Little Cycle help

[pdiehm]

Added Ammonia and Dr. Tims on 10/7. Was given a bottle of Turbo Start 900 for 100 gallons...I put that into the tank.

I just test my ammonia and it's 0. I tested my nitrite, and it's 0.25ppm. I've never had a tank, when nitrites spiked, and fell that nitrites went back up.

I redosed ammonia to 1ppm, and if it's 0, am I cycled? or do I absolutely need to wait for 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites after 24 hours.

LIke I said, it's weird. Nitrites were 5+ for about 2 week, then fell to 0 overnight. Dosed. Ammonia at 0.5 1 day later, 0 nitrites. Next day, ammonia 0, but nitrites 0.25.

Anyone have this happen to them?

Barebottom, 120 lbs of reefcleaners rock, no marinepure or the such in the sump.

 

[brandon429]

Microbiology of cycling thread says it’s cycled, do a large water change and add starter corals and cuc if you want

Whether that strain of bac met a five day challenge elsewhere won’t matter, you did a month submersion here. Opening statement in the thread is don’t test for nitrite nor factor it in your cycle, says to go off submersion time, you’ve met. Water change and then light stocking, can do. It can even take fish if you’re done with fallow/ quarantine but start easy, any amount of reef rock you’ve let sit for a month in the presence of bottle bac is fine. Not anyone agrees with this by the way, but then again we’re out to sixteen or so pages in the thread now of applying it/ safe to go

 

[brandon429]

in fact, there have been some cycle threads that didn’t suppress nitrite (their testing showed) for three months, i unsubscribed from the other thread as it will go on a long time, they too were cycled but were assuming trace nitrite readings of waste water indicated something significant.
Api nitrite is too sensitive for use, misleads about cycles stalling or not, and only ammonia matters anyway

nitrite always follows ammonia at day 30 see all google cycling charts, that’s four million lol. That’s why submersion time + ammonia inversely reads nitrite... The charts are interchangeable between duration and all three nitrogen species readings such that knowing ammonia at a certain submersion duration speaks about the other two. The machine doesn’t run uncoupled, all though people who base cycles on wastewater testing sure might. To really test a cycles end, if more testing is needed, you’d drain and replace water. Bring to 1 ppm ammonia, check tomorrow. If ammonia is zero, then it’s reconfirmed and we will add to page 17.

you don’t have to test that if you don’t want, it’s ready after a water change. Feels weird to not use nitrite or nitrate in cycle assessment I know, it’s true the prior system is rife with wrong testing and nearly pervasively incorrect microbiology. Ammonia + known time is the sickest new form of cycling... and all tanks comply by a certain date. We have no outliers.


If you would have used no form of booster at all you would need more time duration, but you did use a booster so it's okay

 

[pdiehm]

thank you. i did redose the ammonia to 1ppm after I got home, just to make sure that the ammonia is being processed in 24 hours. I have 60 gallons of water ready to go, and for grins and chuckles, I just tested nitrates. My nitrates per Red Sea were approximately 12, API approximately 20.

Gun to my head, with ammonia at 0, and a nitrate reading between 10-20, I felt that my initial cycle is done and I can move forward. But I wanted to ask anyhow.

 

[Crabby48]

How big of a water change is needed in your case? How does one determine the size of water change?
Congratulations on you finishing the cycle

 

[pdiehm]

I was going to do 50% and figure it out from there.

 

[brandon429]

We think the water change is best for less starting invasions. Less nitrogen right up front for plant use if we start with a nice fresh approach. People who insist on nitrite testing will often base readings and cycle validity on 8x original ammonia doses beyond norm, this helps to round up all the extremes people do in attempt to help bac. I know this cycle went totally normal, fresh WC is good habit but if being a large tank owner makes that tricky, then be exacting in your starting ammonia limits.

Although dr Tim's directions say 2-4 ppm I think, you can select a lesser starting amount 1 ppm and your bacteria will have the same ability and this is much less nitrate, not as much to need water change.

 

[pdiehm]

@brandon429

Yes, this cycle went completely normal. I have always had an issue keeping NO3 below 20, so I figure this time do a series of 20% changes following the initial 50% change.

My initial dose was 2ppm ammonia. Once it fell to 0 for first time, I dosed 1ppm thinking, barring a catastrophe, I won’t ever have 1ppm ammonia.

I have pods from algae barn coming...we are going to try to get an all encompassing CUC starting with pods.

 

[Mr.Asbury]

Congrats on finishing the cycle. Also, Go PENS!

 

[brandon429]

Another thing that really applies here regarding duration is how submersion time duration can't be manipulated on any cycling charts if you want surfaces doing the work vs bacteria dosed into suspension (which are removed by a water change, your duration-earned cycle can never ever be undone without meds)

It's likely finished closer to 15 days with your type of controlled boosting but we choose a month because it covers every variation I've ever seen from well fed cycles to really starved/unassisted ones for the most part. We want to cross the bridge in cycling where no form of water change undoes things, even though some bottle dosers are live enough to begin reducing ammonia immediately.

Overfeeding a new cycle system absolutely doesn't change depositional timeframes for bacteria, it just gives more algae food.