Cycling Question - Red Sea Mature Pro kit

Ddun8 · Jan 30, 2023

Hi all. As background, here are my tank details so far:

Tank Summary:

Waterbox Peninsula 25 AIO
Red Sea Reef 50 light
Tunze 9001 skimmer
Innovative Marine Hydro Fill ATO
CaribSea Life Rock
CaribSea Live Sand

Got the tank wet on December 22, 2022. Around January 10, 2023, decided to start the Red Sea Reef Mature Pro kit for my cycling. I have deviated a bit from the Red Sea kit instructions for adding livestock as I started with dry rock and it took a bit longer than the planned time to reach safe parameters. I have, however, followed the dosing instructions precisely.

As of yesterday, I have finally hit 0 on my ammonia, Nitrites are at 0-0.05, and my Nitrates are still a bit high at around 20. Planning on doing a large water change (30-50%) in a few more days to try to lower the nitrates before livestock. I'm still a week plus out on adding livestock, but wanted some input on what I believe to be a bacterial bloom that I am experiencing. Some white stringy slime has shown up in my tank off and on for the past 10-12 days. From what I have gathered in some quick research, I may be getting this as a result of the NoPox dosing suggested by the Red Sea kit and starting with dry rock as opposed to live rock. I have attached some photos below. Should I stop dosing the NoPox to clear this out? I generally get an explosion of this stuff the morning after NoPox dosing.

Mr. Mojo Rising · Jan 30, 2023

Personally I would definately not dose nopox, I am very surprised this is an instruction for a new tank. Nopox lowers nitrate, but a new tank won't have much nitrate.

Nitrate will naturally be removed when you do your water changes, especially on a small tank like yours, its easy to control.

Maybe I misunderstand and maybe someone can explain it to me, but to me it seems pointless and illogical to dose 'nitrate lowering chemicals' into a brand new tank that has no nitrate. (I'm an older guy, I manage everything without bottled solutions)

brandon429 · Jan 30, 2023

This is where you stand: your cycle for filter bac establishment is done and the tank cannot be made safer for animal carry by waiting longer, or adding anything

change out all that bloom via manual directed siphon, do a full water change if you can and simply begin reefing.

brandon429 · Jan 30, 2023

Agreed, do a physical export of the cycling mass, that growth comes from all the things we are told to add. If the op added only two pinches of fish food on dec 22 and waited till now he would equally cycled but without all the mess to clean and no testing would be required.

we wouldn’t add dosers as LC said for a couple reasons: that’s a for-profit company selling him more things, and because you want physical mass export not just to degrade it internally with more dosers.

mike550 · Jan 30, 2023

@Ddun8 I feel your pain. Couple of things. First, as you can tell from the other posts and the basic theme around aquariums is slow and steady. Nothing good happens quickly and chemicals dont change that. Second, I’ve been caught by Red Sea advice before so now I’m much more cautious around it. Ive used NoPox and if you follow the dosage directions on the bottle it’s way too powerful. Ive learned that starting with 25% at first is a safer way to start and to avoid sudden changes. But to your point, I wouldn’t does NoPox for this. But I’ve only been at this a couple of years so still very much a newbie

Ddun8 · Jan 30, 2023

mike550 said:
@Ddun8 I feel your pain. Couple of things. First, as you can tell from the other posts and the basic theme around aquariums is slow and steady. Nothing good happens quickly and chemicals dont change that. Second, I’ve been caught by Red Sea advice before so now I’m much more cautious around it. Ive used NoPox and if you follow the dosage directions on the bottle it’s way too powerful. Ive learned that starting with 25% at first is a safer way to start and to avoid sudden changes. But to your point, I wouldn’t does NoPox for this. But I’ve only been at this a couple of years so still very much a newbie

Thanks! I had a 120g tank that I broke down about 10 years ago, so I understand the patience aspect. I've been burned in my old beginner days by dosing and chasing numbers. Wasn't necessarily trying to rush the cycle, just wanted to do my best to get a good biome up and running before adding any livestock. Appreciate the feedback!

Ddun8 · Jan 30, 2023

brandon429 said:
This is where you stand: your cycle for filter bac establishment is done and the tank cannot be made safer for animal carry by waiting longer, or adding anything

change out all that bloom via manual directed siphon, do a full water change if you can and simply begin reefing.

brandon429 said:
Agreed, do a physical export of the cycling mass, that growth comes from all the things we are told to add. If the op added only two pinches of fish food on dec 22 and waited till now he would equally cycled but without all the mess to clean and no testing would be required.

we wouldn’t add dosers as LC said for a couple reasons: that’s a for-profit company selling him more things, and because you want physical mass export not just to degrade it internally with more dosers.

Will be siphoning out all that I can after work today! Thanks for the feedback!

Ddun8 · Feb 4, 2023

Siphonined and cleaned the tank. Stopped dosing NoPox, threw in a fresh filter sock and some activated charcoal. Problem was gone within 48 hrs. Was about to throw in my first clowns but got an ammonia spike (possibly from disturbing the sand?) so held off on adding them. Been testing back at 0.2 or 0 for a few days now. They're going in Sunday!