Cycling Confusion

BamBam98 · Jun 17, 2021

I'm very new to reefing, this is my first ever salt water tank... It has been up and running for around 4 weeks now and has been dosed with microbacter quikcycle and a few doses of microbacter start xlm... My ammonia and nitrite levels have been a bit all over the place but have been holding steady for the last few days at 1-2ppm amonia and 0.5-1ppm nitrite.... My nitrate levels are through the roof at 40ppm so I know there is definitely bacteria in there doing their job... That being said, there is so much variation in the advice online as to what to do next.... Some advice saying no fish until ammonia and nitrite are 0, some saying to do a 40% water change to lower nitrate and add 1 or 2 hardy fish such as clowns at this point to give a source of ammonia so the cycle continues (I am cycling with just dry rock at the moment).... What do I do here? What are my next moves? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Quietman · Jun 17, 2021

Welcome Aboard! You're about to get inundated with cycling advice and dos and don'ts. Luckily...as long as your ammonia is 0 (or something very low if you're using API kit), your fine. Nitrites aren't toxic in saltwater. You'll need to manage nitrates for algae reasons, but WC do that wonderfully. It's really almost impossible NOT to cycle a tank especially after a few weeks.

Best of luck sorting through all this.

ReefRusty · Jun 17, 2021

Welcome and how fun is this!!! The waiting game/patience.. frustrating at times..

What test kits are you using?? If you have been going on 4 weeks now you have reached the number of days at day 20 for sure.

I'd do a large waterchange 60-80% of you can it wont matter as your bacteria is already growing on your rock and sand if you have any..

I used the same starter kit and was done cycling at day 15- and waiting till day 20 to be sure then a 90% waterchange

BamBam98 · Jun 17, 2021

ReefRusty said:
Welcome and how fun is this!!! The waiting game/patience.. frustrating at times..

What test kits are you using?? If you have been going on 4 weeks now you have reached the number of days at day 20 for sure.

I'd do a large waterchange 60-80% of you can it wont matter as your bacteria is already growing on your rock and sand if you have any..

I used the same starter kit and was done cycling at day 15- and waiting till day 20 to be sure then a 90% waterchange

Hi there! I am using the API saltwater test kit... I don't know how accurate it is honestly because I never really seem to be getting much variation in results.... So if I do a 60% waterchange today, will I be ready for 1 or 2 fish tomorrow? Thank you for the advice!

BamBam98 · Jun 17, 2021

Quietman said:
Welcome Aboard! You're about to get inundated with cycling advice and dos and don'ts. Luckily...as long as your ammonia is 0 (or something very low if you're using API kit), your fine. Nitrites aren't toxic in saltwater. You'll need to manage nitrates for algae reasons, but WC do that wonderfully. It's really almost impossible NOT to cycle a tank especially after a few weeks.

Best of luck sorting through all this.

Hi, thanks for the response! Hopefully i should be able to start adding fish soon then?

Azedenkae · Jun 17, 2021

BamBam98 said:
I'm very new to reefing, this is my first ever salt water tank... It has been up and running for around 4 weeks now and has been dosed with microbacter quikcycle and a few doses of microbacter start xlm... My ammonia and nitrite levels have been a bit all over the place but have been holding steady for the last few days at 1-2ppm amonia and 0.5-1ppm nitrite.... My nitrate levels are through the roof at 40ppm so I know there is definitely bacteria in there doing their job... That being said, there is so much variation in the advice online as to what to do next.... Some advice saying no fish until ammonia and nitrite are 0, some saying to do a 40% water change to lower nitrate and add 1 or 2 hardy fish such as clowns at this point to give a source of ammonia so the cycle continues (I am cycling with just dry rock at the moment).... What do I do here? What are my next moves? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Hi there! My main advice would be to just choose one method that makes the most sense to you and stick with it. Probably what's worse is to keep on shifting between different methods, which is a recipe for disaster.

At the end of the day, everyone in the hobby does things differently and still end up in the same place, so it is not like certain methods are absolutely right or wrong or anything.

Of course, there are certain things that are facts that cannot be debated, so I'll share them with you first.

1. Presuming you are using the API nitrate test kit or similar, the presence of nitrite will cause it to falsely read higher. The reason is because the test kit actually converts a portion of nitrate to nitrite then measure that instead of directly measuring nitrate. So if there is nitrite present, the nitrate test kit will falsely output a higher nitrate reading. When I first heard of this it kinda blew my mind, but after googling, turns out yeah it is true.

2. Nitrite is not toxic to marine fish, at least until it reaches very high levels. When I first learnt of this, it blew my mind too because for freshwater fish, this is absolutely not true. But yes, because of saltwater, things are very different. Here, check this out: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php. That article is by Randy Holmes-Farley, the guy our chemistry sub-forum is named after so he's legit.

