Has Seachem Stability done its job?

[vetteguy53081]

But there was no first dose.

It may be cycled, or not. :)

Agreed. Cant cycle off of nitrite/nitrate and assume cycled.

 

[Dan_P]

That's insightful, Brandon. I agree with your take on test kits.

I'm using Salifert kits for Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, and pH. I have also stuck a Seachem Ammonia monitor in the tank.

While the Salifert Ammonia test result returns zero, the Seachem ammonia badge still points at the presence of ammonia. This just made me think I'm running in circles. Perhaps I shouldn't have bought this badge and should've trusted the good old cycling process.

I don’t trust the Salifert Nessler test. The salicylate method is for me.

As for Seachem Alert, I trust that. I have correlated the color of the disk to free ammonia concentration and it is pretty good. The downside is that it takes a long time for the disk to return to yellow once the ammonia is gone. You might have no ammonia but the Alert badge is giving a false positive. This would be consistent with a Salifert zero test result.

 

[vetteguy53081]

That's insightful, Brandon. I agree with your take on test kits.

I'm using Salifert kits for Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, and pH. I have also stuck a Seachem Ammonia monitor in the tank.

While the Salifert Ammonia test result returns zero, the Seachem ammonia badge still points at the presence of ammonia. This just made me think I'm running in circles. Perhaps I shouldn't have bought this badge and should've trusted the good old cycling process.

Ammonia badges used in both fresh and saltwater notorious for false readings . I recommend taking water to a trusted LFS that does not use API test kits and see what readings they come up with and to compare with yours

 

[brandon429]

no I disagree Vette

as the poster of the sole work thread here I want swing vote until dead fish show up :)

that does not give us any credence as chemists/merely patternists

my formula is dilution plenty+low bioload test coming+surface area+ past day ten on a cycling chart after dosing anything=every arrangement I've ever seen carries loading at this stage. I simply claim these bac aren't as finicky as non digital test outcome relays since 1998 has painted them to be.

those bacteria got carbon, trace ammonia in 14 days and the bacteria were quickly added vs slowly acquired

Usually its over done, way way over done and I'm convincing the other side of the coin: you did not sterilize your whole system, the cycle is good, change water/begin


this side comes from the starvation side but add fish, they'll act normal, I'll take social responsibility if they keel over quick. and for any cloudy water, I bet that tank handles feed and waste fine.

not allowed to bet on fails till someone posts a failed example attempt. so far only wins at 14 days has been shown.

agreed, this is a test on one of the rarer ways to cycle.

Prime was dosed here so unless you change out all the water any offered readings are ?

add some life, as is, no big water change, if it fails I'll write a huge mea culpa bad cycle ump post. if it wins I'll expect zero credit heh/

Dan isn't it funny that seachem says we can't start, its toxic per the kit



on the continuum of burned animals, if there is one, we find posts of dead fish/animal cycle attempts. somebody post one ~

fish that eat, swim, locomote and locate as normal + happy delicate shrimp truly mean they're not being harmed by nh3 burning. this water sample can't be tested with kits, let's test it with the life that bac claims to carry and has been measured carrying. its ethical, its a reasonable start date for the arrangement based on collected patterns.

 

[brandon429]

You know another way I think it may work here: these bac get added in whatever state they're in from the bottle/unactivated as worst case scenario. makes sense, no wake up feed

well when 2 clowns and three hermit crabs and a candy coral are added, the wastes / associates from their addition begin immediately activating the bacteria and the whole thing seats faster than dilution will allow for a compounding fail.
there isn't zero bioslick on all surfaces after 14 days, there's some. there's mixed aerobic heterotrophs from water prep in a webbing at minimum plus complexed bottle bac plus contamination bacteria that feed, live, die and decay in fast succession no being adapted to a reef


but at 14 days, that's a parachute. if there are dead cycles at any phase of bottle bac reefing, we want to know there in that prior study thread. We find none, no cycle attempts fail in all the varied ways we encounter reef cycles...that's the current finding. entrants since 2020 have not presented a single outlier. we got pop inspected by unannounced seneye owners in there too for these start date assignments but mainly we're tracking animal behavior as we'd expect from a classic cycle, the kind that may take until December even after paying for ten day bottle bac. admit that's a funny elitist cycler's joke.

if someone had fish in a display in verified accurate .05 nh3 water I'd consider that a fail, its unacceptably high. so if any of my start dates get pop inspected and are found at .05 verified in a convincing test manner, then that's a bad call. we usually hit in the thousandths ppm and at worst low hundredths but those units weren't benched on a running reef either.

