Fastest way to cycle my new system?

[Quietman]

Absolutely agree with a lack of understanding on speed of cycling. I do think most people 'get' that bacteria have to be established though.

I think the bottles of bacteria are great - but really, they only save a few days at most. My last cycle on a new tank, I didn't add any bacteria until day 8 and my ammonia had already dropped to .8 from 2.0 ppm with just the bacteria populating from the environment. Figure the bottle of ammonia can save another day or two instead of waiting for breakdown of shrimp/food - so you're going to save maybe 5-6 days total plus or minus a couple days.

And then it's only initial cycle - not a full load.

I've always thought we should use more and perhaps better defined language.

Cycle - initial stages of establishing nitrifying bacteria population to support first bioload - measured by 1 or 2ppm ammonia being consumed in 24 hours - supports x number of grams of fish - which in practice should be 3 small or 1 large (if I remember correctly from my ammonia per gram of fish). I would like to see the hobby get away from "days to cycle" and the first time you "hitting 0 ppm ammonia".

 

[Softhammer]

Drive to any beach nearby and get a bucket of sand.

 

[CoralReefer1019]

This is my goal to only have a pair of clowns, cuc, and inverts. I will continue to ghost feed a little and hopefully the ammonia will drop and I will get some nitrites then nitrates. I wish there was a easier way to do this but everyone has there own way and it can be confusing

 

[Marco S]

These Cycle threads drive me crazy and I am fed up to here (my hand is under my chin)
A tank does not cycle in 28 days or 28 minutes by using bacteria in a bottle or any other magical potion.

Your $2.00 test kit may say it is cycled but the truth is that your tank is cycled only enough to process that dead shrimp, bottle of ammonia or dehydrated emu you threw in and thats it.

After your silly kit reads zero you can't buy 3 lookdowns, 6 tangs and a barracuda and throw that in your perfectly decorated 20 gallon tank, or even a 3,000 gallon tank.

The bacteria to process those creatures needs time to reproduce and 28 days isn't going to do it unless you live next to Chernobyl reactor in the former Soviet Union.

A member here PMed me yesterday because his fish have ich. The tank is 2 months old and was "fully cycled".

His LFS sold him 2 tangs, a butterfly, a coral beauty and a clown and the fish are all sick.

Of course they are sick. If Moses started a tank like that tomorrow with the help of Mother Theresa and the Pope, the fish would still get ick and probably croak. They may go to Heaven, but they will still be dead.

A 28 day old or even a 2 year old tank is not fully cycled which is why they all have problems. Just look on the disease forum.

Even if you can get the right bacteria (it will not come in a bottle) you will not have the correct diversity that is needed and only comes with time, not thyme in a bottle.

If you are in need of starting a tank and have it up, running and healthy in 28 days, take up the clarinet.

A healthy, thriving tank is a tank where there is no need for medication, nothing gets sick, everything eats and the fish only die of old age and never disease. That is a healthy tank, nothing else.

That only comes with time. I feel we need to start to cycle the tank and after a month or so add one small fish, not a halibut, maybe a juvenile clown. In a couple of weeks add another small fish, maybe a bleeny.

Another couple of weeks or a month, add another "small" fish. Eventually, maybe in a year you should add some larger fish or a tang if you like. But the tank should have some algae and growth on the rocks.

If you want to do this in 28 days, go on the disease forum first and ask how to cure a tank full of fish with ich. ;Bucktooth

I know that you have been in this hobby for a very long time and respect a lot of things you have written, posted and spoken for a while now, so I am saying this with absolutely no disrespect...

Bacteria in a bottle works and has been tested and proven over and over again, It is not a "Magical potion" it is a fact. With that being said, I 100% agree that you should be adding fish very slowly and letting the bacteria build and I have been adding fish to my tank for a year now and still am not fully stocked, but in that year I have had absolutely no disease or death in my tank due to water parameters, stress or disease, (I have only had two deaths in my DT and they were due to aggression). I have also had no loss of Coral or inverts due to water parameters being off and have had no Algae blooms or other issues as well. It does work if you do it correctly. ;Happy

 

[CoralReefer1019]

I know that you have been in this hobby for a very long time and respect a lot of things you have written, posted and spoken for a while now, so I am saying this with absolutely no disrespect...

Bacteria in a bottle works and has been tested and proven over and over again, It is not a "Magical potion" it is a fact. With that being said, I 100% agree that you should be adding fish very slowly and letting the bacteria build and I have been adding fish to my tank for a year now and still am not fully stocked, but in that year I have had absolutely no disease or death in my tank due to water parameters, stress or disease, (I have only had two deaths in my DT and they were due to aggression). I have also had no loss of Coral or inverts due to water parameters being off and have had no Algae blooms or other issues as well. It does work if you do it correctly. ;Happy

should I continue to ghost feed? Or should I add a cheap springer damsel?, add more bacteria or just ride it out?