3. Ammonia is definitely toxic to all fish, marine or freshwater. But there is a limit as to how much causes toxicity, and of course there are products like Prime that can temporarily detoxify ammonia.

So moving on to my personal opinions/methodologies that may differ from others.

The suggestion to add fish to produce ammonia to keep the cycle going is a very old method, basically a fish-in method that in my opinion is unnecessary, especially given your circumstances. After all, you are already using Microbacter QuikCycl, which is just dosing ammonia.

There is no difference between ammonia you dose that way and ammonia produced by fish.

I would not recommend adding any fish until your aquarium can handle ammonia well enough. I have a handy guide that you can follow, including reasonings for why:

The main caveat is that you can add fish even if nitrite-oxidizing capacity is 'not quite there yet', given the above explanation that nitrite is non-toxic to marine fish until it reaches high concentrations. High concentrations as in probably over 100ppm for death, but potentially 25ppm is enough for disease. I doubt you'd ever reach 25ppm nitrite unless something goes wrong, so that's why it is probably not too much of a worry. But it is possible, so I am just giving out a warning now.

Personally, I like to ensure that both ammonia and nitrite reads 0 (or close enough) after dosing 2ppm ammonia, but that's a personal preference. Just to be sure, essentially.

BamBam98 · Jun 17, 2021

Azedenkae said:
Hi there! My main advice would be to just choose one method that makes the most sense to you and stick with it. Probably what's worse is to keep on shifting between different methods, which is a recipe for disaster.

At the end of the day, everyone in the hobby does things differently and still end up in the same place, so it is not like certain methods are absolutely right or wrong or anything.

Of course, there are certain things that are facts that cannot be debated, so I'll share them with you first.

1. Presuming you are using the API nitrate test kit or similar, the presence of nitrite will cause it to falsely read higher. The reason is because the test kit actually converts a portion of nitrate to nitrite then measure that instead of directly measuring nitrate. So if there is nitrite present, the nitrate test kit will falsely output a higher nitrate reading. When I first heard of this it kinda blew my mind, but after googling, turns out yeah it is true.

2. Nitrite is not toxic to marine fish, at least until it reaches very high levels. When I first learnt of this, it blew my mind too because for freshwater fish, this is absolutely not true. But yes, because of saltwater, things are very different. Here, check this out: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php. That article is by Randy Holmes-Farley, the guy our chemistry sub-forum is named after so he's legit.

3. Ammonia is definitely toxic to all fish, marine or freshwater. But there is a limit as to how much causes toxicity, and of course there are products like Prime that can temporarily detoxify ammonia.

So moving on to my personal opinions/methodologies that may differ from others.

The suggestion to add fish to produce ammonia to keep the cycle going is a very old method, basically a fish-in method that in my opinion is unnecessary, especially given your circumstances. After all, you are already using Microbacter QuikCycl, which is just dosing ammonia.

There is no difference between ammonia you dose that way and ammonia produced by fish.

I would not recommend adding any fish until your aquarium can handle ammonia well enough. I have a handy guide that you can follow, including reasonings for why:

The main caveat is that you can add fish even if nitrite-oxidizing capacity is 'not quite there yet', given the above explanation that nitrite is non-toxic to marine fish until it reaches high concentrations. High concentrations as in probably over 100ppm for death, but potentially 25ppm is enough for disease. I doubt you'd ever reach 25ppm nitrite unless something goes wrong, so that's why it is probably not too much of a worry. But it is possible, so I am just giving out a warning now.

Personally, I like to ensure that both ammonia and nitrite reads 0 (or close enough) after dosing 2ppm ammonia, but that's a personal preference. Just to be sure, essentially.

So should I be adding quikcycl every time the ammonia drops bellow 1ppm until it is cycled? I've added ammonia once around a week or so ago and it was 2ppm to begin with but in a day or two dropped to 0.5ppm and has stayed there ever since... Nitrites are currently reading around the same at 0.5ppm and Nitrates 10ppm after 50ish% water change.... Should I be adding more ammonia or just leaving it alone and it will sort itself out in a week or so? I'm finding this whole process very confusing!

Azedenkae · Jun 17, 2021

BamBam98 said:
So should I be adding quikcycl every time the ammonia drops bellow 1ppm until it is cycled? I've added ammonia once around a week or so ago and it was 2ppm to begin with but in a day or two dropped to 0.5ppm and has stayed there ever since... Nitrites are currently reading around the same at 0.5ppm and Nitrates 10ppm after 50ish% water change.... Should I be adding more ammonia or just leaving it alone and it will sort itself out in a week or so? I'm finding this whole process very confusing!