I'd feel better if this was fritz

but am not worried because there aren't any outliers for this type of changeup or all the others.

 

[dranjithk]

Thanks everyone for pitching in with your valuable responses. On the general consensus, I'll assume that the cycle is complete and that the test kits are punking me.

I'll plan to add fish this weekend (Just giving it a couple more days, would be around the 20 day mark roughly) and just PRAY!

Man, if only these test kits were reliable and accurate. ;Shifty

On the same note, what would be the ideal first fish in the current scenario (read hardy, can weather a possible ammonia/NO2 storm)?

I'm kinda skeptical about getting Damsels, as I don't want them establishing territories and chasing other fish when I add them later. Got my eye on some 'fancy' Ocellaris in the LFS. ;Nailbiting

 

[homer1475]

If you want clowns, now would be the time to get them. Great first fish as they are very hardy, like any other damsel.

 

[dranjithk]

If you want clowns, now would be the time to get them. Great first fish as they are very hardy, like any other damsel.

Just the kind of reassurance I was looking for.

Thanks, mate. Much appreciated!

 

[brandon429]

Acclimate carefully not as a slow drip for hours, see what the lfs recommends or get recos from here on best ways

acclimation error = collapse of cycling empire heh

20 day mark was great idea too.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks everyone for pitching in with your valuable responses. On the general consensus, I'll assume that the cycle is complete and that the test kits are punking me.

General consensus? Guess I'm not part of the consensus.

It Ok to "assume" it is cycled, but your testing doesn't demonstrate that it is cycled at all, and any claims otherwise are incorrect.

You might just as well have dumped the bottle in and claimed it is cycled.

If the product always works, it is cycled. If for any reason it does not (such as a bottle that got overheated in a shipping truck), it may not be.

 

[brandon429]

How can we test on this water table if prime was used

maybe it won’t foul test after 48 hours post dose?

if the tests blank as zero now, we easily can but if that badge shows toxic on a non fed system will testing be legit, we can’t get a zero benchmark? if the salifert shows zero hit it with some ammonia

not 2 ppm, input a calculated dose to hit half a ppm in the system and see if it registers that known amount, agreed this is all a timing guess based on priors and assumes from priors your bottle was not dead bac. I figured the water table was blocked from testing by already showing misreads on two kits, the badge and the nitrite?

if you test it go easy on the dose we don’t want to overrun with a 2 ppm dose on non digital kits, tests already look wonky as is and testing wastewater is tricky, we use tests on fully changed water to handle interference and attain a clear proven start mark at zero before the ammonia bump

 

[dranjithk]

General consensus? Guess I'm not part of the consensus.

It Ok to "assume" it is cycled, but your testing doesn't demonstrate that it is cycled at all, and any claims otherwise are incorrect.

You might just as well have dumped the bottle in and claimed it is cycled.

If the product always works, it is cycled. If for any reason it does not (such as a bottle that got overheated in a shipping truck), it may not be.

Alright, let's say the product did not work for some reason and also that the test results are not accurate (your point false high nitrate and the nitrite itself not being real), do you think 18 days is still not a safe enough period for fish?

I have waited for two weeks and I don't mind waiting for another two, but I just did not want to wait without knowing what's exactly going on in there.

What would be your recommendation after two days, assuming the product did not work?

 

[brandon429]

This calibrated test would work because it proofs your zero reading before beginning

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/100-water-change.752693/

the whole point is you can test that system but we want the calibration step in place since kits are non digital and already in question. The full change removes prime conflicting


I really would prefer that test as well but 45 gallons all new as the start base is the only way I’d believe their readings as nonconfounded.

in that thread we used the half ppm trick to not overdrive the sensitive api kit, and the test passed (but he’d fed) yours is a rather unexplored by pattern type of cycle. Neat challenge.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Alright, let's say the product did not work for some reason and also that the test results are not accurate (your point false high nitrate and the nitrite itself not being real), do you think 18 days is still not a safe enough period for fish?

