Cycling tank

rlintelman · Nov 27, 2020

I am new to fish tanks in general, I started my reef tank around July and had multiple fish in it, including clowns, a tang, some Chromis, a wrasse, and other starter fish. Unfortunately, I got ick which whipped out all of my fish. I decided to completely clean the tank, change all the rock, replace all the filter media, etc. After letting the tank sit for a few months I decided to start again fresh, I bought fritz turbo start 900, cycled my tank perfectly in about a week. I saw the ammonia levels increase, then decrease, the same for the nitrite levels, and eventually, the nitrate levels increased. I did a 25% water change to lower the nitrate levels and planned on getting two clownfish the next day since all of my water parameters checked out. The same day I scrubbed off what appeared to be a build-up on the side of the tank, it was a kind of tannish color, I am not entirely sure what it was (maybe algae or sand), and the next day I tested my ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels, and my ammonia levels shot up to the highest possible level for my test kit. I gave my tank a couple of days and my ammonia was still extremely high, but my nitrite and nitrate levels were fine. I am not sure what to do at this point, but any guidance would be appreciated.

Doglips56 · Nov 27, 2020

There is no really fast way to cycle a tank, it can take up to six weeks. Also, to prevent ich or other even more devastating diseases you need to have a fully cycled QT tank and add fish slowly. You might try adding a bit of Bio Spira or Microbacter7 to see if it will help with the ammonia spike. I got lazy and stopped quarantining new fish and I’ve been paying for it dearly. Have 2 in hospital tank trying to treat them for the mystery illness and have lost several more I was unable to catch. I finally seem to have halted the disease/death cycle but it’s been months of hard work and loss.

brandon429 · Nov 28, 2020

Fritz is two day bac, you are set. Next challenge, must fallow and qt to prevent next loss from disease, the ammonia control was easy and is complete. You are past cycling, and into disease control planning.

Doglips56 · Nov 28, 2020

brandon429 said:
Fritz is two day bac, you are set. Next challenge, must fallow and qt to prevent next loss from disease, the ammonia control was easy and is complete. You are past cycling, and into disease control planning.

I am 1000% certain you know WAY more than me but I keep cycled sponges to use in my QT tank each time I set it up and I too have had difficulty with ammonia spikes after adding livestock. My qt is quite small though. I’m about to get a larger one. This one was originally my coral/i very observation tankq and the 40 Breeder was my fish QT but I had to get a couple of aggressive or coral nipping fish out of DT so their new home is the 40g and the fish QT is only 13 gallons. I have to be very cognizant of how many fish I have in there. Currently 2 in Metro/Kanaplex after copper. Have a yellow coris wrasse in DT with what looks like bacterial or fungal infection near it’s tail. Trap in tank but it’s always the one you want to catch that won’t go near the trap!