Dr Tim’s Cycle

[Dvanlier05]

Dr Tim has been selling this amazing product since 2007. If it were "bottled water" I dont think he would still be selling after 10+ years.

 

[brandon429]

It should be stated that about four people in all of reefing buy into the nitrites do not factor category, we are the minority. It’s new cycling approaches unfurling
Note: Also on the team is Randy Holmes Farley~I get my nitrite as neutral discussion links from his thread work. We use it to turn out sixteen pages of cycled tanks knowing only submersion time and boosters in the microbiology of cycling thread, it’s just a new approach so we use fewer tests that misread. Nothing too rule breaking.

it is sure nice to have finality though, gotta admit with any other system it drags on, and on, and on, and on. Your tank will pass a cycling test, the full water change leaves only your bac on surfaces to do the new work. If you can full water change, and move a tiny spot of ammonia back down overnite, cycled. You barely meet the time frame we usually aim for 30 days. Already posted ammonia movement was the telltale sign.

***everyone is testing and basing the cycle on wastewater, these need to be clean start tests then they’ll all pass. By using testers for ammonia that vary wildly, everyone is dumping in random amounts of ammonia and it takes time to clear wastewater. Clean water testing at 3-4 weeks submersion streamlines everyone and calibrates your tester to be accurate.

 

[Bleigh]

Not budging. Anyone save your money. What is he even a Dr of except charging money and having a cycle last forever lol

I have to ask. Did you try another test kit, just to see? I hear so much about api saying numbers are bad when they’re actually good.

 

[Anthony Cusumano]

Should I do a water change to dilute the ammonia?

 

[Rollman]

I have to ask. Did you try another test kit, just to see? I hear so much about api saying numbers are bad when they’re actually good.

Thanks for asking. Yes I have diff tests.

 

[Rollman]

Gonna change water when I return from puppy school. She seems peeved about lol

 

[johnj]

im on 23rd day with dc tims and still got nitrite at 0.3 and 25 nirates!

should have saved the £££ and gone old school

 

[Anthony Cusumano]

Wonder if my test kit is incorrect. From what I’ve read, 8ppm ammonia should stink pretty bad. My water has no smell

 

[johnj]

Wonder if my test kit is incorrect. From what I’ve read, 8ppm ammonia should stink pretty bad. My water has no smell

I scrapped using my API test kit and used salifert "

 

[Dr. Reef]

Put a pinch of fish food in the tank and by tomorrow ammonia will be in half and a day or two later down to 0.
Some of the bacteria in these bottles is Heterotrophic in nature and require carbon source to colonize.

 

[Rollman]

Dr Tim has been selling this amazing product since 2007. If it were "bottled water" I dont think he would still be selling after 10+ years.

There are endless things being sold over the last 10 yrs that are worthless. Tim produces one of them

 

[Dr. Reef]

There are endless things being sold over the last 10 yrs that are worthless. Tim produces one of them

used to think the same way about bacteria in bottle.
I did a deep study of 9 different manufacturers and found they all work.
There are difference though.
Fritz turbostart 900 works in sterile or non sterile tanks.
Dr. Tim and Bio Spira also work in well but sometimes need more time and carbon source in tank like food or live fish.
Rest all i tested seamed and worked like they were heterotrophic in nature which definitely require carbon source to work.
here is link to that study if you like to read.

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Call me old school, back in the day we placed a deli shrimp in a tank to kick start the cycle. When tank reached 1.5-2 ppm ammonia we pulled it out and waited sometimes weeks to months for bacteria to colonize and drop ammonia and nitrites down to 0 to make tank safe for livestock. With recent...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Dvanlier05]

There are endless things being sold over the last 10 yrs that are worthless. Tim produces one of them

Its micro biology at work. Unless you study it, it's way over most people's knowledge. I just found the few people I have talked to that Dr Tim's did not work for, they didn't follow the directions correctly in one way or another. This caused their cycle to take a month or stopped it completely.
Yes there are other ways to go about cycling a tank. For most new hobbyists they want the fastest way to get from point A to B. This is just a tool to help them. But like all tools if not used properly, they can be "worthless"

 

[Anthony Cusumano]

Is excessive ammonia during the cycle going to have negative effects?

 

[brandon429]

it would take a lot to stop a cycle. in our cycling thread, we've never found one stalled. Its possible, but rare. an overdose resulting from mis testing/nearly every cycler currently cycling/ doesnt harm or stall a cycle. however much ammonia it takes to become bathroom cleaner is what it takes to kill a cycle to the point in 30 days it wont pass a new oxidation test.

excess ammonia creates a lot of excess metabolites that takes varying times to clear for different people, testing in all range of accuracy, so the key is the clean water testing assessment vs the wastewater one. at that point, we get total streamlining of cycle testing and before hand its 25 yrs of pure mess and variation.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Is excessive ammonia during the cycle going to have negative effects?

in my study of bacteria mentioned above, i subjected all 9 bacteria to 8 ppm ammonia and they all worked to bring it down in few days.

 

[Anthony Cusumano]

I’m going to give it a few more days, if it stays at 8ppm I will do a water change.

 

[Rollman]

used to think the same way about bacteria in bottle.
I did a deep study of 9 different manufacturers and found they all work.
There are difference though.
Fritz turbostart 900 works in sterile or non sterile tanks.
Dr. Tim and Bio Spira also work in well but sometimes need more time and carbon source in tank like food or live fish.
Rest all i tested seamed and worked like they were heterotrophic in nature which definitely require carbon source to work.
here is link to that study if you like to read.

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Call me old school, back in the day we placed a deli shrimp in a tank to kick start the cycle. When tank reached 1.5-2 ppm ammonia we pulled it out and waited sometimes weeks to months for bacteria to colonize and drop ammonia and nitrites down to 0 to make tank safe for livestock. With recent...

www.reef2reef.com

Thanks that’s awesome.

 

[tankstudy]

Its micro biology at work. Unless you study it, it's way over most people's knowledge. I just found the few people I have talked to that Dr Tim's did not work for, they didn't follow the directions correctly in one way or another. This caused their cycle to take a month or stopped it completely.

Bottle bacteria is often mistaken as a dump and forget product. All bottled bacteria from my experience requires you to keep certain parameters for it to work properly. It's probably why we get a lot of people who have problems with it and at the same time, many who are quite happy with it.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

I literally just finished a Dr. Tim's cycle on 3 QT setups. The 20g coral/invert QT took 18 days to cycle, the other 2 29g fish QT's took 23 days to cycle.

Full disclosure - my Salifert ammonia tests weren't working out the gate so I ended up double dosing ammonia on day 2-3. I realized my mistake when I pulled out the old API test kit and found it at 4ppm.. Second mistake - I split a single 8oz bottle of One and Only between the three tanks.. I tried to "correct" that by dosing correctly sized full bottles of Biospira(may have inadvertently over dosed bacteria by doing that). I also ended up putting a liter of Seachem Matrix in the coral/invert QT to give the bacteria a bit more area to take hold. The fish QT's only have a large sponge filter(air pump), a bio-wheel style HOB filter, 20 or so plastic bio balls, and some pvc sections, so not much surface area for bacteria I think. In my opinion I think the system would work just fine if you don't make the same mistakes I did and had a decent bit of surface area for bacteria instead of a relatively empty QT setup.