How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

[FindingNem0]

And I found it most interesting reading from Randy’s posts how freshwater vs saltwater are opposite cycling goals: nitrite is the important one for freshwater vs ammonia

That always fascinated me, thanks for posting :)

So I recently just got back into reefing, bought a waterbox 20 aio, running barebottom with bio media and rockscape. Currently day9 dosed Dr tims one and only. Once that's done cycling, I am thinking about dosing eco balance straight away. What you reckon?

 

[brandon429]

This is a testless cycling thread, we use timeframes to cycle not test kits for reasons stated in post #1
(So that we avoid all false stalls and so we can assign a predetermined completion date for all cycles vs an open- ended wait)

Based on the jobs here i recommend to not add nor buy eco balance its not needed. If you used Dr Tims nine days ago your cycle is fine and done, we wait ten days here for all these jobs. Do a water change, then you can begin reefing. Add one capful of bacteria back to the clean water then never look back on cycling again, it'll be done


Your main challenge isn't the cycle it's disease imports that come in on the first fish added without quarantine

 

[brandon429]

Can u post a pic of your setup we like to see pics to assess surface area in place during this wait time

besides the Dr Tims, what did you put in as feed? the directions state to input some feed for the bac/what was that part

 

[FindingNem0]

Can u post a pic of your setup we like to see pics to assess surface area in place during this wait time

besides the Dr Tims, what did you put in as feed? the directions state to input some feed for the bac/what was that part

I have feed the bac, Dr tims ammonia. 50 drops on first day and 3rd day another 50 drops. Slightly under the recommended dosage.

 

[brandon429]

very nice, thats plenty of surface area. whatever you add will live if the acclimation is careful/no big salinity shifts but new additions also bring in disease at a rapid pace nowadays, so be sure and check out the disease forum on the site for fallow/quarantine prep options.

 

[FindingNem0]

very nice, thats plenty of surface area. whatever you add will live if the acclimation is careful/no big salinity shifts but new additions also bring in disease at a rapid pace nowadays, so be sure and check out the disease forum on the site for fallow/quarantine prep options.

So you reckon I should setup a QT now or in the near future?

 

[brandon429]

Here's a way to not have to set one up at all, yet still have a disease plan in place

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/has-anyone-done-coral-inverts-only-and-no-fish-at-first.960581/
(point of the thread: stocking all fish last, after complete build of the coral reef part instead of adding fish as first animals, has advantages. You can fallow the entire setup for three months before adding fish, and with pre-quarantined fish from places like Dr. Reefs fish you can then add them in. The discipline it takes to add fish last is the point of that thread)

Pick any method and run the one u like. It's true doing qt at home is wisest because you control the variables vs having to trust someone else.


__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Update to this thread 6/27/24



Iannerelli's reef was fully worked below via chat btw. thank you so much for posting.

logic flow for the particular tank below: he's on day four of using Fritz turbo which is a skip cycle bac mix, among the tops in reefing options along with biospira brand. Dr. Reef uses fritz turbo without testing to manage tens of thousands of fish in his giant facility, this is a few starting reef animals and no particular test for fritz ability at all. easy cycle done at the time of posting.

 

[iannarelli]

Brandon,

Sorry for the long post, but here goes:

I read through the first 20 pages of this thread, so I think I have a good idea of what you'll say, but wanted to add my data points here and get your thoughts after starting a thread about my own cycle, and then posting in the "Cycling an Aquarium" thread and then stumbling across this post.

Here are the pertinent details:
60 gallon cube, Trigger 20C sump
CaribSea South Seas Dry Rock, ~60 lbs
CaribSea Ocean Direct Sand, 20 lbs
CaribSea Arag Alive Special Grade Sand, 20 lbs
Maxspect Nano-Tech Bio-Spheres, 2.2 lbs (in sump)

Water temp is 79.0°F and salinity is 1.0261, mixed with NYOS salt.

I dosed Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride following the instructions on the bottle n Monday (6/10) night and tested an hour later and ammonia was off the charts at 8ppm (according to API). After panicking and reading a bunch of online threads, I decided to bite the bullet and add my 4oz bottle of Frytz Turbo Start 900.

