Cycling Questions With Seneye

[iFunnny]

Hi all,

I have some questions regarding my cycle. I've read ton of them on the forums but I was hoping some of the more experienced reefers here could weigh in.

I am week 3 into my cycle with primarily using the Seneye and Ammonia Alert badge as well as salifert kits for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Where i am, we use Chillers since its hot all year around, but temperature has been between 28-29degress celsius (82-84F).

Tank dimensions are 7x2x2 and sump is 6x1.5.x15 for a rough total volume of a round 300 gallons give or take.

I cycled with no sand, dry rock, 15kg of biohome with more rocks and plastic media (for emergency QT usage in the future)

I used Microbacter XLM as well as some Microbacter 7 from week 2 onwards.

I also dosed ammonia when my seneye recorded 0.02x ppm nh3 to 0.06, and it has now come down to 0.04 after about 2 days. (this is reflected in the seachem badge as well as the color grew ostensibly bluer). I did a 40% water change as the 0.06 ppm kept going up, and after the water change, it dropped to 0.04 before rising again to 0.05 to now going back down.

Here are some pics of my tank as well as my seneye dashboard.

I am not sure if I messed up the cycle by adding too much pure ammonia. I have no fish in the tank.

Any and all advise/interpretations would be helpful, thanks!

 

[iFunnny]

I should also mention, the chiller is not on, and apparently bacteria thrive in warmer waters so ive yet to turn on the chiller.

 

[davidcalgary29]

This is the time to sit back and relax, and perhaps even add some macroalgae to your tank; it may take as long as six weeks to cycle a tank that's been started with dry rock, although the Microbacter will certainly assist.

Keep in mind that the Seachem badge is a blunt tool that will just provide you with a general gauge of ammonia levels, and that the Seneye often returns erroneous readings -- sometimes you just get a bad slide. There are multiple threads on this issue, and they're worth a read.

Seneye also seem to be ambivalent about using their monitors for fishless cycling, with the implication being that you use some other testing system (e.g. Red Sea) for monitoring ammonia. That doesn't particularly fill me with confidence about using a Seneye at any part of this process.

 

[KStatefan]

This is the graph when I started my cycle. I started with live rock rubble and dosed 75% of the recommended ammonia chloride from Dr Tim’s

 

[gbroadbridge]

The seneye measures free ammonia aka toxic ammonia.

The level you are showing is quite safe for fish but I'd give it a few more days.

Alternately, you can simply do a 50% water change to bring it down to to 0.01 which is perfectly fine and you could add some CUC, followed by fish a week later.

 

[iFunnny]

This is the graph when I started my cycle. I started with live rock rubble and dosed 75% of the recommended ammonia chloride from Dr Tim’s

nice! you can see it trending down! i think the absolute values on the seneye are not as valuable now, but the trend line seems like your ammonia is headed where its suppose to.

The seneye measures free ammonia aka toxic ammonia.

The level you are showing is quite safe for fish but I'd give it a few more days.

Alternately, you can simply do a 50% water change to bring it down to to 0.01 which is perfectly fine and you could add some CUC, followed by fish a week later.

Thank you! Yes, i can see both Nh3 and Nh4 on my seneye dashboard app. I too feel 0.03 is safe, but i given how most seneye users have an issue with the exact amount of ammonia without calibration, im mostly basing it on how quickly it goes down from X - Y. so far, that period has been 24hours, which should mean things are all set. but im nervous, so i figured id ask everyone