I have waited for two weeks and I don't mind waiting for another two, but I just did not want to wait without knowing what's exactly going on in there.

What would be your recommendation after two days, assuming the product did not work?

You are misunderstanding. I'm not saying that any of your tests are inaccurate. They are just not answering the question.

If you do not somehow add ammonia and see it decline, how can anyone say that the tank is able to process ammonia? It just doesn't make sense.

Several folks have suggested what to do. Add ammonia, fish food or a dead shrimp, and monitor the tank for ammonia over a number of days.

 

[dranjithk]

How can we test on this water table if prime was used

maybe it won’t foul test after 48 hours post dose?

if the tests blank as zero now, we easily can but if that badge shows toxic on a non fed system will testing be legit, we can’t get a zero benchmark? if the salifert shows zero hit it with some ammonia

not 2 ppm, input a calculated dose to hit half a ppm in the system and see if it registers that known amount, agreed this is all a timing guess based on priors and assumes from priors your bottle was not dead bac. I figured the water table was blocked from testing by already showing misreads on two kits, the badge and the nitrite?

if you test it go easy on the dose we don’t want to overrun with a 2 ppm dose on non digital kits, tests already look wonky as is and testing wastewater is tricky, we use tests on fully changed water to handle interference and attain a clear proven start mark at zero before the ammonia bump

I'm ready to dose Ammonia, just to be sure and to get peace of mind. To do this in a controlled manner, I understand the shrimp trick won't work. Should I dose Ammonium Chloride? I don't have access to Dr. Tim's or any other reputed brands where I live. But I'm sure I can get NH4CL from some lab.

• Is lab-grade NH4CL safe?
• Would the concentration (or anything else) be any different from the bottles that are specifically made for aquariums, such as Dr. Tim's?
• Are there any other Ammonia compounds other than NH4CL that I can safely dose without messing up the tank?

 

[brandon429]

I recommend post #33 prep, or you are starting off with no zero proof benchmark


see what jack did to make his testing clear

full water change exports doser soup back to clean, first pic is the kits you use for proofing on known clean water and if they report small degrees of ammonia it’s still a known safe level and you have your comparison benchmark now vs a total guess by using prime laden wastewater

We need a clear bottom line to watch for a drop back to after the dose test


yes to ammonium chl lab grade and dr tims makes some too


after proving the safe levels with pic one benchmark only dose up to the degree it takes to move your salifert up one discernible step, not two ppm as is so common

*plus it tests only adhered bacteria this way, the strictest of assessments because pre water change they may be floating around unattached

 

[brandon429]

I’m glad you’re testing it, chemistry hates reinforced guessing justifiably.

 

[dranjithk]

Update:

Decided not to stick any more chemicals into the tank.

Suspended a tiny mesh bag filled with a rather large pinch of fish food. Will begin tracking ammonia 24 hours from now.

 

[brandon429]

this way cannot be assured to even show a rise and drop, its a low consistent feed that food degradation provides, and we're skipping calibration step, using two known misreadings kits...the badge is full alert mode with no dosing, and you are showing nitrite after not having added any protein or ammonia formerly, it is now 100% a guessing game with no metrics in place.

however, with time as the objective meter twice now, in another 15 days of that setup changeup using feeding the tank will be ready, again, no matter what your test kits say or oversay or halfway say. we have several feed only cycles on file, several, that timing isn't suspect at all.

so if you feel its not ready after 15 days feeding/30 days total, it sure is ready.

the way you selected is guaranteed to feed a cycle. on this particular Prime water, no calibration mixed test kit analysis it provides no proof at all. when you remove the bag, and ammonia still shows, that means nothing, we had no zero benchmark

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm ready to dose Ammonia, just to be sure and to get peace of mind. To do this in a controlled manner, I understand the shrimp trick won't work. Should I dose Ammonium Chloride? I don't have access to Dr. Tim's or any other reputed brands where I live. But I'm sure I can get NH4CL from some lab.

• Is lab-grade NH4CL safe?
• Would the concentration (or anything else) be any different from the bottles that are specifically made for aquariums, such as Dr. Tim's?
• Are there any other Ammonia compounds other than NH4CL that I can safely dose without messing up the tank?

I know you decided to go a different route, but normal ammonium chloride and ammonium hydroxide are fine.