The next morning (6/11), ammonia was down to 2 ppm. Over on my own cycle thread, I was given the advice to check for the presence of nitrite or nitrate as evidence the bacteria are processing the ammonia. I was able to get an API Nitrite kit next day through Amazon and already had a Hanna HR Nitrate checker, so on 6/12 I tested for everything again.

Ammonia may have been somewhere between 1 and 2 ppm. I say "may" because obviously this is just a subjective interpretation of extremely similar hues of green. Regardless, and both nitrite (API) and nitrate (Hanna and API) were 0 ppm.

Thursday (6/13), I got the same results, 1-2 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite, 0 ppm nitrate.

Based on my understanding of the data points in this thread, ammonia control will happen in 10 days with all bottled bacteria except perhaps Brighwell. And with Frytz Turbo it's closer to two days. So in theory, I should be cycled... but my question becomes where did the nitrite and nitrate go?

I saw a drastic drop in ammonia the first night, 8 ppm to 2 ppm (assuming the 8 ppm wasn't a bad result), I've perhaps witnessed a further drop in ammonia but like I said, the greens all sort of blend together when you're trying to track a smaller change that's likely less than the test kit's margin of error/tolerances. So let's conditionally say I've met one condition of being cycled.

I'm clearly past two days. And if I wait until Saturday to do anything, I would be at 5 days, and if I want until 6/20, I'd be at 10 days. So depending on how cavalier I want to be, I could say I've met another condition (time) or will very soon.

So theoretically, I should be able to go to my LFS, buy a paid of clowns, acclimate them, and come back here 24 hours later and post a picture of happy clownfish (I was cycled) or upside down clownfish (I was not cycled), thought I'd likely intervene if things looked like they were going south. My other option would be to add some more ammonium chloride to create a detectable (visually discernible) increase in ammonia, and then look for a reduction, 24 hours later. Presumably at that point there *should* be some nitrites and/or nitrates. I guess a third option is grab some fish and some more bacteria and sleep soundly at night; however, I understand the whole point of this thread is to prevent folks from superfluous purchases... (which is why I am here and not at the store buying more Turbo Start.... yet).

What gives me pause proceeding with the first option is the non-zero chance I got a dead bottle of bacteria, and not wanting to harm a living creature. It was shipped well (insulated with ice pack), and while it did arrive while I was out of town it stayed in a room temp hallway for only two days and then immediately went into my refrigerated (which all my research points to not being an issue), and it looked and smelled like Frytz and other anecdotal accounts said it would.

I did some additional ammonia testing this morning, along with some controls (didn't bother with Nitrite or Nitrate:

A, Tap Water: ~0 ppm
B, Fresh RODI Water: ~0 ppm
C, Fresh Saltwater 0 - 0.25 ppm
D, Tank Water 1: 1 ppm
E, Tank Water 2: 1 ppm

I seemingly have some evidence of the bacteria being alive: 8 ppm ammonia (if real) to 2 ppm... but also have some contradictory data with the 0 ppm nitrites and nitrates. So what would your advice be?

 

[mpatterson42]

I'm not sure if this thread is still being monitored but I guess I'll give it a shot.

Tank: 40G Breeder
Sump: 20G Long
Saltwater: 50G saltwater added on December 7
Rock: Caribsea Liferock and Coral Skeleton
Bacteria: Fritz TurboStart 900, 2 ounces added on December 7
Ammonia: Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride, 10ml added on December 7

Pics:
Front

Left

Right

What's your thoughts on when this is safe for fish to be added? I still have 2 ounces of TurboStart I could add if needed.

 

[Dburr1014]

When you read ammonia 2ppm, 24 hours later zero

 

[brandon429]

On a seneye machine that would be a handy proof

this is a testless cycling thread for all other brands of testing, because they misread so much

we wouldn't add ammonia to 2ppm and test + accept a guessed at color chart reading for nh4 as the final proof of cycle status, our thread exists to undo the confusion that causes.



MPatterson based on our unique collection your cycle is fine right now.

