How do I cycle my new tank!? Confused!

[mamareef]

Someone please tell me how I am supposed to cycle a 20 gallon IM nuvo fusion. I can’t seem to get a clear answer from the internet/YouTube. Apparantly there are a billion ways to do it!?
I will be using caribsea live sand and caribsea life dry rock. I am making my own saltwater with rodi water. I am planning on just doing a very easy basic beginner tank with beginner corals and a couple clownfish.
I ordered some brightwell microbacter start xlm to help with the cycle but have since learned not to use it with live sand?
I don’t want to use live fish because of the potential harm to them.
Sooooo what do I do? Add ammonia? Add a frozen shrimp? Also, so I need to remove all filtration for the cycle? Clearly I am brand new to the hobby. I have been researching for over a month and still feel confused about everything. Ha! Help please! Thank you so much in advance!

 

[brandon429]

guaranteed simple testless way:

buy fritz, biospira or dr tims cycling bacteria. one of those three specific kinds.


add per directions into a reef tank of normal salinity, flow and temp.

add two pinches of common flake food (Dr Reef's carbon trick from his thread) and wait five days, you're cycled.

all these bottle bacs listed will carry fish the same day you set up the tank, we waited five extra prudent days for the bac to attach, with no fish no ammonia added.

before you add a single fish after cycle, read the first five pages of the fish disease forum so you can see what skipping disease preps will get you, and then from those five pages you'll also see how to make the preps/

the params you needed to test for were salinity, any common reef salinity will do, and temp, any common reef temp will do. we excluded the common params from testing bc the people who made bottle bac already took that into consideration, all common variances will cycle so there's no need to test for any. by taking a five day wait while using instant cycle bottle bac, you're all set and can't fail.

everyone skips fish disease first go, even after warning, bc it takes a bite to learn.

so when fish are added anyway on day 5, they'll do fine for months. in fact a few more might be added and those do fine.

and then by month eight, all the stuff you read in the fd forum is happening, after a few mos delay.

this method covers every single needed aspect of cycling. what you've read as a requirement is wrong, and confusing. this way about couldnt be simpler- its add bacteria and two pinches of feed and wait five days, you're done. pinch grind up the fish food really well so it breaks down faster. all the ammonia you need comes from the protein breakdown of that food. you specifically do not need 2 ppm ammonia, because that requires testing, and we just listed a testless no fail method.

 

[brandon429]

many, in fact all readers feel slighted by these offers above we better justify:

-what if the bottle bac is dead?

I think I’ve completed my five thousandth tank cycle on here last year, and I’ve never seen it happen. Not once, ever. My peers have found dead bottle bac before as they did studies on different completion rates for each strain, it’s not a factor in my threads though. Additionally, I cannot locate a single report of a failed reef cycle anywhere on the entire internet anyway (where initial fish didn’t live just fine for months)
so, chances are small that I think you’ll build the first incomplete cycle.
What you read online about stuck cycles is simply mistesting, cheap test kits misreading or not being reported accurately by the concerned party. this comprises nearly all the confusion in today’s cycle options, misreads. We eliminated that variable above.

-what about ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate

nitrite and nitrate are incidental measures they mean nothing to a cycle. Even if we measure them, comparison result threads show test kits range so badly the readings aren’t usually right anyway

(if you have precision digital gear, then measure for fun)

how we feed above cannot possibly create lethal levels for either, they’re not factored. What matters is some carbon as noted by Dr Reef and then some ammonia, which breakdown of food protein by microbes in the water always provides. Any reef tank filled in a home is teeming with microbes even though we didn’t add any yet, homes seed contamination into any aquarium ever made in a home and kept unsealed. When you input ground fish food the resident non cycling bacteria still eat it up and they convert proteins into amino acids and eventually those get deaminated into raw trace ammonia, thats sufficient to cycle completely.


what about salinity, alk, or phosphate?

we don’t even manage those for any cycle I run, why start now.

 

[Robert Binz]

Someone please tell me how I am supposed to cycle a 20 gallon IM nuvo fusion. I can’t seem to get a clear answer from the internet/YouTube. Apparantly there are a billion ways to do it!?
I will be using caribsea live sand and caribsea life dry rock. I am making my own saltwater with rodi water. I am planning on just doing a very easy basic beginner tank with beginner corals and a couple clownfish.
I ordered some brightwell microbacter start xlm to help with the cycle but have since learned not to use it with live sand?
I don’t want to use live fish because of the potential harm to them.
Sooooo what do I do? Add ammonia? Add a frozen shrimp? Also, so I need to remove all filtration for the cycle? Clearly I am brand new to the hobby. I have been researching for over a month and still feel confused about everything. Ha! Help please! Thank you so much in advance!