Did you have a read of the guide I posted up? That should provide answers to these questions.

ReefRusty · Jun 17, 2021

Api are known for false readings specifically ammonia. Do a waterchange and test again. You have exceeded the number of days as per the bottle. You are cycled.

Cell · Jun 17, 2021

4 weeks in. Bottled bac used. Ammonia decreased. Nitrates present or at least nitrites.

Cycling without bottled bac takes about 4 weeks.

You are cycled. I'd do a nice sized water change to drop the nitrates and stock a fish or two. Just go slow.

Cell · Jun 17, 2021

Stop measuring nitrate until nitrites are gone. You wont get an accurate measurement because nitrate tests break it down to nitrite.

Quietman · Jun 17, 2021

BamBam98 said:
Hi, thanks for the response! Hopefully i should be able to start adding fish soon then?

I would say so...API kits are notorious for showing positives (slightly yellow if I remember right). If it's been a few weeks and you have nitrates at 40 ppm, you're probably just fine. Start slow - didn't say tank size, but maybe 1/4 of your planned fish load and CUC.

I never had great luck with API (not repeatable or consistent IME). If you don't want to invest in the higher priced test kits, I'd recommend using test strips. They seem to be more repeatable and 'accurate' than API for saltwater - at least in my experience. Cut them in half lengthwise to get double your money.

Uncle99 · Jun 17, 2021

Most of the hobby grade tests for Ammonia, Nitrite can’t read accurately at those low levels.
Based on your starting point, your cycled and ready for 1 or 2 fish.

These days, when adding bacteria like you did, it would be reasonable to conclude that you should be cycled in one week.
Gone are the days of months of cycling.

wolfthefallen · Jun 17, 2021

Welcome to reefing!!!

Cycling your first tank is always crazy. From the information and time frame, you have given you can probably add 1-2 fish as long as your Ammonia levels are 0 or 1ppm.

Before you do that though I would recommend getting some snails in there for a Clean Up Crew, as you will have some sort of Algae break out soon.

The next step to learn after cycling is handling bio-load. The easiest way to do this slowly add life to the tank; snails, shrimps, crabs, Fish, etc.. Anything that poops and you have to feed as this will add ammonia as it breaks down. This will cause your bacteria and other filtration equipment to really start working. Keep an eye on your levels for 2-4 weeks after adding new life in to make sure it balances out before adding in something new.

Whatever you don't panic, weird stuff will happen, it always does. slow and steady is the name of the game for the first year. After that, it becomes a lot easier to manage.

brandon429 · Jun 17, 2021

I was scanning the thread and saw Cell's summary point of 4 weeks, I instantly stopped scanning further. only two key terms were needed to ump this one as he did: api and 4 weeks.

TnFishwater98 · Jun 17, 2021

Welcome to da Reef! Just take it slow. The best thing I think you could do is order real LR from the gulf. That would get everything nice and established. The LR is also beautiful and filled with life. I’ve never started a tank using bottle bacteria/Ammonia, so I can’t give you advice as far as that goes. You could always just throw in a small piece of a raw shrimp to make sure everything is moving in the right direction...

BamBam98 · Jun 17, 2021

Cell said:
4 weeks in. Bottled bac used. Ammonia decreased. Nitrates present or at least nitrites.

Cycling without bottled bac takes about 4 weeks.

You are cycled. I'd do a nice sized water change to drop the nitrates and stock a fish or two. Just go slow.

Thank you, I needed a nice simple answer like this!!!! This whole process is so confusing to start off with, so many different bits of information from everywhere... Hopefully I should start to understand this new hobby better soon!

TnFishwater98 · Jun 17, 2021

BamBam98 said:
Thank you, I needed a nice simple answer like this!!!! This whole process is so confusing to start off with, so many different bits of information from everywhere... Hopefully I should start to understand this new hobby better soon!

The basic cycling process isn’t that complicated once you understand the science process. This hobby can get complicated if you start dosing or using reactors or other specialized equipment. There are plenty of smart members here that could walk you through the more advanced techniques and explain to you why to do or not to do certain things. I think the hardest thing is just defining and grasping all the scientific terminology. Even just pronouncing certain coral names. Lol... Just keep it slow and simple and you will learn from your tank and R2R....Last thing, don’t stress have FUN!

BamBam98 · Jun 17, 2021

Ok so update for you all! I popped into my local aquatics shop this afternoon for my freshwater tank and had a chat with the guys who sold me the tank and helped me with the set up initially... The seem to think that I am cycled, however my ammonia is high as there is something in the water? Maybe a spider or something in the rock that I didn't rinse out, who knows? So I'm just gonna keep dosing with bacteria and doing little water changes for the next week or so and hopefully everything should even out! Thank you all for the advice!!!