Got Bored watching empty tank after cycle and thought I would add some ammonia

[ansig]

HI All

My cycle would have appeared to have finished 1 week ago and I am now in a holding pattern waiting for my 2 clownfish to arrive in a few weeks. Nothing else is in the tank except live sand and Caribsea Life Rock and water clear etc

I thought I would try the ammonia experiment (API test was 0 and seneye 0.001) and added the correct amount of Dr Tims ammonia for my fluval 13.5 expecting it to drop back down in 24hrs as I have read on the forums as my cycle is complete but after 24hrs about 50% of the way down as per the attached graph.

Should I be concerned that I might not have enough bacteria doing their bit for fishkind!!!

cheers and thanks in advance
Andrew

 

[brandon429]

It will still be fine and ok, nothing is wrong w your bacteria

see how it’s trending down, it will reach safe zone just fine since it trends down

can you post a tank pic

*getting a seneye trimmed accurately on a cycling tank is very hard* the ideal way to trim one is on water samples from a running reef tank but at least you can see it trending down above-two clowns won’t even input that much test ammonia above.

let’s see a pic of the tank

 

[ansig]

cool thanks so much for your help … pic of tank attached

I am definitely happy with the downward trend …. Will check nitrates tomorrow (not going to do nitrites )…. In chamber 2 it is full of biological balls so I am hoping I have enough surface area for happy bacteria

unfortunately I don’t know anyone else here with a reef tank to get some water from …. Just going it alone and reading so so much …. Which can get confusing

cheers

 

[brandon429]

I think the general trending down in the presence of clearly plenty surface area is just fine as a ready marker. Once you’re past the date on the bottle bac label for wait time the system will be ready just fine and your graphing shows you’re past that date it seems looks nice there.

 

[Azedenkae]

HI All

My cycle would have appeared to have finished 1 week ago and I am now in a holding pattern waiting for my 2 clownfish to arrive in a few weeks. Nothing else is in the tank except live sand and Caribsea Life Rock and water clear etc

I thought I would try the ammonia experiment (API test was 0 and seneye 0.001) and added the correct amount of Dr Tims ammonia for my fluval 13.5 expecting it to drop back down in 24hrs as I have read on the forums as my cycle is complete but after 24hrs about 50% of the way down as per the attached graph.

Should I be concerned that I might not have enough bacteria doing their bit for fishkind!!!

cheers and thanks in advance
Andrew

Hi there!

Firstly to clarify, when I refer to ammonia in this reply I'll be talking about total ammonia, not just free ammonia. I know your device measures free ammonia, but for the purposes of cycling we generally talk about total ammonia, so it is just easier.

May I presume that you dosed based on your tank volume, not your true water volume? If so, you likely increased the concentration of ammonia above what is 'expected', probably to around 2.5-3ppm or somewhere thereabouts. With all the equipment, media, sand, rocks, etc, people seem to generally still have 70%-80% of their tank volume be water. But anyways, even a 50% decrease here is a good thing, means that quite a lot is still oxidized daily.

But yes, to be safe, we just need to be 100% sure that the aquarium can handle 2ppm ammonia a day. To be fair, there are multiple schools of thought when it comes to cycling, and for some any decrease in ammonia or a value lower than 2ppm is fine, because they stock slowly anyways to let nitrifiers catch up. The '2ppm' school of cycling is intended to make sure 1. even if one needs/wants to do a full stock right away, that is all fine (at least in terms of waste consumption), and 2. it ensures you definitely have enough biomedia in your aquarium. The latter is not that important in saltwater aquariums, because everyone with live rock probably has enough biomedia, so long as they did not decide to go super minimalistic.

So with that said, since you are still a few weeks away from adding your fish, you have plenty of time. My recommendation is to keep dosing 2ppm ammonia every time it is completely consumed, until your nitrifiers can handle it all in a day.