Cycling help

ChaseB143

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I’ve just recently started cycling my 75 gallon tank, and as much as I don’t like to admit it, this is the first time I’ve properly done this. For the previous three tanks, I threw in the sand and live rock, waited 2-3 weeks without testing, then tossed in some fish and coral. All three have been successful, but I wanted to do it right this time. I started this tank on January 4 of this year with about 40lbs of Real Reef Rock and 80 lbs of caribsea live sand. As of tomorrow, it will be three weeks that it has been cycling. I have tested numerous times over these past three weeks, and I have yet to see any ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates. 6 days ago, I put a raw frozen table shrimp in a mesh bag and put it in, it has been breaking down, but it hasn't produced any ammonia or anything either. Should I add another shrimp? Yesterday, I added about six pounds of live rock from the sump of one of my other already established tanks. I don't really want to go buy ammonia or anything like that. I don't know if this would make a difference or not, but my lfs has had the rock sitting in a tank for quite a while now before I bought any of it, so its not like any bacteria would have been killed from being put in boxes and shipped to me.
 

ZoWhat

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20200125_002225.jpg


I'd say theres a bunch of past threads to ;Bookworm
 

Quietman

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Your tank can't process ammonia without producing nitrates. Unless you've been changing water or doing some other nutrient removal I don't think you're cycled.

No need to buy anything, there's enough bacteria naturally in the environment.

Let the shrimp stay in there another few days, take it out and look for nitrates in a week.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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We should test this claim below for an upcoming article on reef cycling rule changes, I’ll use your thread as an example link if you’d like to continue testless cycling using known submersion timeframes

I claim your system is cycled by day 30 in the current arrangement if it just sits there longer and all or most water changed on day thirty. Anything you add to start the tank will live. Add any of the common one day cycling bottle bac dosers, you can start now.

That your system is diluting degrading shrimp doesn’t lessen the feed availability to nitrifiers. Every google chart on cycling across pages shows the thirty day timeline above, it’s no arbitrary date.

Cycles are done before then, but if we want to skip measure altogether, I’m basically testing the time portion axis of any cycling chart one can locate. It will be found as reliable im betting.

Regardless of what your tests say, change water on day thirty and whatever you add to start lives. Passing the full water change test and handling initial bioload is the most reliable marker of a completed cycle because it’s not possible to read .25 using our method. We aren’t even using the testers at all during the whole cycle using the new old method :)

Found on google cycling charts:
-By day 25 nitrite follows ammonia and they’re both zero.
-They never re spike
-Neither one holds at a .25 level day by day. Or any level, it’s zero.
-Nitrate is on an increasing timescale although that implies variability from the other two, not that all tanks have elevated nitrate (said stump remover dosers)
-Solving for time solves for param measure *when you reset the water column on the measure date*

Not found on google cycling charts:
-What brand of bottle bac you used
-What brand of testing is giving you readings, consider accuracy differences between Api and seneye, for example.
-whether you’re dosing to 2 ppm, a made up standard in our hobby.
-whether you’ve accidentally spiked nitrite and messed things up. You have your nitrite measures if you have twenty days underwater plus some boost, which you have.

Testless cycling prevents addiction to retail purchases to allow start dates, it stops the outflow of cash unnecessarily from ones wallet or purse. Testless cycling is trusting what bacteria do using known timing vs paying other people to feel better prepared. Bottle bac has its use, overuse is simply giving money to the man.
 
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ChaseB143

ChaseB143

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We should test this claim below for an upcoming article on reef cycling rule changes, I’ll use your thread as an example link if you’d like to continue testless cycling using known submersion timeframes

I claim your system is cycled by day 30 in the current arrangement if it just sits there longer and all or most water changed on day thirty. Anything you add to start the tank will live. Add any of the common one day cycling bottle bac dosers, you can start now.

That your system is diluting degrading shrimp doesn’t lessen the feed availability to nitrifiers. Every google chart on cycling across pages shows the thirty day timeline above, it’s no arbitrary date.

Cycles are done before then, but if we want to skip measure altogether, I’m basically testing the time portion axis of any cycling chart one can locate. It will be found as reliable im betting.

Regardless of what your tests say, change water on day thirty and whatever you add to start lives. Passing the full water change test and handling initial bioload is the most reliable marker of a completed cycle because it’s not possible to read .25 using our method. We aren’t even using the testers at all during the whole cycle using the new old method :)

Found on google cycling charts:
-By day 25 nitrite follows ammonia and they’re both zero.
-They never re spike
-Neither one holds at a .25 level day by day. Or any level, it’s zero.
-Nitrate is on an increasing timescale although that implies variability from the other two, not that all tanks have elevated nitrate (said stump remover dosers)
-Solving for time solves for param measure *when you reset the water column on the measure date*

Not found on google cycling charts:
-What brand of bottle bac you used
-What brand of testing is giving you readings, consider accuracy differences between Api and seneye, for example.
-whether you’re dosing to 2 ppm, a made up standard in our hobby.
-whether you’ve accidentally spiked nitrite and messed things up. You have your nitrite measures if you have twenty days underwater plus some boost, which you have.

Testless cycling prevents addiction to retail purchases to allow start dates, it stops the outflow of cash unnecessarily from ones wallet or purse. Testless cycling is trusting what bacteria do using known timing vs paying other people to feel better prepared. Bottle bac has its use, overuse is simply giving money to the man.
So if i'm reading this correctly, you're saying that I should wait thirty days from the time I started the cycle, until I am able to put stuff in?
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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Change as much display water out as you can, up to all of it or the max you are willing to do.

Can add a starter set of animals at day 30 but start easy so you wont vector in fish disease etc, nowadays to do things right reefers build up display with rocks and some easy corals and a light clean up crew, they build up to a decent view then stop for 76 days (the fish disease forum explains fallow tank science)

After that time, only quarantined fish go in
They build up some clean up crew and easy starter corals so that 76 day wait isn't so boring, and anything added to tank after this period has to go through it's own 76 day wait so it doesnt break the chain and introduce ich

The fish disease forum here on page one is full of help requests for those who skipped this phase of prep, nowadays to take care of fish people add them with controlled timing it's not like freshwater where we buy a fish at lfs then take home and add.

The bac from your live sand and added live rock have 30 days to be fed by that shrimp and transmit to the rest of the tank, at day 30 after a big water change to export any leftover rotten materials the tank can have a typical clean up crew start, a damsel or clown if you're determined but that fish fallow approach is the only way we know nowadays to lessen massive disease loss in the hobby

A starting light, simple bioload won't live long in an uncycled tank-- once your animals get out two or three days in the new system that's closing proof
 
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