In all of reefing, nobody has ever added that much fritz and was unable to safely carry fish at day four, that's one reason why your cycle is ok

In all logged seneye readings posted for a display tank, nobody has ever shown a stuck cycle on day four using any brand... much less the best brand/ fritz. They all had a stack of rocks and good water plus Fritz and feed


Those cycle combos always work fine, none fail to work fine really fast after setup

The advice to test implies someone has seen a four day seneye stall on fritz: they haven't. The reason you don’t have to test is because your cycle is just like every cycle on this thread, we’ve been fixing them without testing.

The bottle bac you used was designed for day one skip cycling, you're at day four

Thousands of businesses that handle and process live fish daily, in bulk, use gallons of fritz by the hour without testing

Only reef aquarists get told to test, that their cycle might not complete: 99% use a test kit that always shows ammonia (api) and the result is to trick them into buying unneeded supports, like extra bottles of bac stacked after one another

we do opposite of all that here.

You have zero risk of being in a stuck cycle, and a full on risk of disease since a disease inquiry wasn't your opening concern.


Gotta plan for disease vectoring, the bottle bac engineers have the cycled fixed as soon as you input the bottle.

If you were going to test, we'd want a seneye test or no test.

Randy's entire article recently on ammonia stated how common reef kits won't show zero, so telling someone to go from 2 ppm - 0 is old cycling science that causes false stalls.




We're testing the polar opposite advices here:

do not test, count the number of days, care about disease preps instead.




Old cycling science is rigid and inflexible to any changing standards in reefing whatsoever, our cycling approach here includes the updated discovery that ammonia isn’t our enemy at all and we don’t concern over it here. we concern over disease preps

What are your planned disease preps

 

[BHFP]

@brandon429 I've read a couple of the threads and am wondering if I can do a truly test free cycle with a new 20gallon bare bottom. I transferred some live biomedia from a 8 mo mature tank but then added Dr Tims fishless cycle on 12/16. My Fluval (sigh) test kit shows .26 ppm ammonia, and negligible NO3 and NO2. Are you able to outline the steps required? I have perused and suspect a water change may be in order. Thanks! Apologies if this is the wrong thread to ask questions

 

[brandon429]

Absolutely. Testless cycling works in all cases but some details are missing from the description here (amounts used, type of feed added if any, type of bacteria) we'll need to fill in the details we use to assign clear start dates here

Let's see the tank pic, from that we discern the position and ratio of the known cycled materials.

Moving over cycled bioballs for example into a filter doesn't always provide a skip cycle (whereas moving live rock tank to tank always does, because it's positioned dead center in the display/bioballs are sumped away and it takes time for wastewater to get down to them and it's never the full degree of display water making contact)

It still helped you moved over the media because it can handle any common small starting bioload.


Since this is a testless thread, we won't factor your reported levels in the final call (pics will do it since we do have your known # of days running part of the 10 days equation) but it's helpful to know that's the nh4 reading from the kit which isn't for reefing, we need the nh3 data and instructions in the kit show how to estimate nh3 from that reading (10x less) which is clearly not lethal. We don't need the actual nh3 details, we're testless, but i wanted you to see we never expect or want zero ammonia in a reef tank: low levels are what's good for reefs, and you've posted a low level (using a kit not accepted as accurate here/ it's not a seneye)

Randy's new article ammonia is our friend details how the expectation for zero ammonia never was good for our reefs (and per this article is a top cause of perceived stalled cycles)

You can see the factors are in place for you to be ready to reef by day ten if cycling bottle bac was used

Let's see pics of your tank, and whatever additives were given so I can see the label. I don't know if you've added ammonia plus media, or ammonia plus bottle bac plus media, so pics will clear it up.

If you added only ammonia, no bottle bac, and some cycled material in a filter I can still quote you the start date but that's atypical here as we've all used bottle bac already tracked by Dr Reef for ten days compliance. I'll still be able to get your cycle end date once I see them pics and factor it all

Thanks tons for posting!
B

 

[BHFP]

Absolutely. Testless cycling works in all cases but some details are missing from the description here (amounts used, type of feed added if any, type of bacteria) we'll need to fill in the details we use to assign clear start dates here

Let's see the tank pic, from that we discern the position and ratio of the known cycled materials.

