Fishless Cycle Question

[ReefDreamz]

I am in the process of cycling my new 200 gallon system. Today is day 7 of the cycle. On day zero I dosed Nitrocycle to get my ammonia to 3 ppm and dosed the recommended amount of Fritz Turbostart 900.

As of last night (day 6) the ammonia level has dropped to zero (Red Sea kit). The nitrite level has been at 1 ppm for 3 days (Salifert kit). I also tested nitrate yesterday (Hanna) and it was over 75 ppm. I suspect this was a false reading due to the presence of nitrite.

I won't be able to add any fish to the system until 8/9 (11 days from now). My question is should I be dosing more Nitrocycle to raise the ammonia level to keep feeding the bacteria? If yes, when do I dose and how much? Enough to get the ammonia to 1 ppm? Should I only dose more Nitrocycle once the nitrite is 0 or should I do it now since ammonia is at 0?

 

[brandon429]

done cycle. you don't have to feed, test, monitor nor concern about ammonia or nitrite for the life of this tank, it's why that product cost what it did/worked well.

your new concern: fish disease prevention. waiting longer here can't make your tank safer for fish. direct disease preps are needed now to ensure fish health, ammonia isn't going to be out of spec now for the life of this tank. If all the fish die due to a disease, and the ammonia goes up bc they're left to degrade in the tank, that's specifically not an ammonia control problem.

there is no time other than a full fish kill that your ammonia will rise, so testing for it after right now isn't needed, and removing any dead fish that may die will ensure ammonia compliance from here on out. The cycle can't be starved or set back even if you stopped feeding it for years, which you won't be doing. nitrite has no bearing on reef tank cycling, don't even own the kit=summary of all searchable nitrite impact posts on the matter written by Randy. if your nitrite is positive, that's fine. if it's negative, that's fine, we don't care what it reads/don't own the kit for display tank cycles.

 

[ReefDreamz]

done cycle. you don't have to feed, test, monitor nor concern about ammonia or nitrite for the life of this tank, it's why that product cost what it did/worked well.

your new concern: fish disease prevention. waiting longer here can't make your tank safer for fish. direct disease preps are needed now to ensure fish health, ammonia isn't going to be out of spec now for the life of this tank. If all the fish die due to a disease, and the ammonia goes up bc they're left to degrade in the tank, that's specifically not an ammonia control problem.

there is no time other than a full fish kill that your ammonia will rise, so testing for it after right now isn't needed, and removing any dead fish that may die will ensure ammonia compliance from here on out. The cycle can't be starved or set back even if you stopped feeding it for years, which you won't be doing. nitrite has no bearing on reef tank cycling, don't even own the kit=summary of all searchable nitrite impact posts on the matter written by Randy. if your nitrite is positive, that's fine. if it's negative, that's fine, we don't care what it reads/don't own the kit for display tank cycles.

So your saying that I should not add any more Nitrocycle (ammonia) to the system even though I won't be adding any fish until at least 11 days from now?

 

[brandon429]

100% yes. you bought a product that requires no thought, prep, or action to cycle a tank and it requires no testing. anyone who buys that product, adds it to their tank of rocks in the system cycling, will have your same results on the same timeframe shown above. anyone using that product and reporting some sort of delay is having a test kit issue, not a cycle issue.

Your cycle is done. a firm rule of updated cycling science is that after cycling is complete, you can't starve a cycle, it's not possible in a home setting.

You are done cycling, and into fish disease prevention, literally give the cycle no more thought as long as the tank stays wet. you cannot have any problems with a cycle going forward, you can only have problems if you continue testing for ammonia and nitrite because small, natural variances in them will register as panic events on your non seneye ammonia test device. its better to not torture yourself this way (honest assessment, look at the ammonia challenge posts on the board today in multiple forums/all test misreads/none are real challenges)

nitrite is not a burning parameter to fish, animals etc in a reef display. it is in freshwater.

nitrate can't burn either

ammonia is controlled, we see it on your chart, all three rules are set now/cycle done / all disease prep thoughts and planning from here on out.

 

[Garf]

So your saying that I should not add any more Nitrocycle (ammonia) to the system even though I won't be adding any fish until at least 11 days from now?

Personally I would add a little phosphate from a pinch of flake food or something like that. That will get heterotrophic bacteria going and you probably don’t want phosphate to be zero for too long or you may be reading up on dinoflagellate infestations.

 

[SaJon]

Personally I would add a little phosphate from a pinch of flake food or something like that. That will get heterotrophic bacteria going and you probably don’t want phosphate to be zero for too long or you may be reading up on dinoflagellate infestations.

Thats exactly what I was thinking. I would definitely do a little ghost feeding till your ready to add fish. Better be safe then sorry and keep the cycle stable.

 

[ReefDreamz]

100% yes. you bought a product that requires no thought, prep, or action to cycle a tank and it requires no testing. anyone who buys that product, adds it to their tank of rocks in the system cycling, will have your same results on the same timeframe shown above. anyone using that product and reporting some sort of delay is having a test kit issue, not a cycle issue.

Your cycle is done. a firm rule of updated cycling science is that after cycling is complete, you can't starve a cycle, it's not possible in a home setting.

