How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

[brandon429]

excellent post

the seneye has to be calibrated before it's helpful, calibrating on a dosed/cycled tank is hard/not usual so the readings arent a concern

do you soak your slides for 48 hrs in the tank water before installing/a tuners trick from the threads

regarding the tank, we can handle that without testing at all. change as much water as you can and proceed, fritz adheres in 5-10 days time as we've elapsed.

 

[brandon429]

@Dustoexo

the aquaspin touch machines aren't something we count on for accuracy, though it will reflect metabolites in the system and free ammonia if present/but it's hard to use much like API. we would handle your tank using the same timing guidelines as the others. we wouldn't add more ammonia for sure.

 

[brandon429]

we might even add a pinch of ground up fish food, carbon source, if required. w await updates when u can.

 

[ctrl]

Just hit day 10 after using Turbostart 900 in my Redsea 525 - spiked it up originally to 2.0 ammonia per instructions and I think I’m getting false results of .25 now on my Redsea test kit and my nitrites have stalled at 1 for over a week now.

I recently started dosing Neophos since I had 0 phosphate and was reading that can stall, should I keep using this since I went with dry sand and Marco rock?, I’ve read it can bind phosphate for a while.

Thoughts on a small 10-20% WC and add fish? I’m a little paranoid since I want some nice clowns - maybe a cleaner shrimp would be a solid test?

 

[brandon429]

Thank you for posting :)

Going off mere precedent here, using fritz and + 10 days, you're solid.

How you acclimate, feed and house the fish will control its lifespan not any aspect of the cycle.

Nobody on this entire site has ever been in a true failed cycle thread, where fish died, so by that secondary standard you're good to go.

We're a testless cycling thread per post #1, you for sure did well giving fritz ten days. It only needs 1 or 2 to implant onto surfaces given that feed and time.

Post tank pics when you stock fish

And be prepared for disease imports if stocking from a pet store, we covered that cycle risk is 0% to your fish and disease/ acclimation risks are 100%

That helps you know what to study and prepare for.

You can do a small water change, or a large one, or not any. All the same safety outcome, all will show the same readout on a calibrated seneye if we're ever lucky enough to get another one during a new tank cycle.

 

[brandon429]

Thank you for that bump




We are now officially at five years testless cycling and all my friends here are happy with the results.

And in all this time, on any board or social media site: 100% of seneye readings from calibrated machines never show a cycle stall, ever, much less for ten days.


the notion of a stalled cycle is dead and gone, these two factors show.

Phosphate isn't going to stall anything, we show. It's five years never factoring phosphate...

So if readers out there ever read that you need to test, to cycle a reef,


Or- if you hear that reef cycles aren't necessarily ready by day ten

You must be reading old cycling science.

 

[ctrl]

Thank you for posting :)

Going off mere precedent here, using fritz and + 10 days, you're solid.

How you acclimate, feed and house the fish will control its lifespan not any aspect of the cycle.

Nobody on this entire site has ever been in a true failed cycle thread, where fish died, so by that secondary standard you're good to go.

We're a testless cycling thread per post #1, you for sure did well giving fritz ten days. It only needs 1 or 2 to implant onto surfaces given that feed and time.

Post tank pics when you stock fish

And be prepared for disease imports if stocking from a pet store, we covered that cycle risk is 0% to your fish and disease/ acclimation risks are 100%

That helps you know what to study and prepare for.

You can do a small water change, or a large one, or not any. All the same safety outcome, all will show the same readout on a calibrated seneye if we're ever lucky enough to get another one during a new tank cycle.

Thanks for the help! Will gladly post photos once I get them in tank!

 

[brandon429]

Watch the acclimation

The pet stores keep fish low low salinity, to mask disease. It's so low they often need multiple days in a holding tank slowly raising salinity vs the bag drip methods to be ready for reefing at home. If you want to have fun, take your own salinity measure to the pet store.

