Cycling in a week?

icereef

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I started my tank a week ago with live rock. I threw in an uncooked shrimp and have been dosing Seachem Stability every day as instructed. I expected cycling to take about 4-6 weeks but I've been tracking the water chemistry.

On monday ammonia went up to 1.5 mg/L and has stayed there since. Today I got curious because suddenly some brown and green algae have started growing. So I decided to test nitrite and nitrate and parameters were as follows:

Ammonia: 1.5 mg/L
Nitrite: 0 mg/L
Nitrate: 25 mg/L
pH: 8.3

My tap water reads 0 in every parameter, pH 8. I triple measured everything and used two different kits (I'm a scientist by trade, haha).

My guess is that the shrimp sustains the ammonia levels but nitrite is converted straight to nitrate. Can this really be the case in just a week? Should I wait until there is zero ammonia? Will the ammonia ever go down to zero while there's a rotting shrimp in the tank?
 

AydenLincoln

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Umm no not really. A true cycle can not be done in a week unless you transferred a tank and all the media and used true ocean live rock but that’s a little bit of a different story. Please stop using tap water no matter how many chemicals you treat it with…it’s a recipe for disaster. Instead invest in an RODI unit or buy it from a fish store it’s fairly cheap. And patience is key to this hobby especially a fishless cycle.
 

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If you are using API Ammonia results frequently do not "zero" with the color dyes used.

The Seachem product may impact testt results?

Live rock can support near-instant cycles as observed at trade show set ups.

Edit: Heres a link!
 

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I started my tank a week ago with live rock. I threw in an uncooked shrimp and have been dosing Seachem Stability every day as instructed. I expected cycling to take about 4-6 weeks but I've been tracking the water chemistry.

On monday ammonia went up to 1.5 mg/L and has stayed there since. Today I got curious because suddenly some brown and green algae have started growing. So I decided to test nitrite and nitrate and parameters were as follows:

Ammonia: 1.5 mg/L
Nitrite: 0 mg/L
Nitrate: 25 mg/L
pH: 8.3

My tap water reads 0 in every parameter, pH 8. I triple measured everything and used two different kits (I'm a scientist by trade, haha).

My guess is that the shrimp sustains the ammonia levels but nitrite is converted straight to nitrate. Can this really be the case in just a week? Should I wait until there is zero ammonia? Will the ammonia ever go down to zero while there's a rotting shrimp in the tank?

What you might have done is dose a little ammonia chloride to the tank to confirm your live rock contained nitrifying bacteria and you have have been done in a day.
 

brandon429

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Please post pics of this rock/tank

some call rock that’s fully cured in an aquarium at a pet store brought home live rock, which it is.


some call any added, dry rock = live rock

not so

heres a thread of instant skip cycle true live rock tanks. moving rocks from the pet store to home specifically doesnt cause loss of life. its life transfers, so it skip cycled


there’s over a hundred skip cycle reef examples in there sub linked.


the notion of the mini cycle from live rock transfer is false, any seneye owner sees. That tale was made up in forums to explain nh4 readings from api. A seamless transfer is what happens.



if your rock was dry, and you used bottle bac that Dr. Reef says is implanted before day seven, does that mean any method you chose wound up done in a week anyway? Hmm


I didn’t recall any strain taking beyond seven days to implant in Dr. Reefs study. And they could all carry bioload day one anyway, before implantation.


a congregation needs to get together and redefine what cycled means. What the allowable start date is for any reef tank is hotly debated. At marine aquarium conventions coming up like aquashella dallas I’m going to, they never debate cycling dynamics. All the sellers know exactly how to control a skip cycle so that $75,000 in bounce mushrooms will live as long as the convention runs. Plus they will skip cycle back home unsold gear, it’s not thrown out most assuredly
 
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icereef

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Umm no not really. A true cycle can not be done in a week unless you transferred a tank and all the media and used true ocean live rock but that’s a little bit of a different story. Please stop using tap water no matter how many chemicals you treat it with…it’s a recipe for disaster. Instead invest in an RODI unit or buy it from a fish store it’s fairly cheap. And patience is key to this hobby especially a fishless cycle.
To be clear I do not live in the US. The tap water in my country is very clean and chemical free and saltwater keepers here generally don't use RODI water.
 
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icereef

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Please post pics of this rock/tank

some call rock that’s fully cured in an aquarium at a pet store brought home live rock, which it is.


some call any added, dry rock = live rock

not so

heres a thread of instant skip cycle true live rock tanks. moving rocks from the pet store to home specifically doesnt cause loss of life. its life transfers, so it skip cycled


there’s over a hundred skip cycle reef examples in there sub linked.


the notion of the mini cycle from live rock transfer is false, any seneye owner sees. That tale was made up in forums to explain nh4 readings from api. A seamless transfer is what happens.



if your rock was dry, and you used bottle bac that Dr. Reef says is implanted before day seven, does that mean any method you chose wound up done in a week anyway? Hmm


I didn’t recall any strain taking beyond seven days to implant in Dr. Reefs study. And they could all carry bioload day one anyway, before implantation.


a congregation needs to get together and redefine what cycled means. What the allowable start date is for any reef tank is hotly debated. At marine aquarium conventions coming up like aquashella dallas I’m going to, they never debate cycling dynamics. All the sellers know exactly how to control a skip cycle so that $75,000 in bounce mushrooms will live as long as the convention runs. Plus they will skip cycle back home unsold gear, it’s not thrown out most assuredly
Thank you for the reply. It's live Fiji rock that was cured at the LFS I bought it in. I brought it home in buckets with seawater and put it straight in the tank. It has some algae and coralline growing on it but much less life than I had seen on other rock when looking online so I did rather expect the cycle to take longer.

