Peculiar cycling problem

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

I’m on my week two of cycling my waterbox 50 AIO. My tank currently consists of dry Marco rocks with bunch of new marine pre sphere and old sphere from a year old tank. I pre dose the new sphere in a bucket with ammonia for a week. So I thought I should be mostly prep with quick cycle the tank.

Day 1 I dose enough for 1.5 ammonia ppm. For the next week the ammonia disappear. But during that time I never got any nitrites or nitrates reading either. So this week I’m slowly dosing more ammonia and same thing. No reading on nitrite or nitrates. Ammonia and Nitrite is API. Nitrates is Hanna checker.

Currently my ammonia is .25 on API but seachem is at 0.05. This was dose yesterday night.

am I cycle? is my old marine pure sphere taking out the nitrates?? I watched BRS video they said they don’t do that.

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

Bump

 

[Troylee]

Was the old sphere wet and loaded with bacteria? If so you might not have a cycle. You should have a nitrate reading thou regardless.

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

Was the old sphere wet and loaded with bacteria? If so you might not have a cycle. You should have a nitrate reading thou regardless.

Yeah the old sphere been sitting in my old tank for a year filled with bacteria

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

I forgot to mention I been dosing microbacter 7 for this whole period

 

[Troylee]

I’d just test nitrates till you get a reading.. how many gallons is your tank?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I’m on my week two of cycling my waterbox 50 AIO. My tank currently consists of dry Marco rocks with bunch of new marine pre sphere and old sphere from a year old tank. I pre dose the new sphere in a bucket with ammonia for a week. So I thought I should be mostly prep with quick cycle the tank.

Day 1 I dose enough for 1.5 ammonia ppm. For the next week the ammonia disappear. But during that time I never got any nitrites or nitrates reading either. So this week I’m slowly dosing more ammonia and same thing. No reading on nitrite or nitrates. Ammonia and Nitrite is API. Nitrates is Hanna checker.

Currently my ammonia is .25 on API but seachem is at 0.05. This was dose yesterday night.

am I cycle? is my old marine pure sphere taking out the nitrates?? I watched BRS video they said they don’t do that.

I would not have added more ammonia but rather would recommend to take a water sample to a store that does NOT use Api kits and have them test your ammonia and nitrates and compare readings and see what they come up with for comparison - then you'll know where your levels truly are at

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

I’d just test nitrates till you get a reading.. how many gallons is your tank?

50 gallon

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

I would not have added more ammonia but rather would recommend to take a water sample to a store that does NOT use Api kits and have them test your ammonia and nitrates and compare readings and see what they come up with for comparison - then you'll know where your levels truly are at

Well my API ammonia works well for my tank before. I just needed a rough estimate. My nitrates is Hanna tester. Not sure if that can be any better. My seachem ammonia alert also works fine it turns yellow after 24 hour.

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

Is just an odd situation to me cause I have marine pure bio sphere with a year of bacteria in it. There plus additional micobacter 7 dosing. Just not sure why I don’t see any nitrates.

 

[Troylee]

Is just an odd situation to me cause I have marine pure bio sphere with a year of bacteria in it. There plus additional micobacter 7 dosing. Just not sure why I don’t see any nitrates.

Couldn't tell ya… is the reagent expired or anything on the Hannah? API will always show ammonia even thou it’s not there.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Well my API ammonia works well for my tank before. I just needed a rough estimate. My nitrates is Hanna tester. Not sure if that can be any better. My seachem ammonia alert also works fine it turns yellow after 24 hour.

If you feel comfortable with that- no problem. I will never trust a $7 badge or $25 master kit to sustain hundreds of dollars in livestock.

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

Couldn't tell ya… is the reagent expired or anything on the Hannah? API will always show ammonia even thou it’s not there.

That is a possibility! I will check later. Is it possible ammonia in dosing is expire? I did get that year ago

 

[DanyL]

My guess is that you simply had some phosphates in there, and with the bacteria you brought from the old tank in combination with the microbacter you basically bottomed up.

Test phosphates and see what it reads, if it’s zero - add some more Ammonia and watch your Nitrates.

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

If you feel comfortable with that- no problem. I will never trust a $7 badge or $25 master kit to sustain hundreds of dollars in livestock.

Yeah this is a fish less cycle. I’m not too worried as of this moment. Taking it slow and slowly figuring this out.

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

My guess is that you simply had some phosphates in there, and with the bacteria you brought from the old tank in combination with the microbacter you basically bottomed up.

Test phosphates and see what it reads, if it’s zero - add some more Ammonia and watch your Nitrates.

Very interesting any reason how nitrates can bottomed up? Is it the micobacter that does that?

 

[fushi]

I’m on my week two of cycling my waterbox 50 AIO. My tank currently consists of dry Marco rocks with bunch of new marine pre sphere and old sphere from a year old tank. I pre dose the new sphere in a bucket with ammonia for a week. So I thought I should be mostly prep with quick cycle the tank.

If your seeing ammonia the next day then I wouldn’t considered it cycled.

I also have had tons of problems with dry rock sucking up all the phosphates in the water which I thinks slows bacteria growth. Dosing phosphates with my ammonia speed things up for me.

I also would not use MB7 but instead use prodibio startup, microbactor XLM, fritz turbo start, or fritz 9. I prefer Prodibio products

 

[Yang’s Blue Paradise]

If your seeing ammonia the next day then I wouldn’t considered it cycled.

I also have had tons of problems with dry rock sucking up all the phosphates in the water which I thinks slows bacteria growth. Dosing phosphates with my ammonia speed things up for me.

I also would not use MB7 but instead use prodibio startup, microbactor XLM, fritz turbo start, or fritz 9. I prefer Prodibio products

Yeah only reason I dose MB7 cause I thought my old marine pure bio was gonna do most of the work and it was available in my LFS.

How does dry rock sucking up phosphate affects not seeing nitrates?

If I still don’t see nitrates I’ll pick up Dr Tim one and only I used those last time.

 

[fushi]

Yeah only reason I dose MB7 cause I thought my old marine pure bio was gonna do most of the work and it was available in my LFS.

How does dry rock sucking up phosphate affects not seeing nitrates?

If I still don’t see nitrates I’ll pick up Dr Tim one and only I used those last time.

Bacteria need phosphate to grow.

I had the same thing happen to me when I restarted the my Fiji cube last year, I dosed up phosphates until they were detectable every day and carbon dosed, it cycled in a couple days.

telegrham tested mb7 along with a few other bacteria products, short story, its not worth buying which is my experience too.

The dry rock/sand may even bind some ammonia too idk but all I know is dry rock can be a pain.

 

[DanyL]

Very interesting any reason how nitrates can bottomed up? Is it the micobacter that does that?

Bacteria consumes a lot of Nitrates, some carbon and some phosphates.
So as long as all 3 are available - bacteria will multiply.

Now, on new tanks you can go a long way without Carbon being the limiting factor, so that leaves us with only 2 - Nitrates and Phosphates.

Since Ammonia turns into Nitrites and than Nitrates and all are reading zero - there’s a good possibility that it got consumed.

But for this to happen - you need at least some phosphates in the system.

Once phosphate bottoms up however, the bacteria wouldn’t be able to reproduce anymore and thus wouldn’t consume Nitrate either, which would then lead to its accumulation in the system and result in a measurable amount you can test for.