First ask them if they run low salinity in the fish systems

Then use your actual tester and see if it's where you keep your salinity. That kind of trickery is what to watch out for


Also curious to know: what are the planned disease preps

As soon as you put in the first fish, that's 80% chance of crypto by September.

That's any cycle approach: even if we took six months to cycle, if preps aren't ran disease follows the same course.

How we cycle a reef tank doesn't impact disease expression rates.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Watch the acclimation

The pet stores keep fish low low salinity, to mask disease. It's so low they often need multiple days in a holding tank slowly raising salinity vs the bag drip methods to be ready for reefing at home. If you want to have fun, take your own salinity measure to the pet store.

First ask them if they run low salinity in the fish systems

Then use your actual tester and see if it's where you keep your salinity. That kind of trickery is what to watch out for


Also curious to know: what are the planned disease preps

As soon as you put in the first fish, that's 80% chance of crypto by September.

That's any cycle approach: even if we took six months to cycle, if preps aren't ran disease follows the same course.

How we cycle a reef tank doesn't impact disease expression rates.

This is a new hobbyist looking for guidance—not a candidate for indoctrination through exaggeration and fear.

Instead of offering practical advice, you’ve resorted to hyperbole, demanding their fish will be dead by September if they don’t follow your method, while planting the idea that their LFS is dishonest by default.

Reality:

1 - LFSs often run hypo salinity to help suppress parasites. This is not "trickery", but rather a practical safeguard aimed at the reality of livestock coming from the wild, through wholesale systems. It’s not malicious or conspiracy, it’s smart mitigation.

2 - Fish acclimating from hypo to full-strength saltwater do not require “multiple days” of salinity adjustment. Hours or less, not days, is the norm for modest salinity deltas.

3 - Claiming an 80% chance of death via "crypto" by "September" without a single trusted reference or context is nothing but outright fear-mongering. That number is highly made up and highly exaggerated and does not belong in responsible advice.

4 - System maturity absolutely matters in disease resistance. A well-cycled, maturing tank supports better water quality, greater biological stability, and microfauna diversity -- all of which improve fish health, immune response and reduce disease susceptibility and recovery.

It’s one thing to share your experience. It’s another to present it as the only truth, undermining sound and factual advice from others and leveraging fear to make your point. That helps no one -- least of all the new hobbyists you're supposedly trying to educate.

 

[Garf]

This is a new hobbyist looking for guidance—not a candidate for indoctrination through exaggeration and fear.

Instead of offering practical advice, you’ve resorted to hyperbole, demanding their fish will be dead by September if they don’t follow your method, while planting the idea that their LFS is dishonest by default.

Reality:

1 - LFSs often run hypo salinity to help suppress parasites. This is not "trickery", but rather a practical safeguard aimed at the reality of livestock coming from the wild, through wholesale systems. It’s not malicious or conspiracy, it’s smart mitigation.

2 - Fish acclimating from hypo to full-strength saltwater do not require “multiple days” of salinity adjustment. Hours or less, not days, is the norm for modest salinity deltas.

3 - Claiming an 80% chance of death via "crypto" by "September" without a single trusted reference or context is nothing but outright fear-mongering. That number is highly made up and highly exaggerated and does not belong in responsible advice.

4 - System maturity absolutely matters in disease resistance. A well-cycled, maturing tank supports better water quality, greater biological stability, and microfauna diversity -- all of which improve fish health, immune response and reduce disease susceptibility and recovery.

It’s one thing to share your experience. It’s another to present it as the only truth, undermining sound and factual advice from others and leveraging fear to make your point. That helps no one -- least of all the new hobbyists you're supposedly trying to educate.

I expect you are on Brandons imaginary "ignore" list.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I expect you are on Brandons imaginary "ignore" list.

Maybe so - but new members to this hobby and community should not be cornered with fear and dire consequences based on distortions aimed at pushing personal agendas. So, I try to counter a bit of it where I can.

 

[ctrl]

Maybe so - but new members to this hobby and community should not be cornered with fear and dire consequences based on distortions aimed at pushing personal agendas. So, I try to counter a bit of it where I can.