I've been keeping many freshwater tanks for years and when I cycled my first tank fish-in cycle was still a standard. Since then I've always seedes new tanks by transfering old filters to them. So I haven't cycled a tank using this method before.
 
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icereef

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If you are using API Ammonia results frequently do not "zero" with the color dyes used.

The Seachem product may impact testt results?

Live rock can support near-instant cycles as observed at trade show set ups.

Edit: Heres a link!
Thank you for replying! I tested the water using Seachem and API tests which both showed the same results. I doubt Stability would affect the test as I don't see anything in there that should interact with the chemicals in the tests.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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The specific method for this tank is feed in, water change with animals swimming around in the water.

it’s not a set of rocks that need startup, change water no rot shrimp needed here this is chiefly why updated cycling science wants to discern between cycle options, only dry rock systems get shrimp decay + delay



*not all cycling is a ramp up of bacteria*

about one forth of today’s cycles are live rocks transferred from the pet store, which is a pure skip cycle setup.

*cycling articles online don’t cater to skip cycling, that’s hidden reef convention knowledge. all cycling articles assume surfaces show up inert and guess what: your shrimp decay did nothing at all harmful. That fed the live rock but remove it, change out the water and proceed.


the specific action for a tank like this is a water change, not a doser if you want to react to a reading. I strongly urge you to cease testing for ammonia for the life for this reef, you’ll torture yourself with partial readings if you keep testing. consider the thread above

We dont test for ammonia in live rock systems, there’s no need to. If you’re bound and determined to test, then order a seneye or use a seachem ammonia alert badge. I see those falsely causing ammonia alarms very rarely. Api and rea sea: once per atomic second a human on the planet is reacting in fear to a red sea or api ammonia reading. We know that ammonia control will not undo, that’s what sellers at the convention know.
 

AydenLincoln

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To be clear I do not live in the US. The tap water in my country is very clean and chemical free and saltwater keepers here generally don't use RODI water.
Oh okay then. Makes sense! Truthfully I just saw you live in Iceland so the info I said probably doesn’t apply most of us on here are from America. I also saw you said you started with live rock and if you truly did then yes it’s certainly possible but to some degree a cycle still has to happen. So I personally don’t know enough about your practices then to give you a better answer.
 
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icereef

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The specific method for this tank is feed in, water change with animals swimming around in the water.

it’s not a set of rocks that need startup, change water no rot shrimp needed here this is chiefly why updated cycling science wants to discern between cycle options, only dry rock systems get shrimp decay + delay



*not all cycling is a ramp up of bacteria*

about one forth of today’s cycles are live rocks transferred from the pet store, which is a pure skip cycle setup.

*cycling articles online don’t cater to skip cycling, that’s hidden reef convention knowledge. all cycling articles assume surfaces show up inert and guess what: your shrimp decay did nothing at all harmful. That fed the live rock but remove it, change out the water and proceed.


the specific action for a tank like this is a water change, not a doser. i strongly urge you to cease testing for ammonia for the life for this reef, you’ll torture yourself with partial readings if you keep testing. consider the thread above

We dont test for ammonia in live rock systems, there’s no need to. If you’re bound and determined to test, then order a seneye or use a seachem ammonia alert badge. I see those falsely causing ammonia alarms very rarely. Api and rea sea: once per atomic second a human on the planet is reacting in fear to a red sea or api ammonia reading. We know that ammonia control will not undo, that’s what sellers at the convention know.
Thank you! You've just tought me something new :) I appreachiate you took the time to reply.

I guess this kind of equates to moving around old filters to new tanks in the freshwater game. Is it safe for me to move in a pair of clownfish or should I start with a single fish?
 
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icereef

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Oh okay then. Makes sense! Truthfully I just saw you live in Iceland so the info I said probably doesn’t apply most of us on here are from America. I also saw you said you started with live rock and if you truly did then yes it’s certainly possible but to some degree a cycle still has to happen. So I personally don’t know enough about your practices then to give you a better answer.
Sorry, I should have mentioned that the tap water here was clean in my original post :)
 

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Thank you! You've just tought me something new :) I appreachiate you took the time to reply.

I guess this kind of equates to moving around old filters to new tanks in the freshwater game. Is it safe for me to move in a pair of clownfish or should I start with a single fish?
Okay, I've got to ask -- what species of tropical marine aquarium fish can you obtain in a small arctic nation? I wouldn't have thought that a market of three hundred and seventy thousand people could sustain this type of hobby.

Okay -- I just googled this, and found decent several pet stores with unpronouncable names (to me) around Reykjavik. Wow!
 
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icereef

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Okay, I've got to ask -- what species of tropical marine aquarium fish can you obtain in a small arctic nation? I wouldn't have thought that a market of three hundred and seventy thousand people could sustain this type of hobby.

Okay -- I just googled this, and found decent several pet stores with unpronouncable names (to me) around Reykjavik. Wow!
Well, sadly I don't think it's very profitable business for the two pet stores that sell marine life. The variety of tanks and equipment is not great and we have to rely alot on special orders and then wait for weeks until the ship arrives I would kill for being able to order custom tanks.

When it comes to livestock the stores can order almost anything. They're very dedicated and try to help as they can!
 

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