nitrites 0, nitrates 0, pH 7.8. I'm following Dr.Tims instructions for a fishless cycle and for day 3 it says to add more ammonia. Since my ammonia is currently at 2.0, should I still do this or wait until it goes down?

Thank you!

Wait until it goes down.

Dr. Tim's instructions are not that great when cycling patterns does not follow his schedule, which they rarely do.

Instead, just wait until both ammonia and nitrite to drop to zero, then re-dose ammonia. 1ppm is enough by the way, don't need 2ppm. Repeat this until ammonia and nitrite can read zero within 24 hours of dosing ammonia. Then your tank is cycled.

 

[kmarine]

Thank you! That was very helpful, I appreciate it!

 

[kmarine]

Hi everyone back again with another question. I’m now on day 6 of my cycle but it seems my cycle wont start. Used Dr tims ammonia dosed to 2ppm and API quickstart as my bacteria source. I haven't seen any change in my parameters and has been at ammonia 2.0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0 every day. On day two i added a pinch of fish food but everything has remained the same. Is this normal? Do I just need more time?

From what I've been reading over the past week API isnt the best brand. I was thinking about adding more bacteria from Biospira tomorrow to see if that would help.

Thank you!

 

[brandon429]

Facts from the cycling world 2022 (highly differentiated from cycling world 1999 lol)

since there’s no set rule we all agree on, you get to pick from these facts below. these are searchable facts you can run verifications and let me know if your searches show anything different.

- I realize it seems your cycle is stalled. That’s what all old cycling conveys: your water bacteria adapted for millennia to set up shop in water have failed. Azekendae will 100% advocate for this, and for no other fact nor possibility. He must have several links of tanks unable to carry fish I haven’t seen.


Any reported cycle that is broken will be broken, no questions asked, if you like this mode. It’s the popular opinion, this first option, for the last twenty five years. If you don’t choose this fearful option, I’ll be amazed. We are trained by peers and bottle bac sellers to default to this mode, because it sells more bac. You’re aligned with this mode already.


and then there’s this: how many pages of seneye spot checks and perfect outcome cycles do I have to produce in this thread below to retrain peers that cycles do not stall, non digital test kits get it wrong (you’re not using seneye I’m assuming since your concerned over ammonia- that’s what non digital test kits cause, but not seneye)

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

so for 35 pages and more than a hundred cycles just like yours, no stalls. You did great adding fish food; wait till day ten do a large water change, add fish, they live because it’s not stalled (stalled cycles kill fish, we have not one fish loss)


you can’t find a single pattern set on the web of a cycle that won’t carry fish. Literally any search you run for a ‘stalled’ cycle is a non digital kit and a tank carrying fish just fine. There’s no actual consequence we’ve been scarily warned of all these years, it’s a lark.




so you’ll be choosing option one and if you want to add biospira, that’s fine.

 

[brandon429]

p.s

if you’d like to venture out from the norm, on day ten do your big water change and add some fish, we (updated cycling science adherents) predict they’ll live and never show a single symptom of ammonia poisoning, in line with every searchable example of every cycle ever posted to the web.

if it’s more entertaining to view the cycle as broken, simply add the biospira and I‘m sure api will give permission to begin one day. Don’t forget complete and total nitrite compliance down to light blue color as well, you must have absolute perfect zero bright yellow ammonia, and absolute light blue zero nitrite to be in line with the old rules.


it’s fascinating to me the sheer lack of actual consequence across the web for marine cycles. Ammonia is deadly, you’d think we would have at least five or six deaths after this 4th year of the thread above running if we were on a continuum of actual failed cycles.

 

[brandon429]

The error here was adding 2 ppm ammonia, we never do it in my threads because it’s guaranteed to mess up your test kits, it’s entirely too much. The idea came from: a bottle bac seller….very very convenient. Peers are happy to scoop up the recommend though they don’t actually ever test it or work with alternate modes in work threads (above) and that’s all it takes to keep old cycling science alive for good. Peers who don’t make work threads will relay the fear mode, never actually seeing a single real failed cycle all these years, and new cycles will keep buying bottle bac redundantly forever.


maybe when we are up to page 300 and zero losses, marine tank cycling can be allowed to progress. Big tankers who once said pico reefs were impossible due to coral allelopathy had to redo their gatekeep rules once we got up to about the 300th running pico reef, work threads will eventually force changes in the hobby given enough developmental time.