Moving over cycled bioballs for example into a filter doesn't always provide a skip cycle (whereas moving live rock tank to tank always does, because it's positioned dead center in the display/bioballs are sumped away and it takes time for wastewater to get down to them and it's never the full degree of display water making contact)

It still helped you moved over the media because it can handle any common small starting bioload.


Since this is a testless thread, we won't factor your reported levels in the final call (pics will do it since we do have your known # of days running part of the 10 days equation) but it's helpful to know that's the nh4 reading from the kit which isn't for reefing, we need the nh3 data and instructions in the kit show how to estimate nh3 from that reading (10x less) which is clearly not lethal. We don't need the actual nh3 details, we're testless, but i wanted you to see we never expect or want zero ammonia in a reef tank: low levels are what's good for reefs, and you've posted a low level (using a kit not accepted as accurate here/ it's not a seneye)

Randy's new article ammonia is our friend details how the expectation for zero ammonia never was good for our reefs (and per this article is a top cause of perceived stalled cycles)

You can see the factors are in place for you to be ready to reef by day ten if cycling bottle bac was used

Let's see pics of your tank, and whatever additives were given so I can see the label. I don't know if you've added ammonia plus media, or ammonia plus bottle bac plus media, so pics will clear it up.

If you added only ammonia, no bottle bac, and some cycled material in a filter I can still quote you the start date but that's atypical here as we've all used bottle bac already tracked by Dr Reef for ten days compliance. I'll still be able to get your cycle end date once I see them pics and factor it all

Thanks tons for posting!
B

Thanks so much! I added Dr. Tim’s fishless cycle on 12/16 and followed the guidelines and added 5mL of solution to a total of 2ppm.

Over the following week, I added liberal amounts of Dr. Tim all in one, which I had on hand. I probably dosed that four times.

As for the cycled media, I added two bio balls and some sand, approximately a cups worth from my older system. All of that went in the back of the all-in-one in addition to three or four small rocks that would take up about the size of a man’s fist. Rock was purchased and weighed about 10 lbs for the 20 gal system.

I can take better photos when I return from travels in about a week if required! Greatly appreciate the assist here. Hopefully things are able to progress while I’m gone.

Before leaving on 12/23 I had negligible levels of nitrite and nitrate.



In summary, I used dr Tim fishless cycle, dr Tim’s all in one bottle bac (big dose maybe 5 capfuls each time) and a small amount of cycled media in the first AIO chamber, live sand from cycled system in the second compartment in back before the return pump in third chamber

 

[brandon429]

That's a really good fitting example for our special thread here I'm glad you posted, with that detail update it will pass right now. The cycle to process a basic bioload is done here. If you added fish now they'd live and act just fine and disease import will be the risk.

We're at day ten pretty much, that's our universal latest wait time for every cycle here, this is a max ten day wait thread with 100% safe outcomes 5th year.

that's first reason your cycle is done, you've gone a bit beyond in preps to every cycle here already worked and inspectable by incorporating in precycled items




The cycled media itself is obviously cycled and will command any common bioload by itself, without the extra help + time for bottle bac added. Yes the materials are sequestered away in the filter but in a system that small the position doesn't matter, that system can only carry a nominal fish bioload anyway even when it's matured. Starting bioloads aren't going to exceed the surface area placement, timing (day ten tomorrow close enough) and double inoculation preps for that tank


Cycled materials like the sand and filter material transmit their bacteria to inert surfaces within 20 days (we have a thread on that if wanted) so you're halfway to the dry parts getting fully cycled just by being in the same water as cycled material...but this part of the complement is extra padding, a starting bioload was never going to exceed what the bottle bac alone can handle.


