New build, quick cycle? Or just lucky?

[OlPainless]

On April 7th I started my 36gl bow front tank. I started with 40lbs of live sand and maybe 30lbs of dry rock. One of the guys at my LFS recommended ghost feeding shrimp and dosing Microbacter7 for a few weeks and using the API test kit as a red light/green light for adding creatures. After 5 days of daily capful of Mb7 and ghost feeding, I had some feedback on R2R on how Mb7 wasn't the right stuff for cycling a new tank. My levels never got crazy high; ammonia stayed around .5ppm, nitrite around .25ppm and nitrate 0-5ppm. On April 14th, I decided to move to Bio-Spira to get the ball rolling faster and added 1lb of live rock to help everything . After adding the bio-spira and live rock, I also added a clownfish, peppermint shrimp and 2 hermit crabs. Levels changed to: Ammonia - .5ppm, Nitrite - 0ppm and Nitrate - 20-40ppm for a few days. Did a water change and nitrate dropped down to 10-20ppm. Since then, ammonia has leveled off at 0-.25ppm, nitrite - 0ppm and nitrate to 10-20ppm. Yesterday, 2 weeks after adding the creatures, live rock and bio-spira, I added a Fire Goby and Blue Devil Damsel; also have 2 more hermits, 2 nasarius snails and 2 astrea snails. Everyone seems to be doing fine, everyone is eating and actively swimming or crawling. Did I just have a quick cycle or am I riding the lucky lane right now.

Also I have not had the light on to help prevent the ugly phase of the cycle. So far this has worked.

Side question, we couldn't find one of the hermits for a few days, just figured the shell was stuck in a part of the rock we couldn't see. After 3 days a small blue leg hermit body was on one of the top rocks out of a shell, lifeless. Got it out of the tank and said farewell to one of the crabs. 3 days later I spot the missing shell on the backside of the rocks, grab it to look at it and there is a much larger crab in there now. I'm guessing the crab molted but I didn't think the old body of the crab would have kept its color and I'm pretty sure there was meat attached to the body. We are confused but glad to have 4 hermits again. By the way, that crabs name is Destiny, go figure.

 

[Cell]

Live rock is instant cycle. Bio-spira is as well. Not super familiar with Microbacter7, but after a few weeks with nothing but a shrimp your cycle would almost be done.

 

[MarshallB]

Yeah the first time i saw a crab floating around I thought it was a goner, nope just molted.

As for the cycle, if you used 'live' sand then it most likely had more than enough bacteria already in it to start the nitrogen process. Please post in a few months with your progress. I'm interested to see what kind of issue you run into, or lack of issues, starting with live sand and dry rock.

 

[OlPainless]

Live rock is instant cycle. Bio-spira is as well. Not super familiar with Microbacter7, but after a few weeks with nothing but a shrimp your cycle would almost be done.

I knew live rock helped jump start the cycle, just thought it would need more then the small rock I put in there. Thanks for the reassurance!

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Cycle complete as Cell mentioned. I do suggest stashing away the test kits and focus on salinity and temp. Keep it with water changes and get through the uglies.

 

[OlPainless]

Yeah the first time i saw a crab floating around I thought it was a goner, nope just molted.

As for the cycle, if you used 'live' sand then it most likely had more than enough bacteria already in it to start the nitrogen process. Please post in a few months with your progress. I'm interested to see what kind of issue you run into, or lack of issues, starting with live sand and dry rock.

Can do!

 

[OlPainless]

A couple weeks on from the last post. Everything still running great. I have been leaving the light on during the weekends and off during the week. I can see some brown algea starting to form when I do have the lights on but no major outbreaks yet. Changing out about 5 gallons of water once a week to keep nitrates in check. Added most of the fish I was looking to add: 1 clown, 1 firegoby, 1 orange tail damsel, 1 coral beauty and 1 yellow watchman. Also have a serpent seastar, emerald crab, peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, 4 hermits and 3 snails.

 

[Azedenkae]

A couple weeks on from the last post. Everything still running great. I have been leaving the light on during the weekends and off during the week. I can see some brown algea starting to form when I do have the lights on but no major outbreaks yet. Changing out about 5 gallons of water once a week to keep nitrates in check. Added most of the fish I was looking to add: 1 clown, 1 firegoby, 1 orange tail damsel, 1 coral beauty and 1 yellow watchman. Also have a serpent seastar, emerald crab, peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, 4 hermits and 3 snails.

Nice, awesome to hear!

Yeah Bio-Spira was probably key in your cycle. Your piece of live rock could have helped seed the tank, but really it is very small. Bio-Spira and FritzZyme are both well known to seed aquariums well, and with nitrifiers that seem to reproduce pretty quickly too. ^_^

Once algae starts to really establish, they may also start to really use up your nitrate and/or phosphates, so you'd probably see a drop in those levels too with enough variety of algae growing.

 

[brandon429]

1. nice cycle control!
2. disease, the fish are 80% likely to die by September if the posts in the disease forum show any reliable patterns. what if we redirect that part

dont think im being buzzkill debbie downer lol its merely a relay of clickable patterns from the fish disease forum, which is twenty new disease threads a day all sharing certain things in common, that we'd undo.

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

basic summary:

nearly all posts originate from skipping fallow and qt or it not completing in some way.

major recourse theme for pages/months=instate fallow and qt before the loss.

reality: everyone gives a first go skipping the preps even after seeing the data lol... but also ask what is the rate of new threads being posted there/per second? one new one per minute? how's the skip working out in reality for them

your cycle was done and completed easily, but fish disease is a numbers risk % game. your current ante is four percent, you have four percent invested in preventing fish disease. lets chg to 98%.


*you will see many folks do not agree with fallow and quarantine.


notice how their ideas are missing above, where the work is.

my recommend is take what they use to fix disease wipeouts, and apply it early/now before a wipeout. as an intervention. because your cycle was so thorough, we needed good disease preps to keep those guys plump and upright. handling their waste was the easy part, now that you can carry lots of fish transmissible disease in a new start tank is the hidden plan