First time cycle... params look ok?

[LeftyReefer]

here is another vote for this tank being cycled already.

Gray808, you used live sand and bottled bacteria and its been, what 3 weeks? You've seen ammonia go down, you have nitrites and nitrates present... You tank is cycled enough to start adding a light bioload of fish if you so desire. I'd do a water change first though.

I started a brand new tank recently too, using all new dry rock and dry sand, added bottled bacteria, and my tank was cycled in less than a week. I waited an additional two weeks before adding my first fish, but I'm pretty confident your tank is cycled by this point too. You started off with more bacteria than I did since you used live sand.

 

[brandon429]

Lefty here's what we're up against in my opinion:

-cycling videos on youtube that routinely, consistently indicate the ability to stall a cycle (meaning no zero able to be seen on api, red sea). Not any videos or threads state cycles do complete even if api and red sea dont agree, that cycles do NOT stall
-99.999% of forum advice says must wait till nitrite and ammonia are total zero, yet on digital testers and in oceanic studies there is no zero, ever, for this active param we care so much about.

we dont have digital measures as the data set to pull from, its all color tube subjectivity affected by lighting/taking readings in different rooms / reagent shaking and mixing/ wait times for sample reads etc

what we also have: fish in cycles where again 99.999% of forum posters say they're harmed, burned by adding bottle bac and fish same day, yet no clownfish in any fish-in cycle setup acts burnt as literature clearly says fish swimming in free ammonia will act

Our entire notion of what ammonia does in the reef tank is behind twenty years, due to solely api and red sea post data and no supporting new info about how wet bacteria always pull off the job/ I will keep posting until there's a change, thats fun to do.

 

[brandon429]

handy, interesting effect of the masses being told cycles can stall and routinely do and to use different cycling standards than the reef conventions that sell us things and demo new trends: massive extra bottle bac sales. I can't count the # of posts where people in stuck cycle ciaimed threads have already bought 3x different kinds of bacteria.

example: poster today from the new tank forum, top sticky thread, help with claimed cycle issues "Guys, my tank feels like it has stalled on 1ppm of ammonia for like 4 days, i do have nitrites though. My question is why? My ph is at 8.1... I did use dr tims one and only. Would it be okay to use fritz turbo start 900 also? I got a small bottle of it. Would that help? Or bad idea mixing two different brands of bactaria in a bottle "


multiply that times a million, and that's how much bottle bac is getting sold due to dated cycling rules which works great for sellers, who NEVER miss a convention start date with a stuck cycle, vs buyers in forums who NEVER are allowed to meet a cycling deadline, cycling stuck. his tank above is already cycled, but nobody would believe it if posted.

coincidence? where hundreds of thousands of dollars are made monthly? ok

 

[Cell]

The amount of confusion surrounding what should be a relatively simple process is both surprising and disappointing. It has created this artificial barrier at the entry point of the hobby that often has people frustrated and discouraged before even getting going.

 

[brandon429]

agreed its a massive problem. We cannot reliably discern the most dangerous compound we need to know, in this hobby.



Gray your thread is about to really take off. Instead of hanging on another two weeks, how about we do the adjusted zero ammonia re-proofing for your tank so you can begin. *that is testing to start vs a guess...we're just not looking for zero. Post a new ammonia reading today #1 pic. up the nh3 using liquid ammonia until the tester registers the first increment up of change, not 2 ppm, the first bare change up in free nh3 ammonia.

post that pic, #2 in the succession

post the ammonia reading pic #3 on thursday after 2 days, its back to pic #1 levels=cycled and done using the test kits

 

[Funston07]

Gonna be honest. Being new into the hobby with everything a noob reads I expected weeks of cycling even with live sand and a bottle of bio-spira. The reality of it the tank was fully cycled and could have a fish put in the tank definitely within under a week. I tested the water within 4 days and basically showed it was cycled but because all the stuff you read it made me think I was testing wrong when in fact tanks cycle much faster than percieved if you use live sand and bacteria. It definitely throws new people off but me being me I tested it again just to make sure and got the same readings so within one week my tank had its first fish and nothing bad happened. Fish is still healthy and happy.

 

[gray808]

Gray your thread is about to really take off.

I didn't ask for it to take off, and not terribly thrilled it has.

I asked for advice, got some, then people waded in and made it some sort of religious war.

I still don't understand your point, other than "no matter what it's cycled if it's been a few days".

I'm going to the coast for a week, it will sit and run, and when I get home I'll do readings, and possibly order a fish, based on the readings.

--Gray

 

[brandon429]

no harm done we're just reviewing changing rules, truly it happens each decade

remember we couldnt do without sandbeds at all in 1998, fierce battles between sand vs no sand erupted. the way cycling is proven before adding bioload has changed as well, that way we can meet certain dates of action for our reefs, and trust that they're ready and not weak or can be undone, that's my summary anyway.

 

[ChrisNH]

Oops accidentally ended up in the wrong thread.