If any reader ever wants to run a fun cool awesome spot check of this testless cycling system, then have a calibrated seneye handy but don't tell me that when you post up a cycle challenge.


ill run the schpeel based on presented details, then seneye test it on the stated ready date-post those readings and we can see why the ten day wait time became so reliable

*to calibrate a seneye we would set it up on an already- running reef system (can't calibrated using a cycling reef tank) and then trim the seneye into spec for nh3 = .002-.005 --》 this is the level reef tanks run at because we're all very high surface area and relatively low bioload. we're all copying this same surface area constant tank to tank. ***if this was a fish only forum that predicted range may not hold, FO tanks can flip the script by being very high bioload and lower surface area. But not home reef tanks: those are predictable.

Once that's in place, you can then move the seneye slide/ setup into a cycling tank to verify its levels for a given interval and not only would I enjoy that testing greatly: I'd believe it. Until then, we're testless and using other objective ways to get our ready dates. We're stall- free here, that is until someone with a seneye says otherwise.

Once you get back home and add fish, send us an updated Pic a day or two after adding him. If he's alive we'll call that a pass, and if he's dead I'll call that cryptocarion :)

 

[Devilfish]

I'm in the middle of a "different" kind of cycle. I had everything planned out and thought this would be the easiest part.

I have a 100 gallon with 16 gallon sump. About to inches of sand that was thoroughly washed and a good amount of live rock.

I started my tank on 12/9 with Dr. Tim's and dosing ammonium chloride to 2ppm. Two days later I dosed another 1ppm. After a week there was no drop in levels and I was reading 3ppm total. I did notice that the tank began to smell more like a living tank and I could feel a biofilm on everything. I had ordered a small amount of live rock (3lbs) and sand (9lbs) to seed life. It was originally going to be delivered in January but was moved up to December 19th. I thought this would be plenty of time (and it looks like it was) to have the cycle finished. I was 10 days in with bottled bacteria.

However, there was no drop in ammonia levels testing with API. 7 days in I was getting nervous. I didn't want to add critters with the ammonia level so high. I was able to make enough RODI to do two 30 gallon water changes. I was able to drop the ammonia levels to 1ppm before the live rock and sand arrived. I didn't really have another option so I added everything and hoped for the best. I probably should have stuck with the program. I had considered adding more bottled bacteria but decided against it.

It has been in the tank for 8 days now. The two limpets are still alive and scouring the rock. Feather dusters are still out everyday, and the barnacles are still doing their thing. According to the API test my ammonia levels are still in between .5 and .75.

I don't plan on adding fish anytime soon. I want to add some clean up crew (snails, copepods, ect.), some corals, and then basically go fallow for 76 days while I start quarantining fish.

The fact that the limpets seem to be doing well and the ammonia is dropping (although slowly) would seem to indicate that it is at least progressing.

I regret adding the ammonium chloride and would do things a little differently if I had seem this thread before starting my cycle.

 

[BHFP]

That's a really good fitting example for our special thread here I'm glad you posted, with that detail update it will pass right now. The cycle to process a basic bioload is done here. If you added fish now they'd live and act just fine and disease import will be the risk.

We're at day ten pretty much, that's our universal latest wait time for every cycle here, this is a max ten day wait thread with 100% safe outcomes 5th year.

that's first reason your cycle is done, you've gone a bit beyond in preps to every cycle here already worked and inspectable by incorporating in precycled items




The cycled media itself is obviously cycled and will command any common bioload by itself, without the extra help + time for bottle bac added. Yes the materials are sequestered away in the filter but in a system that small the position doesn't matter, that system can only carry a nominal fish bioload anyway even when it's matured. Starting bioloads aren't going to exceed the surface area placement, timing (day ten tomorrow close enough) and double inoculation preps for that tank


Cycled materials like the sand and filter material transmit their bacteria to inert surfaces within 20 days (we have a thread on that if wanted) so you're halfway to the dry parts getting fully cycled just by being in the same water as cycled material...but this part of the complement is extra padding, a starting bioload was never going to exceed what the bottle bac alone can handle.


