Four weeks of cycling -- nitrites are 0, nitrates are at ~12, but ammonia won't drop.

[raketemensch]

My ammonia has consistently been at 0.25 for at least 2 weeks now, and hasn't budged -- and no, I'm not using the API kit anymore

I picked up a seachem alert badge, and it it has consistently shown 0.25.

pH is at 8.2, which should be fine, I have live rock (and the sand) that was transferred from the previous owner of the tank.

I've had mech, bio and chemi-pure blue in the filter.

I let it go for 3 weeks, then did a 5-gallon WC. This weekend I did a 10-gallon WC, and added a 20-gallon sump, removing the canister filter that had been in use from the beginning, although I did transfer the ceramic bio rings from the canister to the baffles in the new sump.

As this is my first tank, I'm not sure where I'm at in the cycle. Is it possible that the nitrites never actually spiked?

 

[huckjai]

What ammonia source are you using? How was the live rock and sand stored then transferred to your tank?

 

[raketemensch]

What ammonia source are you using? How was the live rock and sand stored then transferred to your tank?

I was just adding flake food daily for a week or so. I didn't have access to un-cooked shrimp.

The sand was kept wet in a bag, and the rock was wrapped in newspaper and kept damp, for ~week

 

[raketemensch]

I do also have algae growing, a thin film of green on the rocks and filters.

 

[huckjai]

Did you dose with any beneficial bacteria to jump start the system? Something like Microbacter 7?

I think some of the bacteria could have died off during storage.

 

[raketemensch]

Well, I had planned on taking my time and sorting out the water chemistry -- this would be exactly why

Thanks for that!

So I think I could just pick this up locally tomorrow and kick things up a notch?

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/fish/fish-water-care/fish-tank-water-conditioners-additives/aqueon-pure-live-beneficial-bacteria-and-enzymes

I don't expect anything "instant" or whatnot like their marketing talks about, I'm just thinking it might be a good, locally-available source for the bacteria I need, and I wait my time out from there...

Bio-spira is available as well, maybe I'd be better off using that.

 

[Qasimja]

Bio-spira is available as well, maybe I'd be better off using that.

Use biospira it works rather well

 

[huckjai]

Well, I had planned on taking my time and sorting out the water chemistry -- this would be exactly why

Thanks for that!

So I think I could just pick this up locally tomorrow and kick things up a notch?

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/fish/fish-water-care/fish-tank-water-conditioners-additives/aqueon-pure-live-beneficial-bacteria-and-enzymes

I don't expect anything "instant" or whatnot like their marketing talks about, I'm just thinking it might be a good, locally-available source for the bacteria I need, and I wait my time out from there...

Bio-spira is available as well, maybe I'd be better off using that.

Yeah go with the Bio-spira.
Good luck. And maybe don't dose the flakes daily. Every other day or two should be good. Flakes take a few days before it converts to ammonia. Better yet, try to get some frozen shrimp.

 

[MERKEY]

If it hasn't been talked about Just for what's it's worth the ammonia badges aren't the greatest to show ammonia being used and aren't the most accurate either. Most use them in QT just to alert the presence of ammonia. You really need a kit to tell how much ammonia is being turned.

Check out the red sea or salifert.

 

[raketemensch]

So, as an update...

This is my first tank of any kind, nevermind salt water. So I've screwed up a few things along the way.

I don't think I originally got my ammonia high enough to kick off a full cycle, I don't think I was religious enough with adding the flakes.

I thought I had cycled because I had ~15 nitrates and zero nitrites, and ammonia seemed low, so I added a CuC -- which promptly died, because I am a moron.

I added Bio-spira two days in a row -- the first day I only had enough for a 30g tank, so the second day I added more.

I got most of the CuC out, but they were quite small, and a lot of them had disappeared into the sand bed, so yesterday my ammonia was up to 4. By last night they were back down to 2.

My nitrites and nitrates are elevated, so I think that after everything I've gotten wrong in the past month, I'm finally cycling properly. And I learned a lot.

I'm not in a huge hurry, I had planned on taking a couple of months to learn and get used to the cycle and my water chemistry from a beginner standpoint, and obviously I still have a lot to learn about magnesium and calcium and whatnot.

Thank you for the help and advice, everyone.

 

[Nooooooooob1]

Yeah i think you're still cycling and i think you probably had more die off from the rock than you thought. Having it kept out of water for a week is lot.

It sounds like you've gotten it figured out now though. Good luck!