 

[brandon429]

It is time to unsticky this thread. Brew hasnt been here in eleven months. This thread keeps old cycling science in focus as the presented best option. I’m sure it’ll never be unstickied…not a prob, we will still effect change anyway.

 

[kmarine]

p.s

if you’d like to venture out from the norm, on day ten do your big water change and add some fish, we (updated cycling science adherents) predict they’ll live and never show a single symptom of ammonia poisoning, in line with every searchable example of every cycle ever posted to the web.

if it’s more entertaining to view the cycle as broken, simply add the biospira and I‘m sure api will give permission to begin one day. Don’t forget complete and total nitrite compliance down to light blue color as well, you must have absolute perfect zero bright yellow ammonia, and absolute light blue zero nitrite to be in line with the old rules.


it’s fascinating to me the sheer lack of actual consequence across the web for marine cycles. Ammonia is deadly, you’d think we would have at least five or six deaths after this 4th year of the thread above running if we were on a continuum of actual failed cycles.

Thanks for your detailed reply, I appreciate it. What percent water change do you recommend for day 10? Is 50% fine or would you recommend a larger one?

 

[Rmckoy]

Cycling a new aquarium.​

One of the earliest topics a new aquarium hobbyist needs to learn is how to properly cycle their aquarium. There is a ton of information on this process and many different methods on how to accomplish it. There are many different chemical and biological cycles our tank goes through as it matures but this addresses the one most commonly discussed.


What is cycling?

The term cycling comes from the process known as the “Nitrogen Cycle”. When a plant or animal decays, or an animal expels waste, nitrogen is released. In our aquariums we initially see this as ammonia. Bacteria converts the ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate. When we have enough bacteria to quickly convert ammonia to nitrate, we say that our tank has cycled. This is deceiving because the process doesn’t stop at this point and it is never complete. For this reason we need to think of this as establishing a large enough bacteria population to support fish, not completing a cycle.


Ammonia is a waste product of a fish’s cellular activity which is expelled through their gills. If the ammonia in the water is higher than in their blood it cannot be released and builds up in the fish causing cell damage. Nitrosomonas bacteria use ammonia as food and convert it to nitrite.

Nitrite is also harmful to fish. In a fish, nitrites hinder the ability of its blood to carry oxygen. Nitrites are a serious issue in fresh water systems. The same receptors in a fish that would absorb nitrites have a higher affinity for chlorides. The chlorides in saltwater block nitrites from being absorbed and protects the fish in marine systems. We rely on a different species of bacteria, Nitrobacter, to convert nitrite to nitrate.

Nitrates are relatively harmless for fish unless it reaches very high levels. Nitrates leaves our tank in any number of ways. We get rid of it via water changes. Algae and some corals can consume it as food.

The last part of the cycle is when nitrate is converted to nitrogen gas. This is done by anaerobic bacteria inside porous rock or within deep sand beds. Not every aquarium has the necessary conditions for this to occur

What conditions do I need for the cycle to occur?

To provide a good environment for the bacteria, we only need to make sure they are wet, oxygenated, and the pH is between 6.5 and 8.5. They will grow best at a temperature close to where we keep our tanks however they will still survive and reproduce at temperatures between 45F and 100F. We also want to monitor ammonia during this process. If ammonia gets over 5ppm it can slow down the rate bacteria reproduce. Above 10ppm it can stall the cycle.


How does rock affect the cycle?

The rock in a marine tank is the core of its filtration system. We use porous rock to provide as much surface area as possible for bacteria to grow on. The water flowing around the rock brings the ammonia and nitrites to the bacteria. If the rock is large enough it may have anaerobic bacteria deep within it that can convert the nitrates to nitrogen gas.