 

[Marco S]

should I continue to ghost feed? Or should I add a cheap springer damsel?, add more bacteria or just ride it out?

I would not add any more Ammonia until the Ammonia reads 0 and I would also not trust that API Test Kit, Red Sea makes a good one and I personally use the Seachem Ammonia Badges for all my QT tanks. I would wait until the Ammonia reads 0 then add a bottle of Bio Spira and small Damsel or Clownfish, (if you plan on having either of those). I would not add any inverts for a while though as they are way more sensitive to bad water parameters than fish.

Also, since @Paul B brought up ICH...you need to decide if you want a disease free tank or if you want to manage diseases by keeping the fish well fed and healthy. If you want a completely disease free tank you will need to quarantine, everything you put into it and since QT usually takes a month or more, you may as well spend that month letting your main tank cycle the old fashioned way. If you want to manage diseases then there are several more experienced people here that can speak to how you do that. You should make a plan either way and follow through with it. I can tell you that I have QT'd everything that has gone into my tank and while my DT is completely free of disease, I have dealt with almost every disease so far in QT and have had several deaths due to disease and I have spent way more time and money than I ever expected. I kind of wish I had taken the management approach, but I am way to far into it to change now.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

 

[Hamada]

Fastest way to cycle is ( PATIENCE )

 

[Paul B]

I know that you have been in this hobby for a very long time and respect a lot of things you have written, posted and spoken for a while now, so I am saying this with absolutely no disrespect...

Bacteria in a bottle works and has been tested and proven over and over again, It is not a "Magical potion"

Marco, first of all, Good morning and I take no disrespect at all from your post, as my many years in the hobby doesn't make me smarter than anyone here, just older.

But I didn't mean or say that bacteria in a bottle won't work. I said this:

A tank does not cycle in 28 days or 28 minutes by using bacteria in a bottle or any other magical potion.

Bacteria in a bottle may be fantastic, It may be the best thing since Lady GaGa but even Lady GaGa couldn't cycle a tank in 28 days no matter how much bacteria she adds.

A tank cycles in regard to how much living matter is added. If you add bacteria from a bottle or from the sea you have so much bacteria and it will sit there and do nothing if it has nothing to process.

If you also add a dead shrimp or side of beef that bacteria will multiply to consume that but it does not happen overnight. Whatever bacteria you add needs time to grow and it will only grow to the proportions it needs to consume what you added.

If you don't add anything, that bacteria will die so we need to slowly add livestock in the same time frame the bacteria can grow to consume it.

A tank, any tank continues to cycle as the bacteria grow and ebb in regard to how much livestock there is and how much we feed. My 49 year old tank is still cycling as I add things or things die or I remove them.

The only problem I have with bottled bacteria (besides I am not sure if the bacteria is virulent or not) is that bacteria was grown in a lab. Our fish didn't come from a lab, they came from the sea.

The sea has thousands or maybe millions of types of bacteria, some good some bad, some just want to have fun.

We don't know how those bacteria interact or if they need each other. Bacteria in the sea also carry viruses, again some good some not so good.

But my point is that these different strains of bacteria, viruses, algae's and cyano all act together to give us a healthy tank, "eventually". Not in 28 days no matter what your test kit reads.

I don't know how many strains of bacteria they put in a bottle but I do know that if you add an enormous amount of any type of bacteria, that will not, in itself allow your tank to cycle in 28 or 58 days.

Whatever bacteria we add needs time to find it's niche, start to grow and see how it is going to interact with the other microscope life in your particular tank.

Bacteria in a bottle is supposed to be the type of bacteria that is needed for our systems, but that alone will not do it for the reasons I stated.
This is why virtually all new tanks with dead rock and ASW have problems and those tanks never look good and are not healthy. Not yet anyway.

Marco, your tank is the exception as you are a very good aquarist and your fish love you.

Just my old theory of course.
My potatoes are burning.

 

[Thespammailaccount]

You can read about it in this article.

Establishing a Healthy Microbiome in a New Aquarium Using Live Rock

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www.reef2reef.com

Get some live rock from another reefer's established tank, or order some live rock from a reputable place like this:

Premium Aquacultured Live Rock - Overnight to your Door

Aquacultured live rock is one of our specialties. You will get one of the best live rock available in the industry. Forget about painted rock with no life.

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Careful some of this rock can be extremely nutrient rich not to mention bristle worms aptasia etc

 

[siggy]

Real live rock + Live sand + a baby bottle of bacteria ( for Paul ) . Forget the damsel get a clown if that's your plan.
Best of luck

 

[Lasse]

Once again read this When you understand what these 15 steps is based on - you will not ask questions like if you need to ghost feed or not. 2 ppm pure NH3/NH4 is way more than the NH3/NH4 amount a gently fed fish secretes over a week. If you system have processed 2 ppm NH3/NH4 - your system can handle a single fish and a CUC if you feed it sparsely - during some months you can rise the amount of food your system should process carefully (read add more fish slowly) CUC is mostly to be seen as a consumer of secondary production (detritus, algae and so on) and not as a primary load.