Curious to know who told you not to use bottled bacteria with live sand lol

 

[brandon429]

Excellent call. That’s always mentioned as a potential neutralizer, and it ain’t



nothing is. As soon as we find what stops a cycle, we will have a link we can read for a water cycle that didn’t complete while wet. It’s been a lark for twenty years now.


also agreed it even says that on the brightwell site, about conflicts.

hey imagine being a hospital tech, responsible for cleaning steel work tables. And when your boss asks you how you sterilized the steel, you say: I made sure to add water that had ten ppm nitrite (claimed to stall a cycle) and 10 ppm free ammonia (same claim) and for kickers I added in Fritz liquid bacteria, and biospira, and some wet marine sand! Online they said it kills the bacteria, this mix is competing and that will sterilize the water, and in this case the steel.


the cleaner is then fired lol

the running joke is aquarists are always told how bac are killed, stopped in water by the slightest variance from script.


and then every other industry on earth can’t even keep bacteria from inhabiting cold flat steel in the cleanest place around. We are trained buyers is the punchline


this information doesn’t exist on youtube, its found only on reef2reef.

it could have been property of reefcentral back in ‘14, but we know how new ideas there get welcomed…a real digital ticker tape welcome it certainly was

 

[Screwgunner]

20 gallon get everything in the tank up and running. Let it run for a couple days put 2 very small clowns in . Done.

 

[Big_Mclargehuge]

Someone please tell me how I am supposed to cycle a 20 gallon IM nuvo fusion. I can’t seem to get a clear answer from the internet/YouTube. Apparantly there are a billion ways to do it!?
I will be using caribsea live sand and caribsea life dry rock. I am making my own saltwater with rodi water. I am planning on just doing a very easy basic beginner tank with beginner corals and a couple clownfish.
I ordered some brightwell microbacter start xlm to help with the cycle but have since learned not to use it with live sand?
I don’t want to use live fish because of the potential harm to them.
Sooooo what do I do? Add ammonia? Add a frozen shrimp? Also, so I need to remove all filtration for the cycle? Clearly I am brand new to the hobby. I have been researching for over a month and still feel confused about everything. Ha! Help please! Thank you so much in advance!

Some of the replies are a little complicated so let me try and simplify it. Add your rock, sand, saltwater. Add bacteria then an ammonia source. Either straight ammonia or you can use shrimp (raw) or feed the tank. Test ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite daily after that. Your ammonia should start to go down. Then you will see a rise in nitrite then nitrate. Once you start seeing. Nitrates and 0ppm ammonia. Your tank should be cycled. And also YouTube is a great source for info on cycling a tank.

 

[Big_Mclargehuge]

Look up cycling a tank brs tv. On YouTube.

 

[Azedenkae]

Someone please tell me how I am supposed to cycle a 20 gallon IM nuvo fusion. I can’t seem to get a clear answer from the internet/YouTube. Apparantly there are a billion ways to do it!?
I will be using caribsea live sand and caribsea life dry rock. I am making my own saltwater with rodi water. I am planning on just doing a very easy basic beginner tank with beginner corals and a couple clownfish.
I ordered some brightwell microbacter start xlm to help with the cycle but have since learned not to use it with live sand?
I don’t want to use live fish because of the potential harm to them.
Sooooo what do I do? Add ammonia? Add a frozen shrimp? Also, so I need to remove all filtration for the cycle? Clearly I am brand new to the hobby. I have been researching for over a month and still feel confused about everything. Ha! Help please! Thank you so much in advance!

You are right, there are so many different ways promoted, and honestly, much of them will result in your tank being cycled anyways, just vastly different routes to get there - different amounts of time, spending, even what one defines as 'cycled. My suggestion is to ask as many questions as possible where anything does not make sense for you. And then once you see what makes the most sense, choose it and stick with it.

Here's my method if you want to have a garner. Good luck!

 

[Tired]

To cycle a tank, you need an ammonia source. That ammonia will allow ammonia-eating bacteria to grow. They'll turn the ammonia into nitrites, which provides food for bacteria that turn nitrites into nitrates. When your tank can turn 2ppm of ammonia into nitrates within 24 hours, it's cycled.

The simplest way to get your tank cycled is to start with really nice, mature live rock, from the ocean. That comes with all the bacteria on it, so your tank will be cycled as soon as the rock is done curing/dying off. If you get the rock already cured, or shipped in a way that prevents critters on it from dying off, your tank will be cycled instantly. This method also has the benefit of bringing in a ton of beneficial critters you can't get anywhere else. It has some chance of introducing pests, but most of the common pests are easy enough to deal with, and the really nasty pests are really rare. It also pretty much guarantees you'll never have dinos, which are arguably the worst pest possible, as long as you don't underfeed massively or do way too many water changes. I highly recommend at least a couple pounds of good live rock, not just dry rock. "LIve sand" you get in a bag has some useful bacteria, but little to no helpful critters. If you start the tank without live rock, you'll rely on coral plugs to bring in your beneficial critters and algaes, which can take a long time and may not work properly.

The method above this post, that recommends dosing ammonia, is good. You may find that, if you've used bottled bacteria, your tank is cycled within a few days.

