Nitrite reading off the charts

[yanni]

Hey all,

I’m 22 days through my cycle currently, and am experiencing ridiculously high nitrites, so high my Red Sea kit can’t read them properly. I seeded with Dr Tim's one and only, and am testing with all Red Sea test kits. My ammonia has started to drop, nitrites have soared, and nitrate is looking maxed at 50ppm. Is it a worry my nitrites are so high they can't be read, or should I just keep waiting it out?

Attached is a spreadsheet of my tracked parameters and notes for what has been occurring day to day.

 

[brandon429]

Your cycle is done, ignore the nitrites, change out your water so it’s clean vs full of algae fuel caused by inputting too much ammonia.


literally every cycle posted using Dr. Tims rules is like yours and they’re all fine, past day ten. You’re double. Nitrite no longer matters in display cycling

focus now this concern on disease preps. Though your tank can carry fish, don’t add unprepped ones or you’ll be posting a new concern in the disease forum by summertime. If you want to see a thirty page thread of reefs 100% like yours during the cycle, that can be provided. They were all ready by day ten, you’re double that time frame. The nitrite kit you’re using isn’t digital. Therefore simply guessing at the levels is as accurate, but nitrite doesn’t matter anyway in your case. Your ammonia is far lower than it seems, for the same reason. This cycle is done.


the entire chart isn’t correct, that’s not being mean I’m simply relaying what all seneye cycles show without variance.

 

[brandon429]

As long as you had a tank with a decent load of rocks stewing this whole time, you’re good to go. No boosted cycles take this long, unboosted ones take this long. Once you get digital kits for ammonia no cycle will ever seem stuck ever again.


when you do the big water change, the functional bacteria are still adhered to all surfaces in the tank, it won’t reset the cycle


your bottle bac isn’t dead per the ammonia movement shown, and it didn’t take as long as the chart shows either. Thats simply what Red Sea indicated, which is much much slower than a digital reading would show for the same work.

 

[yanni]

As long as you had a tank with a decent load of rocks stewing this whole time, you’re good to go. No boosted cycles take this long, unboosted ones take this long. Once you get digital kits for ammonia no cycle will ever seem stuck ever again.

That’s my rock work atm. What about the ammonia readings?

 

[brandon429]

The ammonia logged above isn‘t correct but it’s not your fault, it’s the non digital kit taking a huge lag time to report the change


your drop began on or around day ten and if I had to guess, on day 3. This matches all seneye + dr Tims cycles and no Red Sea cycles line up with seneye when ran alongside one another. I’ll let you scan the timeframes and the initial test claims on non digital kits, the occasional seneye spot checks, and how well day ten works for all bottle bac fed cycles here:

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

non digital ammonia test kit readings (api, Red Sea, nyos, seachem badges) make you think you aren’t cycled when indeed you are if you owned a $200 expensive seneye meter, you’d never be doubting your cycle status. since .01% of the reefing population owns these, we need a way to help the...

www.reef2reef.com

your cycle is like all of these


the first sentence in that work thread was then measured in every following job for 30 pages and 30 more to come
even if your ammonia held the same, no drop, for all 20 days you’d still be done, alexreefer’s thread on 100% water change found in the first post in that link proves that.

what a non digital test kit has to say means nothing about a cycle. I’ll separately link that very example below before my disavow of red sea offends the chemists

100% Water Change

So in my previous thread, I had an ammonia issue that was out of hand. As suggested, I did a 100% WC and now i’m wondering when I should start adding fish back. If anyone has suggestions, let me know!

www.reef2reef.com

see how the ammonia didn’t move for days, but in actuality the filter bac were laying down action on the rocks anyway

we did a full water change and then he made a reef out of it you can track even out to today. We also did a little calibration proof test before proceeding, but you don’t have to. What his cycle did above is what yours will do - even though your ammonia drop was delayed in the report it has been in the very low hundredths level or mid thousandths level nh3 for likely two weeks, but without the proper kits you’ll never see it. It’s too late, I’ve already offended the chemists with my approximations forgive me team~~am only stating what seneye would read given this exact duration and dosing for the op.

 

[brandon429]

the common instructions to dose 2 ppm into new cycles is absolutely bad information

it should be replaced with the rule to dose six drops of ammonia and pinch of ground up flake feed, that’s plenty, and won’t overpower the kits as badly.

it causes thousands of folks in your case to re buy more bacteria to handle a false stall (what we study above) and it’s not that 2 ppm isn’t getting moved, it’s that this initial blast does something to the cheap test kits that takes them weeks to recover. Any doubters can run a seneye cycle alongside an api or Red Sea cycle to see, or just read post #2 of the big thread as we listed one already for study.

 

[damsels are not mean]

Seems fine to me... I'd wait and see what happens. I would not go so far as to say that the cycle is complete, as high nitrite, while non toxic to our saltwater tanks, is toxic to the ammonia eating bacteria that we rely on. But it is likely things are fine and you should just test again in a week.