 

[huckjai]

Good to hear about your update. Was going to ask how it was going, but looks like things are on the right direction now.
Please keep us updated!

 

[raketemensch]

Yeah i think you're still cycling and i think you probably had more die off from the rock than you thought. Having it kept out of water for a week is lot.

It sounds like you've gotten it figured out now though. Good luck!

If I do this again (and knowing me, I probably will), I'll definitely bring buckets to keep the rock in. This being my first time, I missed a lot of easy things that would've helped a lot. The learning curve is pretty steep, so it's easy to fall off the side...

 

[Nooooooooob1]

If I do this again (and knowing me, I probably will), I'll definitely bring buckets to keep the rock in. This being my first time, I missed a lot of easy things that would've helped a lot. The learning curve is pretty steep, so it's easy to fall off the side...

Yeah, that's no joke! It's a very steep learning curve, but at least your're here to continue expanding your knowledge. You'll get there!

 

[BeejReef]

Great job getting it sorted out. Those numbers would have confused me as well.

 

[raketemensch]

So, it's been a week since I added the bio spira, and my nitrites climbed and dropped (but are still at around 1), and my nitrates are somewhat healthy at around 12.

Ammonia, though, is hard locked at 4ppm.

At this point I'm wondering if part of my former CUC is buried in the sand and decomposing.

I'm also wondering if the Chemipure that I have in the filter is interfering with the process.

So, next steps are to do some huge water changes and to pull out the sand where the poor CUC met its end, assuming it was alive when I added it, which is still an unknown.

I also ordered more bio spira, which was supposedly delivered today, but no packages arrived.

 

[raketemensch]

So, as of today, I've:

1. Turned off the skimmer completely for a week (didn't realize that was a thing with bacteria additives)
2. Filtered with carbon for a week ahead of time (turned off now)
3. Pumped 15 gallons (20%) out of the tank
4. Carefully sifted about 15 dead snails out of the sand bed
5. Added 15 gallons of fresh RODI saltwater, at the proper temp
6. Waited a couple of hours for everything to stabilize
7. Slowly poured a large (75 gallon size) bottle of BIO-Spira into the baffles in the sump, through the plastic bio balls and the ceramic rings

Now, I sit back and wait. Ammonia has remained at ~4 for a week now, although it did dip to 2 at one point, then climbed again, so I'm assuming the dead CUC was pushing it back up again.

Fingers crossed...

In the meantime, I've ordered some pure ammonia and a smaller bottle of bio-spira, and I'm going to empty out the QT and do a few experiments starting from a fresh tank to try to get a handle on all of this without the weirdness of the possibly dead live rock, the used sand and the dead CUC.

 

[DanConnor]

Not sure if this is helpful to hear now, but cycling a tank is absolutely unnecessary- I have never done it. Its much easier to just start slow.

Set your tank up and let in run for a couple of weeks- preferably with at least a little live rock. Then start having the light come on for short days. Then add a few snails and see how they do. That's it.

If you add livestock slowly and at intervals, the bacteria will increase populations as needed. The only test kit you will need is (for these parameters) is nitrate.

 

[raketemensch]

That's basically what I did, really, with some questionable live rock, as I didn't yet know how to keep it wet enough.

I never manually added ammonia, and I let it go for 3-4 weeks before adding the snails. I'm still not sure if they were DOA or if the tank killed them, but I've kind of just been attempting to recover since then.

 

[bryanfuel]

So, as an update...

This is my first tank of any kind, nevermind salt water. So I've screwed up a few things along the way.

I don't think I originally got my ammonia high enough to kick off a full cycle, I don't think I was religious enough with adding the flakes.

I thought I had cycled because I had ~15 nitrates and zero nitrites, and ammonia seemed low, so I added a CuC -- which promptly died, because I am a moron.

I added Bio-spira two days in a row -- the first day I only had enough for a 30g tank, so the second day I added more.

I got most of the CuC out, but they were quite small, and a lot of them had disappeared into the sand bed, so yesterday my ammonia was up to 4. By last night they were back down to 2.

My nitrites and nitrates are elevated, so I think that after everything I've gotten wrong in the past month, I'm finally cycling properly. And I learned a lot.

I'm not in a huge hurry, I had planned on taking a couple of months to learn and get used to the cycle and my water chemistry from a beginner standpoint, and obviously I still have a lot to learn about magnesium and calcium and whatnot.

Thank you for the help and advice, everyone.

Sounds like a typical first tank! For my first tank my nitrates were in the 200+ range for over a year lol.