You are done cycling, and into fish disease prevention, literally give the cycle no more thought as long as the tank stays wet. you cannot have any problems with a cycle going forward, you can only have problems if you continue testing for ammonia and nitrite because small, natural variances in them will register as panic events on your non seneye ammonia test device. its better to not torture yourself this way (honest assessment, look at the ammonia challenge posts on the board today in multiple forums/all test misreads/none are real challenges)

nitrite is not a burning parameter to fish, animals etc in a reef display. it is in freshwater.

nitrate can't burn either

ammonia is controlled, we see it on your chart, all three rules are set now/cycle done / all disease prep thoughts and planning from here on out.

But I want to know the true level of my nitrates so that I know if I need to do a water change. If I still have nitrites then my nitrate test kit won't test accurately, isn't that true? If so, then I do need to keep testing my nitrites so that I know when I can accurately test for nitrates.

 

[ReefDreamz]

Thats exactly what I was thinking. I would definitely do a little ghost feeding till your ready to add fish. Better be safe then sorry and keep the cycle stable.

I currently don't have any fish food since I have no fish. I ordered some from BRS but it won't arrive for 5 days. I do have a bottle of NeoPhos. In the absence of food should I dose NeoPhos?

 

[brandon429]

you'd wait till October to be testing for nitrates, bc no matter how no3 presents now, you should not react to them or you'll cause dinos in your tank by trying to increase or mess with them.

let nitrates be, as they will until Oct

by october, all nitrite will be in order. long before actually, but you can't benefit by knowing your nitrate now anyway, so there's no rush.

 

[SaJon]

I currently don't have any fish food since I have no fish. I ordered some from BRS but it won't arrive for 5 days. I do have a bottle of NeoPhos. In the absence of food should I dose NeoPhos?

I personally wouldn't use the chemical , if it were me I'd go by a LFS and get a small thing of food just to ghost feed. It appears the NeoPhos is used in conjunction with MB7 , so again I'd just ghost feed some food and not the chemical right now

 

[brandon429]

whats your fish disease plan/legit curious

how will you add them/what mode/any of the preps from Jay's forum?

 

[GARRIGA]

Been cycling since the 70s and known about fisless since the 80s yet I learned much from this video. Followed it to a T and had ammonia down within first few days and nitrites by around day 9. Kept adding ammonia to stress test the system and build up the bacterial population beyond what was likely needed at first introduction of life. Been doing the latter since the 90s.

Resolved my high nitrates with carbon dosing since that's less effort than wasting perfectly good salt water. Did have to add phosphates and not sure if that actually mattered since there's debate as to whether Redfield Ratio matters in aquariums but this anecdotal sample tells me it might have.

 

[ReefDreamz]

you'd wait till October to be testing for nitrates, bc no matter how no3 presents now, you should not react to them or you'll cause dinos in your tank by trying to increase or mess with them.

let nitrates be, as they will until Oct

by october, all nitrite will be in order. long before actually, but you can't benefit by knowing your nitrate now anyway, so there's no rush.

Ok so your saying that I should not dose any more ammonia, not do any more testing, and not do any water changes until at least October. What about my phosphate levels, do you agree with the others that I should be ghost feeding flake food? What about dosing NeoPhos to raise phosphates, how do you feel about that? In 11 to 14 days from now I will be adding two clownfish, do I really need to worry about my phosphate level before that?

My fish disease plan is to buy pre-quarantined fish from only well known highly respected online sources. Although I would rather not get into this topic in this thread if thats OK.

 

[brandon429]

understood and thats a fine plan for disease.


regarding nitrate and phosphate management that is fully 100% outside the scope of cycle end date assignment, it's part of ongoing reefing. you can see the range of options: obsessively caring about them/measuring/reacting and then there's the other side of reefing: for 22 years I've only owned a temp gauge and a salinity swingarm and will easily grow any coral I want except for kenya trees lol isn't that ironic, its the one coral that won't grow for me/elementary level capnellas. all else is fine

I will never personally test for, or care about, N and P levels in my reef. you have to choose what you feel is best, but your filtration bacteria are done, sealed in place, and not going anywhere as long as hydration is maintained. the environment is feeding them, supplying carbon and nitrogen and phosphate, by the minute. (microscopic daily compounding contaminations are the substrate for this nutrient exchange within a home)

 

[ReefDreamz]

understood and thats a fine plan for disease.


regarding nitrate and phosphate management that is fully 100% outside the scope of cycle end date assignment, it's part of ongoing reefing. you can see the range of options: obsessively caring about them/measuring/reacting and then there's the other side of reefing: for 22 years I've only owned a temp gauge and a salinity swingarm and will easily grow any coral I want except for kenya trees lol isn't that ironic, its the one coral that won't grow for me/elementary level capnellas. all else is fine

I will never personally test for, or care about, N and P levels in my reef. you have to choose what you feel is best, but your filtration bacteria are done, sealed in place, and not going anywhere as long as hydration is maintained. the environment is feeding them, supplying carbon and nitrogen and phosphate, by the minute. (microscopic daily compounding contaminations are the substrate for this nutrient exchange within a home)

Ok sounds good. Thank you very much for your help!