According to have the nitrification cycle to work in a from start sterile system - it can been done in less than 3 weeks but even after this - a rise of the systems load (read the amount of daily food added - not the amount of fishes) need to be in a slow way, gradually rise of feed during a week or two according to the nitrification cycle

To have a system stable in all ways, total microbial stability and diversity, water stability and so on - it takes - as Paul highlight - many years.

After working as a hobbyist, as a professional and as a scientist according to nitrification since the seventies - my experiences are that when the full nitrification cycle (NH3/NH4 -> NO2 -> NO3) once is established in a from start sterile system - most of the nitrification bacteria will go dormant - you do not need to ghost feed the system - and if you rise the input load (read feed) in line with the growth rate of nitrification bacteria (biomass doubling in 13 - 24 hours) - it works as a charm.

I have run fish farm systems with a total load of 20 - 30 kg dry food a day with full nitrification - run it without load or very low load for months and after two of three days have been able to rise the daily load to 20 - 30 kg again.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[CoralReefer1019]

Real live rock + Live sand + a baby bottle of bacteria ( for Paul ) . Forget the damsel get a clown if that's your plan.
Best of luck

Today I added large bottle of biospira to my tank and then threw in a talbot damsel into my 40 breeder so far all is well. I know this practice is probably frowned upon but I didn't want to wait lol. From my reviews the biospira does work and I will monitor water parameters for the next month before adding anymore livestock

 

[Lasse]

The amount of food you add is critical. I use to start with 4 - 6 frozen adult Artemia every 3:rd day the first week, every second day the second week and every day the third week. As fast as you turn light on - introduce a CUC. A little PO4 and NO3 in the water in the start prevent outbreak of cyano and dino

Sincerely Lasse

 

[CoralReefer1019]

The amount of food you add is critical. I use to start with 4 - 6 frozen adult Artemia every 3:rd day the first week, every second day the second week and every day the third week. As fast as you turn light on - introduce a CUC. A little PO4 and NO3 in the water in the start prevent outbreak of cyano and dino

Sincerely Lasse

yes I will keep that in mind in regards to cyano, speaking of CUC

The amount of food you add is critical. I use to start with 4 - 6 frozen adult Artemia every 3:rd day the first week, every second day the second week and every day the third week. As fast as you turn light on - introduce a CUC. A little PO4 and NO3 in the water in the start prevent outbreak of cyano and dino

Sincerely Lasse

will def keep that in mind in regards to cyano outbreak, that I will have to have a little PO4 and NO3 in the water to start just to prevent cyano and Dino. Speaking of CUC I don’t do crabs only snails, which ones you recommend for a 40B and how much of each? I was gonna add CUC in a few weeks after water parameters have been stabilized

 

[Malifry97]

yes I will keep that in mind in regards to cyano, speaking of CUC


will def keep that in mind in regards to cyano outbreak, that I will have to have a little PO4 and NO3 in the water to start just to prevent cyano and Dino. Speaking of CUC I don’t do crabs only snails, which ones you recommend for a 40B and how much of each? I was gonna add CUC in a few weeks after water parameters have been stabilized

Why no blue leg hermit crabs? for the most part they are peaceful and helpful

 

[DSC reef]

Why no blue leg hermit crabs? for the most part they are peaceful and helpful

I'd never add crabs again. Opportunistic feeders, kills snails and lost trust in them. I did like watching them though.

 

[CoralReefer1019]

Why no blue leg hermit crabs? for the most part they are peaceful and helpful

they kill snails? Peaceful?

 

[Lasse]

There is a lot of different hermits - and IMO - the electric blue is not the best. They have never worked in my aquarium. I prefer the ones with red legs.

My experiences are - with them or every else hermit - that they does not kill healthy snails. Why - most snails have a trick - close the door. hermits can try - because snails is food but they seldom succeed if the snails is healthy and able to close the protection door into the snail.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Paul B]

I use to start with 4 - 6 frozen adult Artemia every 3:rd day

Did you use male of female artemia?

 

[huckjai]

There is a lot of different hermits - and IMO - the electric blue is not the best. They have never worked in my aquarium. I prefer the ones with red legs.

My experiences are - with them or every else hermit - that they does not kill healthy snails. Why - most snails have a trick - close the door. hermits can try - because snails is food but they seldom succeed if the snails is healthy and able to close the protection door into the snail.

Sincerely Lasse

I had two turbo snails. Both killed by my electric blue hermit. He is quite a large one and very cool to look at. Thinking about re-homing him.