I wouldn't use a whole shrimp to add ammonia, that's a lot of decay. The ideal is to use liquid ammonia, so you know exactly how much you're adding. If that's not an option, a pinch of fish food every few days can work as an ammonia source. Once you see no ammonia and some nitrates a day or so after adding a pinch of food, your tank should be cycled.

 

[KrisReef]

Someone please tell me how I am supposed to cycle a 20 gallon IM nuvo fusion. I can’t seem to get a clear answer from the internet/YouTube. Apparantly there are a billion ways to do it!?
I will be using caribsea live sand and caribsea life dry rock. I am making my own saltwater with rodi water. I am planning on just doing a very easy basic beginner tank with beginner corals and a couple clownfish.
I ordered some brightwell microbacter start xlm to help with the cycle but have since learned not to use it with live sand?
I don’t want to use live fish because of the potential harm to them.
Sooooo what do I do? Add ammonia? Add a frozen shrimp? Also, so I need to remove all filtration for the cycle? Clearly I am brand new to the hobby. I have been researching for over a month and still feel confused about everything. Ha! Help please! Thank you so much in advance!

Welcome to Reef2Reef.

If you are planning on testing for ammonia and nitrate to monitor the cycle then please do not use the API test kits and expect ammonia to ever read zero. Those kits are a source of constant error and terror that the cycle is stalled.

On the other hand, If you put rock, sand, and bacteria in the filled and running tank it will cycle. It's like putting a pair of mice in a cage with food, they will multiply and bacteria is very simple and more reliable than happy mice. The test kits are deceptive because the colors lie. If you want to "feed" the bacteria, add a tiny pinch of fish food to the tank each day and you don't need to do anything else. Wait 3 weeks, or 3 days, if you add fish and other life slowly over time you will be ok as far as "cycled" and waste products are concerned.

GL!

 

[mamareef]

I wanted to thank everyone for all of these responses! At first, it added to my confusion! Haha. But ultimately led to me finally deciding on my cycling method. I will be doing the dr Tim’s one and only fishless method/adding ammonia. Testing every few days. I feel good about this route. I do not want to risk putting any fishies in an uncomfortable environment. Thank you all so much! Happy Reefing!

 

[Screwgunner]

I did not have any luck with Dr. TIMS BIOSPIRA WORKED

 

[mamareef]

Random addition to my original post if anyone sees this!…
I live in San Diego where we have a tap for ocean water (scripps).
I was advised by a local reefer to use it… though I read it could be a risky introduction for pests…
Any of you nice reef peeps have any insight on this method!? It scares me a little to start my very first reef off with ocean water! Would love opinions if anyone sees this

 

[mamareef]

I did not have any luck with Dr. TIMS BIOSPIRA WORKED

Haha! First I ordered brightwells… then I ordered dr Tim’s…. I’m fresh out of motivation to order something else! Haha! Do you have any opinions on using real ocean water? Thanks!

 

[dvgyfresh]

Random addition to my original post if anyone sees this!…
I live in San Diego where we have a tap for ocean water (scripps).
I was advised by a local reefer to use it… though I read it could be a risky introduction for pests…
Any of you nice reef peeps have any insight on this method!? It scares me a little to start my very first reef off with ocean water! Would love opinions if anyone sees this

Ocean water can be bad or good lol sorry that doesn’t help much. I would buy premade saltwater from your favorite LFS

 

[brandon429]

I do run my old reef off pre made lfs water, they’re paying for really clean ro di as a base too, it’s worth lugging the gallons

they use Fritz which I am not liking but at least it’s super clean prep water. Does not cause algae at all, must be low tds apparently.

 

[Uncle99]

Random addition to my original post if anyone sees this!…
I live in San Diego where we have a tap for ocean water (scripps).
I was advised by a local reefer to use it… though I read it could be a risky introduction for pests…
Any of you nice reef peeps have any insight on this method!? It scares me a little to start my very first reef off with ocean water! Would love opinions if anyone sees this

If you have uninterrupted access to saltwater, I’d use that, I think the introduction of a pest is always possible regardless of where it comes from.
I might ICP your source so you get an idea of what’s in it.

 

[Uncle99]

I do run my old reef off pre made lfs water, they’re paying for really clean ro di as a base too, it’s worth lugging the gallons

they use Fritz which I am not liking but at least it’s super clean prep water. Does not cause algae at all, must be low tds apparently.

I would like your opinion on what you don’t like about Fritz.
I am long time user and would love to hear about your experience.

 

[brandon429]

back when the lfs here cycled between instant ocean and reef crystals my given care method resulted in thick coralline and coral skeletons that never weakened

but given the exact same care method and stocking levels, them being on Fritz last 4 years has caused old colonies of corals to break, skeletal loss which only happens in low pH and or alk conditions

I started dosing two part to compensate and my sandbed is kept clean, no waste buildups it’s truly been a low alk issue from the entry level Fritz mix. Two part dosing really should fix it though, at least it’s truly clean reliable production water put it right into five gal water bottles and lug out. I wish it was reefcrystals.