There are many types of rock that are available in our hobby. I won’t get into all of the different types but I do want to address how dry and live rock impacts the cycle

Dry rock is just that. It is rock that has been dried out and has nothing alive on it. Dry rock can be “clean” where it is considered safe to put directly into an aquarium. If it is not clean it will need to be cured prior to use. Either way, it will not contain nitrifying bacteria. This isn’t a problem as nitrifying bacteria are everywhere and it would be impossible to keep them out of our aquarium even if we wanted to.

Live rock is rock that does have living bacteria on it. The main reason to use live rock is to speed up the cycling process. Just like with dry rock, not all live rock is ready to put immediately in an aquarium. For simplicity I am going to put live rock in 2 broad categories. If your live rock came directly out of a marine system and is kept submerged in quality water during transport you can put it directly into your tank. If the rock was exposed to air or shipped damp then it needs to be cured prior to use. The bacteria on this rock will be fine but other living things may have died and should be removed prior to putting it in your tank.

How do I feed the bacteria?

There are many different takes on this and it is largely a matter of opinion. So here are the most common ways from worst to best in my opinion.

Adding a fish – while it will work as an ammonia source, why would you make a fish suffer in an environment in which it can’t properly shed its toxins?

Ghost feeding – When you add food to the tank you are adding much more than just what breaks down to ammonia. While none of it will be a problem, other than possibly algae, this is an uncontrolled process.

Adding a shrimp – The shrimp will decay and create ammonia, but again, this is an uncontrolled process. How much ammonia will this add and how quickly? I don’t know.

Dosing pure ammonia – This is the only method I will ever use in the future. You can measure exactly how much you need to add to achieve a specific level of ammonia. You can measure just how quickly your bacteria consume it to judge the health of your bacteria population.

How do I recommend doing it?

I’m glad you asked! I’ll start from the point where the tank is set up, filled, has flow, and temperature is in the normal range. It doesn’t matter if you used live or dry rock.

I will either use pure ammonia or ammonium chloride to raise the total ammonia to 2ppm. I will test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates daily until ammonia is near 0ppm. I will then dose it back up to 2ppm while continuing daily tests. I will repeat this process in a smaller tank until ammonia goes from 2ppm to 0ppm within 24 hours. In tanks that are 90g+ that will be stocked slowly I will only dose to 1ppm ammonia after the initial dose and consider it cycled when it drops from 1ppm to 0ppm in 24 hours. This is to limit nitrates in larger tanks. Keep in mind that a 120g system that drops 1ppm in a day can support more fish than a 40g tank that drops 2ppm in a day.

But I still have questions!

Ok, let me see if I can answer some of the more common ones.


If nitrifying bacteria are everywhere, why are “bacteria in a bottle” products so popular?

Nitrifying bacteria are everywhere so that isn’t the problem. Some bacteria can double their population in 20 minutes. Luck would have it that these tend to be the more poisonous kind. Nitrifying bacteria are relatively slow reproducers and it takes between 8 and 24 hours for them to double their population. If you start with dry rocks it can take a month or two to produce enough bacteria to support even a few small fish. Using bacteria in a bottle instantly provides a larger source of bacteria to speed up the front end of this process.

My cycle went fine for 3 weeks but now it stalled, what happened?

It could be any number of things. Did you let your ammonia go to high? Do you have a pH issue?

Your nitrifying bacteria may be being outcompeted for resources with other bacteria and/or algae. They may process ammonia fine at first but they will eventually go dormant. When this happens, your cycle will stall until a more marine friendly bacterium reproduces enough to begin the cycling process again. Bacteria in your tank are in constant competition for food. Eventually the one best suited to your specific system will thrive.


Can I vacuum out too much bacteria by cleaning? Will cleaning my sand bed cause my tank to cycle?

No, you cannot hurt your bacteria population by routine vacuuming or water changes. These bacteria are very difficult to remove from solid surfaces and would be difficult to remove even with scrubbing.

If your sand bed is very dirty you may cause an ammonia spike that is larger than your current bacteria population can handle but you haven’t done any harm to your bacteria population.

Can I use old tank water to cut back on my new tanks cycle time?

You can, but it won’t help much. The majority of the bacteria is going to be growing on hard surfaces, not floating in the water. There will be some, however, so you will likely introduce a strain of bacteria into your new tank that will eventually work very well.

