Cycling

[CWalters]

Hey guys! On day 12 currently of cycle and it seems that my nitrites don’t seem to be dropping. Trying to take things slow so just curious what the recommendation would be. Should I let it continue, or do a smaller water change and then add ammonia to see if it’s progressing?

 

[Jekyl]

Your tank is cycled. Do a large water change and add a fish or 2 size depending.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed, the way I break down cycling at this stage is that waiting longer can’t make the system safer for fish, only direct fish disease preps can make the tank safer for fish, the low level nitrite is a neutral impact to cycle status. It carries fish now, so time to decide on how to manage disease is now, tank will handle whatever you choose.


by far the most common advice seen in every cycling thread is wait till nitrites are zero, then add fish and how you prep for disease doesn’t matter.


that notion is keeping Jays disease forum so busy he needs nine helpers. Jay isn’t telling folks to reef this way, he’s cleaning up the recommends from forum cycle umps who usually win out advising to wait for nitrite zero / not any discussion of disease preps at all.

 

[brandon429]

And just for the books, look at that beautiful ten day ammonia drop, unsolicited / posted in truth / that’s the most patternable pattern in reefing, even when test kits from api might happen to disagree.


nitrite care matters in freshwater, but not reef tank cycling / Randy’s posts on the matter.

 

[CWalters]

This is after 30% water change.
Used Red Sea and API

nitrates are sitting at 10 currently

 

[Azedenkae]

Hey guys! On day 12 currently of cycle and it seems that my nitrites don’t seem to be dropping. Trying to take things slow so just curious what the recommendation would be. Should I let it continue, or do a smaller water change and then add ammonia to see if it’s progressing?

It's fine, just wait a bit more and nitrite should drop to zero soon. Though to check - you are not like dosing ammonia every time ammonia drops to zero, are you?

 

[CWalters]

It's fine, just wait a bit more and nitrite should drop to zero soon. Though to check - you are not like dosing ammonia every time ammonia drops to zero, are you?

No - my ammonia was high to begin with (people say you’ll never get proper measurements with using drops) so it sat above 2 for 5 days. So never got to add more ammonia in.

 

[brandon429]

Here’s your test issue:

nobody should be dosing 2 ppm for the reasons you can see

far less cycles reefs, and actually works well with the sensitivity of those kits.

thankfully nitrite isn’t something we factor in updated cycling science. Specifically, you can’t make the tank safer for fish by adding anything, dosing or waiting longer based on nitrite. You should be into planning solely fish disease prevention using a method from Jays forum, your biofilter doesn’t need any more help nor measure. You can change water before beginning because you put all that algae fuel in: there isnt any danger in the current water because of what you read when searching nitrite in the reef tank, Randy H Farley


it means if you didn’t own the kit, didn’t post the measures, you’d already be one step closer to fish disease prep. Today’s cycling is only about disease prep, you can see the stuff from the bottle works great.


nitrite measure in reefing directly causes you to forego disease planning / evident in all stuck nitrite threads/ today’s cycling is only about how you prep for fish disease, you can’t mess up a bottle bac cycle even by dosing the huge amnt blast of starting ammonia all the directions say to add.

todays bottle bac respond better to fish food + 10 days wait than they do to raw ammonia (provides no carbon) the latest microbial tests in the hobby shows. Your cycle is fine anyway, because carbon gets in from many sources even if we provide none, and just wait a little over a week for natural home sources to get in

 

[brandon429]

Ammonia and nitrite never need to be tested for again in this reef, thats a rule from updated cycling science.

ties back to disease: ammonia is never going to creep up in your reef, and nitrite is neutral per the article online. a fish kill from disease or hardware issues / procedural errors precedes an ammonia rising event; an ammonia rising event doesn’t precede a fish loss


this means ammonia isn’t going to be out of spec unless you do something non-reefing like add copper into the display (procedural error)

by you ceasing to test ammonia or nitrite further, you stop the risk that you lose focus on disease preps and get caught up in a false stall post. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen Randy write that there’s no need to test for ammonia and nitrite after the cycle, perhaps it’s one billion times as a guess. If you had live rocks stewing this whole time, that cycle is done and stuck in place for ammonia control.

 

[Azedenkae]

No - my ammonia was high to begin with (people say you’ll never get proper measurements with using drops) so it sat above 2 for 5 days. So never got to add more ammonia in.

Gotcha. All good then, yeah just time to wait for nitrite to decrease.