 

[brandon429]

The massive work thread linked disagrees over and over with fully tracked cycles we can send messages to

the only way to draw that conclusion is twofold: never owning a seneye, and not reading the proofs.



believing any listed param without second guessing is what the bottle bac sellers depend to keep earning well above what they deserve, the sellers rely on cycling peers to provide fear vs instant resolve with huge patterned proofs anytime a stall is feared.

 

[brandon429]

Last summary:

I don’t doubt that in a science lab, in petri dishes and on slides, that charts can be made that show dosed nitrite degrades ammonia control


but if we change the context to actual reef tanks, my first link shows absolutely no harm, no fear, cycles don’t stall, bottle bac cycles don’t take past ten days and cheap tests mislead the masses and they’re tricked into double buying the bacteria using the rules the sellers made. I’m in this game to level the playing field, and to drive concerns to the fish disease forum vs any form of cycle doubt, cycles don’t stall. We need specific preps to stem the loss from disease - it’s wrecking our hobby, we waste fish in bucket loads regardless of how we cycle.


this tank needs a full water change because that equalizes all variables and risks stated and unstated, and then we need to decide if no fallow is coming, or dirty fallow, or clean fallow will be put into place. Will the quarantine be done at home, or fish ordered that way- that’s the stage this reef is at


a stalled cycle has never been seen on a calibrated working seneye in the history of this entire reef board, that’s powerful data to consider. That there are no real stuck cycles, despite the claims we’ve been given for stalling- by sellers.

Dont think I do this daily just to bicker, it’s because cyclers need an advocate not trying to take their cash. And because vase reefers are endlessly compensating

 

[vetteguy53081]

Nitrite is INsignificant in marine setting UNLESS sky high in which you want to react, but then ammonia and nitrate are also bound to be high.
Agree- dont be too concerned. Now in Freshwater- a whole different story

 

[yanni]

Last summary:

I don’t doubt that in a science lab, in petri dishes and on slides, that charts can be made that show dosed nitrite degrades ammonia control


but if we change the context to actual reef tanks, my first link shows absolutely no harm, no fear, cycles don’t stall, bottle bac cycles don’t take past ten days and cheap tests mislead the masses and they’re tricked into double buying the bacteria using the rules the sellers made. I’m in this game to level the playing field, and to drive concerns to the fish disease forum vs any form of cycle doubt, cycles don’t stall. We need specific preps to stem the loss from disease - it’s wrecking our hobby, we waste fish in bucket loads regardless of how we cycle.


this tank needs a full water change because that equalizes all variables and risks stated and unstated, and then we need to decide if no fallow is coming, or dirty fallow, or clean fallow will be put into place. Will the quarantine be done at home, or fish ordered that way- that’s the stage this reef is at


a stalled cycle has never been seen on a calibrated working seneye in the history of this entire reef board, that’s powerful data to consider. That there are no real stuck cycles, despite the claims we’ve been given for stalling- by sellers.

Dont think I do this daily just to bicker, it’s because cyclers need an advocate not trying to take their cash. And because vase reefers are endlessly compensating

Holy ****, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone go so in depth to explain, and for that, I hugely appreciate it. Such a great explanation, you’re a treasure to this hobby mate. It’s a 75L/20G tank, should I do like a 50% water change, then look at how I’m going to go about adding my first fish??

 

[brandon429]

@Bobby1993


this thread is also a good one to read, it’ll make you thankful you’re only doing a feed + wait cycle

your numbers can never meet the numbers approximated in this cycle because two pinches of fish food doesn’t overpower anything, and a month to wait for bacterial implantation fixes everything.


***go back to your first post Bobby and consider the timing advised to you regarding that month wait, notice how reliable it is considering the outcomes in posts you’ve been reading for cycle studies

this one here was offered a tenth day ready date solely because they did use Dr. Tims cycling bac, which is tried and true tested good for ten day implantation.

the first sentence I typed to you was specifically do not add two ppm of ammonia into your reef, see the headache I was trying to save you from? I then said after that not to bother testing with cheap kits, see the headache that causes?

 

[damsels are not mean]

I would do a big WC just to reduce nitrate.

 

[Bobby1993]

@Bobby1993


this thread is also a good one to read, it’ll make you thankful you’re only doing a feed + wait cycle

your numbers can never meet the numbers approximated in this cycle because two pinches of fish food doesn’t overpower anything, and a month to wait for bacterial implantation fixes everything.


***go back to your first post Bobby and consider the timing advised to you regarding that month wait, notice how reliable it is considering the outcomes in posts you’ve been reading for cycle studies

this one here was offered a tenth day ready date solely because they did use Dr. Tims cycling bac, which is tried and true tested good for ten day implantation.

the first sentence I typed to you was specifically do not add two ppm of ammonia into your reef, see the headache I was trying to save you from? I then said after that not to bother testing with cheap kits, see the headache that causes?

That was another great read. Sorry for late reply I’ve been on a family trip this weekend while my tank stews nicely.
I’m delighted that I decided to post on here and ask the question as I was close to using dr Tim’s myself!
I feel very confident going back to marine this time around!

Thank you again Brandon

yanni your in the right hands here mate.