Initial Cycle Advice

[jastudee]

Hello,

Looking for some general advice. I started my cycle on 1/27 using Dr. Tims one and only full kit.

I dosed ammonia to get my ppm up to 2.2 ppm. It has now reduced back to 0.

My Nitrite quickly increased to around 2 and have seemed to hold steady since.

Nitrates have been slow to increase but not have seen a very subtle increase.

My question is: should I allow nitrites to decrease slightly more and nitrates to increase? Or should I dose additional ammonia? My gut tells me to wait it out and let nitrites all convert to nitrates prior to adding more ammonia.

 

[Spare time]

I'd just wait. You can slightly lower the salinity and turn the temperature up a few degrees to speed things up if you'd like

 

[Magic031707]

Wait it out. You will see nitrites go up and then back to zero and nitrates will go up and start decreasing. To make sure, dose ammonia to 2.0ppm test again 24hrs later and should read 0ppm

 

[taricha]

might take a while. Nitrite does not always quickly follow ammonia. It's not harmful, just annoying.
Don't bother testing nitrate (NO3) until nitrite (NO2) is gone or nearly gone. The interference from NO2 makes NO3 tests unreliable and too high.
Also NO2 is likely above 2ppm and the color tests have a hard time distinguishing between dark colors like 2ppm and 3ppm. So it could be going down by an amount that the kit won't show for a while.

 

[jastudee]

Thank you for the advice everyone! Appreciate it! I will continue to be patient and just test nitrite now until it drops more

 

[brandon429]

This thread is using old cycling science which kills fish by the bucketload

Are you tracking nitrate and nitrate in order to know when it’s safe to add fish?

The three people on the site who practice updated cycling science see a glaring clue about your cycle end date already shown in the charts posted, and that signals disease prep time, which comes before adding fish. I noticed nobody has discussed this last part with you, that’s the out-of-date bad science part. If you’re already with a disease plan and are just testing for the last two cycling params, no problem there, agreed it’s too early to test for them. A cycling chart shows you the wait times required for each param, nitrite and nitrate should be 30+ days out before factoring, if ever.

 

[jastudee]

This thread is using old cycling science which kills fish by the bucketload

Are you tracking nitrate and nitrate in order to know when it’s safe to add fish?

The three people on the site who practice updated cycling science see a glaring clue about your cycle end date already shown in the charts posted, and that signals disease prep time, which comes before adding fish. I noticed nobody has discussed this last part with you, that’s the out-of-date bad science part. If you’re already with a disease plan and are just testing for the last two cycling params, no problem there, agreed it’s too early to test for them. A cycling chart shows you the wait times required for each param, nitrite and nitrate should be 30+ days out before factoring, if ever.

I have been diligently testing the three params shown as well as PH and Alkalinity. I have been doing all of the tests because I want to be very confident that when I add my first fish it is safe for the fish. I see a lot of conflicting information, but ultimately my approach is for safety and not for speed of the cycle.

 

[brandon429]

Your tank cannot be made safer for fish by waiting any longer, or adding things, or with further testing: that’s the heart of updated cycling science (knowing when a cycle is done without using test kits)

If you added five fish they’d live now exactly the same as if you waited eight more months to add them, ammonia control is all that matters in reef cycling, nitrite and nitrate status have 0% bearing on fish health.

Where you are at now: either reading the disease forum stickies and implementing those details before adding fish or foregoing that process, adding fish in after a few more weeks wait, and then becoming part of the disease loss posts a few months afterwards. It’s inescapable, disease preps are required and simply can’t be skipped.

The glaring unmentioned clue was what your ammonia did by day ten wait time, per the chart. That’s the cycle end date, yet your tank still isn’t ready for fish even though it can carry a full load right now, a few days ago. Spend one day reading all new posted help threads in the disease forum: they were all trained on old cycling science as we all once were, followed its rules, then still lost most or all of their fish a few months after no preps addition.

Once your ammonia drops, or ten days elapse, you must instate disease preps or your fish will just die slowly/it’s in the disease forum for easy study. The end of a cycle isn’t when you add fish

You add fish when the selected disease protocol warrants addition. At the end of the cycle is when the disease plan starts. = this is updated cycling science. At no point did nitrite or nitrate factor whatsoever, we don’t test for those anymore