 

[CWalters]

Ammonia and nitrite never need to be tested for again in this reef, thats a rule from updated cycling science.

ties back to disease: ammonia is never going to creep up in your reef, and nitrite is neutral per the article online. a fish kill from disease or hardware issues / procedural errors precedes an ammonia rising event; an ammonia rising event doesn’t precede a fish loss


this means ammonia isn’t going to be out of spec unless you do something non-reefing like add copper into the display (procedural error)

by you ceasing to test ammonia or nitrite further, you stop the risk that you lose focus on disease preps and get caught up in a false stall post. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen Randy write that there’s no need to test for ammonia and nitrite after the cycle, perhaps it’s one billion times as a guess. If you had live rocks stewing this whole time, that cycle is done and stuck in place for ammonia control.

Excuse my ignorance.... Why are there so many people that say wait until nitrites go to Zero then? I have seen alot of posts that as soon as someone sees ammonia turning into Nitrites people are telling them their tank is cycled.

Sorry to question... I just don't want to jump the gun, put fish in and kill them.

Thanks!

 

[Dburr1014]

Tank is cycled, nitrites don't matter.
Add a fish, go slow.
Nitrite in seawater is not toxic unless it's way super high.

 

[brandon429]

Excellent question CW

here's why: rules are changing faster than sales groups who sell bottle bac are willing to print them (and faster than many forum cycle umps are willing to inspect themselves before relaying dated info)


for example, in 2002 if you were reefing online, nobody had 1 gallon reefs, those were a joke/impossible to run/any large tank owner could tell you. MANY books said that small reefs were unstable, can't work, coral allelopathy etc


now ff 20 years, theres over a million running 1 gallon pico reefs carrying sps of the highest quality

(go search maritza the vase reef on youtube, 9 yrs old, $3k in corals in one fish bowl)


information changes fast in the forums, the retailers are years behind the curve. now the word pico reef is as common as day in our hobby.


nitrite in the reef tank, Randy Holmes Farley, is an online article from 2006 stating the neutral effects of nitrite in a reef display where these high salt levels go, frankly our hobby hasn't been listening for as long because we blended info about freshwater cycling, where nitrite is VERY dangerous, into saltwater, where it's simply not dangerous.


I have a -theory- that bottle bac sellers don't want to comply with Randy's article because of people who buy bottle bac over and over and over if nitrite is high, I have about 300 instances of this documented in 2 study threads.


there is a marked sales driver behind nitrite care in the reef tank, which is a non issue.

and lastly, here's 39 pages of nitrite-positive reefs who added life and things are just fine. your cycle is deemed ready due to meeting exact qualifications in this thread: bottle bac, feed, and a ten day wait-

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

non digital ammonia test kit readings (api, Red Sea, nyos, seachem badges) make you think you aren’t cycled when indeed you are if you owned a $200 expensive seneye meter, you’d never be doubting your cycle status. since .01% of the reefing population owns these, we need a way to help the...

www.reef2reef.com

that right there is the application in testing of Randy's claims, running on it's third year, showing that any presentation of nitrite in a cycling reef you want to reveal does not matter, our tanks run the whole gamut there of levels and you can message any entrant today, to see how their cycle/fish carry went. we're totally accountable for cycle start dates there.

anyone telling you that nitrite matters is trying to sell you something or they're simply parroting advice that is not tested in giant work threads like that above. nobody has a thread showing nitrite loss for any stated level in a reef tank, not one thread exists on the entire internet for that claim.

 

[reef_1]

Same study quoted 1 million times:

(PDF) Ammonia and nitrite toxicity to false clownfish Amphiprion ocellaris

PDF | False clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris, is one of the most commercialized fish species in the world, highly produced to supply the aquarium market.... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

As a baseline they talk about 0.57mg/L free ammonia, that can be vaguely around 10ppm total ammonia depending on ph and temp. 10 ppm total ammonia would convert to 27ppm nitrites.

The conclusion in the study:
"We recommend to avoid concentrations higher than 0.57 mg/L of NH3-N and 25 mg/L of NO2-N in water."

Ooops almost the same figures!

This means to me that if your ammonia was at a problem level at the ph and temp we have in our tanks, then it still can be vaguely at a problem level in nitrites. And I would ofc wait until nitrites go down.

Can someone with better understanding of chemistry check the above figures and the study together.
(I just want to make sure I am not spreading misinformation.)

 

[Dburr1014]

Same study quoted 1 million times:

(PDF) Ammonia and nitrite toxicity to false clownfish Amphiprion ocellaris

PDF | False clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris, is one of the most commercialized fish species in the world, highly produced to supply the aquarium market.... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

As a baseline they talk about 0.57mg/L free ammonia, that can be vaguely around 10ppm total ammonia depending on ph and temp. 10 ppm total ammonia would convert to 27ppm nitrites.

The conclusion in the study:
"We recommend to avoid concentrations higher than 0.57 mg/L of NH3-N and 25 mg/L of NO2-N in water."

Ooops almost the same figures!

This means to me that if your ammonia was at a problem level at the ph and temp we have in our tanks, then it still can be vaguely at a problem level in nitrites. And I would ofc wait until nitrites go down.