I never measured any nitrite during my cycle, is this a problem?

No, odds are this is not a problem. It is possible that you had a larger initial population of Nitrobacter bacteria (nitrite eaters) compared to Nitrosomonas bacteria (ammonia eaters). In this case the nitrite was processed to nitrate almost as soon as it was produced.

Another possibility is that you have a large population of Nitrospira bacteria. These bacteria convert ammonia into nitrite and then to nitrate within the same cell structure so the nitrite is never released into the water to be measured.

My tank has been empty for 6 months, did my bacteria starve?

No. It is almost impossible to starve bacteria. They will adjust their metabolism and reproduction rates based on the food supply. As the amount of available food goes down, they will process it slower and reproduce less. If they go without food long enough they will go into a cystic stage (typically around a year without food). Once food is available again it will take longer for them to recover from this stage but they are still viable.

This does not mean that your tank is ready for fish after sitting dormant for up to a year. Bacteria is part of the food chain and is consumed by many different organisms. Just because your bacteria didn’t starve doesn’t mean it didn’t get eaten or is still viable. Every aquarium will respond differently based on its unique biology.

Why can I add more fish to an older aquarium faster than a new aquarium?

Let’s say you have 2 identical aquariums set up one year apart. They both have the exact same number and size of fish and both have 0 ppm ammonia and nitrite. They must have the same amount of bacteria, right? Well, no. The older tank will have a larger population of bacteria that is processing ammonia at a slower rate. The younger tank will have a smaller population of bacteria with faster metabolisms. If you add new fish to the younger tank you need to wait for the population to increase which can take days. In an older aquarium, the bacteria only need to become more active which can happen in a matter of hours.

This should be made a sticky in the new to reefing section

 

[brandon429]

How many gallons was your reef?

 

[kmarine]

How many gallons was your reef?

It’s 50gallons

 

[brandon429]

I would change half once the fish food portion has been added for ten days or so. **very important: in your opening thread about eels/compatible fish you must elevate disease preps far far above cycling concern. You are planning on getting some of the most disease prone fish in reefing as a mix. It wasnt this way in the past, we’d cycle a tank fast or slow and add mixed fish that look halfway decent from a pet store. That’s 2006 way


pls consider several day’s reading and preps of the stickies in the fish disease forum. Those fish planned will not make one year without compound losses if you don’t enact careful quarantine, fallow and live rock/system maturation plans for that reef. It’s not an ammonia risk; that’s the easy part. It’s why literally any cycling reef thread always carry fish fine but then by month eight they’re reporting staggered losses to jay in the disease forum.

the change is live rock vs white rock / dry starts and fish sourcing changes in our hobby. These white rock setups are dangerous in mixed species setups not for ammonia control issues but we feel it’s due to them missing microbial and microbenthic food webs and communities that we all used to have present when everyone used fully live rock setups already full of coralline and pods in 2006

the dawn of the era of Marco rocks and bottle bac made quick work of cycling for ammonia, then it ushered in massive delayed disease onset to the point that’s the busiest forum on the site, disease preps.

if you have a plan for any small fish like clowns or gobies I would add them first, you can easily gauge behavior off the initial cycle after a few days. Your non digital test kits are going to seem like a stall for weeks on end, you will have a more accurate gauge of safety by judging what animals do when in water. If they act normal it’s cycled, but the trick is adding in any no quarantine prepped fish, or anything wet from a pet store like snails for example, immediately seeds the tank with disease components.

this discussion we are having now is updated cycling science 2022; a complete dismissal of ammonia concerns and a total move to disease prep focus. This matches all the loss patterns we can see on the site; fish losses are delayed disease onset issues vs quick ammonia kills.

you are about to invest several hundred dollars in the fish planned plus support gear plus feed etc, if that tank was mine I wouldn’t do that just yet, I’d have several hundred dollars of actual live rock in place, real live wet skip cycle rock from a pet store, no matter the cost, inside that tank at a higher ratio than white rock as that’s a core disease suppressing angle matching todays needs


having live rock is simply a priority. You could also cure your rocks to semi live by employing the BRS four month wait which is a nice mid ground between live and dry setups


studying the disease forum for fallow preps is paramount. Anything you add wet from a pet store, anything, resets your tank back to unsecure if that item didn’t pass through a fallow setup.


a simple way to lump together the studies you’ll see in the disease forum regarding mixed species big fish is that folks:

-have live rock as the majority weight in the tank either made by time or purchased that way; have coralline, pods, growths on the rock making up that food web we’ve discussed.