If any reader ever wants to run a fun cool awesome spot check of this testless cycling system, then have a calibrated seneye handy but don't tell me that when you post up a cycle challenge.


ill run the schpeel based on presented details, then seneye test it on the stated ready date-post those readings and we can see why the ten day wait time became so reliable

*to calibrate a seneye we would set it up on an already- running reef system (can't calibrated using a cycling reef tank) and then trim the seneye into spec for nh3 = .002-.005 --》 this is the level reef tanks run at because we're all very high surface area and relatively low bioload. we're all copying this same surface area constant tank to tank. ***if this was a fish only forum that predicted range may not hold, FO tanks can flip the script by being very high bioload and lower surface area. But not home reef tanks: those are predictable.

Once that's in place, you can then move the seneye slide/ setup into a cycling tank to verify its levels for a given interval and not only would I enjoy that testing greatly: I'd believe it. Until then, we're testless and using other objective ways to get our ready dates. We're stall- free here, that is until someone with a seneye says otherwise.

Once you get back home and add fish, send us an updated Pic a day or two after adding him. If he's alive we'll call that a pass, and if he's dead I'll call that cryptocarion :)

Fantastic! Thank you for the response and am interested in the additional reading if you’d be kind enough to link any material. Would be happy to test and I’m curious about when my new rock is fully cycled.

 

[brandon429]

There isn't any material on time-based cycling, testless cycling, on the entire internet :) this = ground zero :)

What we're doing here is not using any test kits other than seneye, to prove the timeframes that got us here to page 43 with no fails. Your tank is ready just the same.

People still post non seneye test readings though we don't want them to, it's hard to break the cycle of old cycling science for them so it's forgiven

So to prove it we can either add fish and watch them live normally (fish die if placed within uncycled tanks, but they'll live fine in your ready tank) or you can order a seneye, soak the slide for 48 hours and setback up the device on your cycling tank, we'd accept those numbers

But not from api, red sea, Hanna, any other tester. Don't post readings that aren't from seneye

Seneye only or trust our timing process for the reasons listed on page 1 post 1. Get a seneye i think it would be great to get an updated verification.

Being testless and accepting only seneye is what sets our thread apart from all the others. Predicting the cycle close date for all tanks here is the goal of the thread. Yours is ready.

 

[brandon429]

Also remember: your summary after the cycle fix still involves testing, to be sure, that's doubt= invites disease by focusing on wrong issue

All this is from page one post one

You're past cycling and into disease management choices, be ready. To see what happens when all disease preps are skipped, read this forum:
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-disease-treatment-and-diagnosis.771/
(Every person on that forum did an old school normal wait cycle with testing, notice how their fish still die anyway?)

So in final summary for your tank based on multiple cycling inputs, there's no need to be sure of anything regarding ammonia but 100% of the concern is now waiting to see how you choose disease management. This is where just about 99.99% of readers revert to old cycling science, because it gives them what they (initially) want

But when all fish are dead in six mos, they didn't know that too was part of old cycling science. Redo that part is my recommend

 

[Dustoexo]

Not sure what to think as I’ve completely overloaded my tank with bacteria to speed up the cycle.

My tank is a 165 gallon Red Sea 625

So day 1 when I added frytz900 16oz entire bottle this was on Jan 21s 2025

I added ammonia chloride according to Tim’s instructions.

On day 2 I tested not with seneye as I hadn’t ever read this thread. I had 2.2 ppm

Day 3 I added more ammonia drops

Day 4 I had 2.1ppm of ammonia

Day 6 I added more ammonia.

Day 8 I had 4.8 ppm of ammonia.

Day 10 my ammonia rose to 4.9 but I also had nitrite and nitrate

Came home and added 1 full bottle of API quick start and a bottle of XLM quick start

So I waited a couple more days

February 3rd I had ammonia rise again to 5.0ppm, nitrite 2 and nitrate 3.0

Then just yesterday February 4th I added another bottle of frytz 900 16oz.

After reading your thread if my tanks ain’t cycled i dunno what to think, am I missing something?

I also have another smaller tank that’s been running for 6 months that I will be transferring over the Rockwork.

My issue is I’d hate to drop all my coral and fish in the new tank as we all know fish can be costly.

Should I do a 30-40% water change and dump them in?