Can someone with better understanding of chemistry check the above figures and the study together.
(I just want to make sure I am not spreading misinformation.)

This...

https://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php

Edit: this is an article from Randy Holmes Farley that Brandon mentioned.

 

[Azedenkae]

Excuse my ignorance.... Why are there so many people that say wait until nitrites go to Zero then? I have seen alot of posts that as soon as someone sees ammonia turning into Nitrites people are telling them their tank is cycled.

Sorry to question... I just don't want to jump the gun, put fish in and kill them.

Thanks!

For some reason a lot of people decide to believe that nitrite is completely non-toxic to marine fish. This is untrue. While it has to be very high to be lethal to marine fish, it can still cause issues at lower concentrations. As per the article that @reef_1 linked, prolonged exposure to 25ppm nitrite can cause permanent damage to ocellaris clownfish for example.

So that is the reason why it is still recommended that nitrite drop to zero first. Otherwise there is always a chance that nitrite spikes higher to 25ppm and above, and stay there long enough to actually cause harm.

It's up to you however. There is certainly not necessarily a high chance of nitrite getting to that point, but it is certainly possible, so why risk it.

 

[reef_1]

This...

https://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php

Thats cool, didnt see Randy's nitrite page before.

For ocellaris the 24h LC 50 333 on Randy's page is not that much different on the findings in the other link - the 188 24h LC 50 measured - especially that this latter was measured on small juvenile clowns.

Other fish on Randy's page is mostly much bigger fish/not aquaria fish (and there are other fish on the list with values around 150) so I personally think that the two data set doesnt have much of a conflict - on the contrary, it seems to me that the figures are broadly the same.

 

[Dburr1014]

In

Thats cool, didnt see Randy's nitrite page before.

For ocellaris the 24h LC 50 333 on Randy's page is not that much different on the findings in the other link - the 188 24h LC 50 measured - especially that this latter was measured on small juvenile clowns.

Other fish on Randy's page is mostly much bigger fish/not aquaria fish (and there are other fish on the list with values around 150) so I personally think that the two data set doesnt have much of a conflict - on the contrary, it seems to me that the figures are broadly the same.

In the article he cited that he noticed at 33 PPM nitrate that the clowns had difficulty breathing but no permanent damage has been found.

I haven't cycled a tank in years but I don't remember nitrite going that high either.

 

[reef_1]

Well I found the original article which Randy referenced and the main points are:

- they did a limited test 20 fish, 5 fish in each 4 different concentration, no physycal examination

- rapid breathing was noted in all fish at 10mg/l and "some was swimming normally" (some not I guess)

- at 100mg/l were very lethargic and breathing hard and 2 fish died from the 5 at 50 and 74 hours

- then they say as a kind of conclusion on nitrite: "The 40% mortality at the 100 mg/l level suggests a median lethal concentration (LC50) just over 100mg/l NO2-N. This is consistent with the 86mg/l to 187mg/l range of LC50 results for five marine species listed by Stoskopf (1993) The 10mg/l level produced stress but no lasting ill effects."

Original article:

http://www.recif-france.com/Seascope/versionanglaise/1999/fall/p1.JPG

http://www.recif-france.com/Seascope/versionanglaise/1999/fall/p3.JPG

Conclusion is on page 3, top.

Dont understand, where the value 333 comes from in Randy's list, is it somehow related to mg/l vs ppm or something else? But for example API, Salifert and Hannah test kit all says ppm and mg/l is the same, so where this value comes from.

To sum it up, the source article linked in mentions as low as 86 mg/l LC50 for saltwater aquarium fish and it actually massively reinforces this other study linked by me, where they actually did lesions in the fish gill and investigated the damage.

I still wait for someone with a better understanding of chemistry to doublecheck this all + post #14.

Update: google told me "1 mg/L = 1 parts per million (ppm) for dilute aqueous solutions. For example, a chlorine concentration of 1.8 mg/L chlorine is equivalent to 1.8 ppm chlorine"

Update 2:

is ppm the same as mg/l

Hi guys, I have some Colombo Test kits and they all show results in 0,0mg/l etc I also then have some chats that tell me what my levels should be on my water params and they all seem to be in ppm values. Is mg/l the same as ppm or do I need to convert somehow and if so, how for Iodine...

www.reef2reef.com

So where the 333 comes from then?

 

[Azedenkae]

Other fish on Randy's page is mostly much bigger fish/not aquaria fish (and there are other fish on the list with values around 150) so I personally think that the two data set doesnt have much of a conflict - on the contrary, it seems to me that the figures are broadly the same.

You are right, it is not conflict per se. Also because the recommendations differ in terms of what amount of nitrite is lethal, versus what causes long term health issues.