-fish go in dead last, to save you having to refallow everything you add as the tank is building up. This means you add corals, rocks that are live, clean up crews, little starfish, all the odds and ends. Then per fallow rules we’d let that system run being fed, water changed, and algae cleaned for three months. This starves out fish disease components and you won’t be adding more since the tank is stocked up. Fish go in last, they’re either quarantined by you or you buy qt fish.


I hate to flood you with a massive post, but this is the nature of big fish mixed species tank prep. If you were just adding two clowns and a goby this wouldn’t be an issue. The entire site of nano-reef.com runs clowns and gobies without preps.

 

[taricha]

I’m now on day 6 of my cycle but it seems my cycle wont start. Used Dr tims ammonia dosed to 2ppm and API quickstart as my bacteria source. I haven't seen any change in my parameters and has been at ammonia 2.0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0 every day. On day two i added a pinch of fish food but everything has remained the same.

I was thinking about adding more bacteria from Biospira tomorrow

I would personally.
Biospira shows quick reduction of 2ppm consistently.

 

[TonyaGilmore]

Nice Job!!

 

[brandon429]

This cycling article directly goes against any seneye owners posted logs, it has false information in it and brew isn't here to make updates or address issues regarding untruths. Un sticky this old cycling science thread

Just because a mod wants to have permanent focus on their made up cycling rules doesn't make it right

Popular opinion that doesn't match one single seneye log ever posted during a cycle isn't science, it's just group hugs.

Brew stated at the start that cycles only scale relative to the bioloading or feed present, not true and anyone who ever pulled fish for 3 month fallow and put them back after delay with no cycle issues knows this

 

[brandon429]

This isn't to be mean it's because he's not present to edit or make changes as new rules develop.

What if the 1999 rules of minimum tank size/15 gallons/ was never updated

Readers on page one get old false info. Unfair to science

Lamark was an early genetics scientist like Mendel but he was wrong: you can't produce tail-less rats from birth just by cutting off the tails of several generations of rats. This cycling article stickied and insulated from updates is cycling lamarkism

false:
Brew12 said:
Why can I add more fish to an older aquarium faster than a new aquarium?

Let’s say you have 2 identical aquariums set up one year apart. They both have the exact same number and size of fish and both have 0 ppm ammonia and nitrite. They must have the same amount of bacteria, right? Well, no. The older tank will have a larger population of bacteria that is processing ammonia at a slower rate. The younger tank will have a smaller population of bacteria with faster metabolisms. If you add new fish to the younger tank you need to wait for the population to increase which can take days. In an older aquarium, the bacteria only need to become more active which can happen in a matter of hours.


truth: vital space / substrate and surface area holds its max veneer of bacteria at all times when wet. the bioload isn't adding more or less bac, the degree of avail attachment space does. =needs an update, this article is false in a few key ways.

*my reef is coral only for 17 years, no fish. per Brew's made up rules, it can't carry fish because bioload hasn't been in place to match the need a clownfish would require: false. it'll carry any normal degree of fish if I wanted them, instantly, with no ramp up needed, because I have enough surface area

 

[brandon429]

Read Dr Tims posts here, directly goes against Brew's assertions.

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Yes the 2 control tanks will be just simply tanks put together identically as all 4 but without the bacteria added to them. They are control theoretically they should take the longest to cycle vs tanks with bacteria added should cycle faster. if the claims from companies are true. boiling the...

www.reef2reef.com

when extra bioload comes in the tank, the existing bacteria simply step up.


they don't add more, as Brew said, because stacking bacteria on top of bacteria doesn't increase surface area, it lowers it.

the only way to get "more" bacteria is to add more attachment points.

Brew does not mention surface area at all in his original post regarding this mechanism, so he's spreading false bacterial fear = old cycling science.