Cycling Help

vetteguy53081

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Not that the API kits are non-trustworthy but I would recommend taking a water sample to a trusted LFS and have them test water for you to verify the results you are getting
 

MrSalty

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Thank you all, I went out and got another bottle of live nitrifying bacteria made by Instant Ocean and dumped the whole bottle (it was meant to treat a 30g tank instantly) but I have a 55g, so hopefully this will give them their second wind.

ill actually await these next 18-24 hours and hopefully the ammonia will be dropping.

FWIW I used a bottle of Instant Ocean Bio-Spira in my 55 gal and my tank cycled in 4 days. I used a test kit to test along with a Seachem Ammonia Alert in my tank. I added 2 fish the next week and my ammonia never went back up. Just add fish slowly and the bacteria will regulate itself due to the ammonia load.
 

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Classic case of the current state of cycle confusion in the hobby and how LFS's profit off of it.
 
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Update: This is day two after adding the Bio-Spira. There’s movement which is exciting to see.

FCD14E0C-4348-40E6-8C8D-75A9C25AA01E.jpeg E3ECD55D-5FA0-47AF-82EC-CF98DDD8E99A.jpeg F5A73C0C-4667-44D9-837E-FEF608D5145B.jpeg 8D972D8C-319A-43A3-8816-1D1F9235D0E7.jpeg
 
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Photos from today. I’ve seen various thread regarding whether or not to take into considering Nitrite. Should I wait for it to reach zero before completing the water change to bring down the nitrate? If so once that happens, what percentage of water change should be completed, 25%, 30%, 50%? Or can I do the water change now and add a fish?

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excell007

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what kind of set up do you have in term of biological filtration, sorry if you already answered this on previous post. does your tank have sand, how much rocks (live or dry). I ask this because this is where the nitrifying bacterias will reside and multiply.
 
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It’s a 55g tank with about 45lbs of reef saver rock and 40lbs of carbonate dry sand.

I’m using a Marinland 220 canister filter.

image.jpg
 

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you have nitrate which is good, it means there are bacterias processing the ammonia and nitrite. But ideally on fishless cycle the ammonia should be 0 before adding fish. how many days is your ammonia stable at .5
 

MrSalty

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I’m using a Marinland 220 canister filter.
If your using the stock media that came with that filter, you could help your tank cycle a lot better with quality media. Those plastic balls do nothing in a canister filter, they only work for a moving bed filter. The ceramic rings it comes with leave a lot to be desired. Using Biohome or Seachem matrix are both good. I have a Fluval 406 on my 55gal and have 3 trays of Biohome Ultimate Marine or roughly 4 pounds. Setting it up right can do a lot to keep your nitrates down and reduce the need for water changes. Also having the polishing filter below the media vs on top will keep the media cleaner and help the bacteria. With your cycling what your trying to do is build the the nitrifying bacteria up on that media. It will be on the rock and sand in your tank, but the majority will be on that media until your tank is well established.
 

firmefatboy799

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I gotta give it up to you guys who start 100% dry rock and sand, clean and sterile but annoying and dirty, im a cheater so if you wanna make sure the cycle jumps once ammonia hits 0 and stays id throw a chromi in and let him do his thing, and still a cool fish to keep once he's started the final process
 

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By my estimates you are now at the 3 week mark and have purchased both a microbacter start kit and Bio-spira. Wait another 7 days and you could have skipped the bottled bac and bought a shrimp for a couple dollars instead. Bio-Spira works well. I use it for instant cycles.
 
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If your using the stock media that came with that filter, you could help your tank cycle a lot better with quality media. Those plastic balls do nothing in a canister filter, they only work for a moving bed filter. The ceramic rings it comes with leave a lot to be desired. Using Biohome or Seachem matrix are both good. I have a Fluval 406 on my 55gal and have 3 trays of Biohome Ultimate Marine or roughly 4 pounds. Setting it up right can do a lot to keep your nitrates down and reduce the need for water changes. Also having the polishing filter below the media vs on top will keep the media cleaner and help the bacteria. With your cycling what your trying to do is build the the nitrifying bacteria up on that media. It will be on the rock and sand in your tank, but the majority will be on that media until your tank is well established.

Thanks for sharing, truly am appreciative. Quick question, will swapping out the ceramics rings now with the seachem change anything, and should I swap out the bio balls and ceramic rings or just one of them? Still very new to all of this so please forgive my questions
 
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By my estimates you are now at the 3 week mark and have purchased both a microbacter start kit and Bio-spira. Wait another 7 days and you could have skipped the bottled bac and bought a shrimp for a couple dollars instead. Bio-Spira works well. I use it for instant cycles.

So true, luckily I was able to get my money back for the Microbacter products
 

tankstudy

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Photos from today. I’ve seen various thread regarding whether or not to take into considering Nitrite. Should I wait for it to reach zero before completing the water change to bring down the nitrate?

Let nitrite zero out first. A high level of nitrite actually slows the conversion of nitrite to nitrate. Doesn't completely stop it but it really brings it to a turtle pace. Dr. Tim says the same thing and you really need these bacteria to work at their best speeds. Once ammonia and nitrite zero out, that's when you do the water change. A lot of times, once they zero out, I actually add more ammonia to make sure that the bacteria populations are high enough to convert everything in to nitrate in just 24 hours. This is also when you increase the concentration of ammonia if you plan to stock very heavily at once.

How much water should you change? Well that depends on how much nitrate you want remaining in your tank tank.

I prefer to have ~10 ppm nitrate after cycling in a display tank. In frag tanks I prefer less than 5 ppm nitrate. So do your water change in correlation to how much nitrate you want remaining. For example, if you have 20 ppm of nitrate, you can do a 50% water change to half that to 10 ppm nitrate.
 
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