Agreed - luckily I’ve had multiple tanks over the years so I’m not too scared about diseases but I could see how that would scare off newcomers.

If the fish get sick - I’ll google and treat accordingly - maybe if I drop 300 on a fish I’ll be more proactive - but it’ll be fine. I’ve only had to treat ich once or twice over the years and it was nbd.

I’ll drip acclimate a pair of mocha-Vinci clowns when they arrive on Friday and I’m sure they’ll be just fine.

I’m more scared of RTN when I start acros

 

[BeanAnimal]

Agreed - luckily I’ve had multiple tanks over the years so I’m not too scared about diseases but I could see how that would scare off newcomers.

Disease is certainly a valid concern and worth both a conversation and a risk assessment and plan. My issue here is not awareness, it is the rhetoric.

I’ll drip acclimate a pair of mocha-Vinci clowns when they arrive on Friday and I’m sure they’ll be just fine.

I would suggest floating for temp before opening, checking salinity and dumping if it is close (within a PSU or two) If you mist acclimate, don’t drip. Do about 1/4 water changes in the container every 5 mins or so. Otherwise you risk ammonia toxicity in the acclimation container due to pH rise causing ammonia from shipping to become toxic.

 

[brandon429]

Readers
Look at the taunting from posts # 869/ 870


Does any of that match what we’ve been doing here?

Is that the dialog and tone we use at all here? You can tell that’s beef from other threads being brought to make arguments.

Don’t let this distract you from what we do uniquely here


Bean and Garf follow my posts only to close them by running those taunts then speaking chill to try and move past them, all in the span of 30 minutes

An example

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...f-tank-cycles-from-resident-advisors.1093593/

Notice they only swarm when new kick ups happen

That’s opportunistic.





Is that the nature we want for the board?

It’s only arguments, never a thread they write or a study they’re conducting.

That pattern and intent to mislead us away from testless cycling science


Just the yesterday in the chemistry forum, Bean said it wasn’t possible to time-cycle in response to a post I made.

Then this time-cycling thread was kicked up and he’s here to derail fully. Garf works with him, links show.



This thread below was five years old when bean + crew did the same thing as today, and got it closed:

We had another testless cycling thread those two didn’t like.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...le-instant-reefs-no-bottle-bac.794146/page-30
Thankfully Rev re opened it.


Look how I had to talk bean down even after re opening

He almost got it closed again lol

It’s exhausting to craft responses to them within work threads. We have enough on the line by actually taking on work that isn’t final yet…

 

[brandon429]

Going forward my replies will be set to the jobs at hand. It won’t do any good to read their retorts, that is how they close threads they don’t like.

Our results will continue in spite of the din.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Guys please not this again. Take it to DM.

Same applies here. To all parties involved, let's keep this thread on track and not turn it into a back and forth. Let's help this hobbyist without squabbling.

 

[brandon429]

OK will do Daniel.

@ctrl agreed your plan sounds fine/ isn't your first time with marine fish. If you ever get a chance to inspect the lfs salinity I'd be curious how low it runs if any.

 

[brandon429]

I believe now, post 880, we can finally get back to friendly simple scientific work in others people's tanks.

Post up stuck cycles, we'll fix them using updated cycling science.

 

[JohnA420]

Hi Brandon,

Added ammonium chloride, fritz turbo start 900 7 days ago. Also added fritzzyme 9 and tims one and only since then. Tonight ammonia measured .25, nitrite is over the max on my red sea test kit of 1 and nitrate is between 20-50 ppm.


Please advise

 

[JohnA420]

Hi Brandon,

Added ammonium chloride, fritz turbo start 900 7 days ago. Also added fritzzyme 9 and tims one and only since then. Tonight ammonia measured .25, nitrite is over the max on my red sea test kit of 1 and nitrate is between 20-50 ppm.


Please advise

I should mention ammonia dropped from 1.5 to .25 from yesterday to today but no noticeable change in nitrite or nitrate