Question about cycle

[Blown]

Hi Guys,

I am new to reefing and have always wanted to get into the hobby. I got myself a waterbox 130.4 which is currently on day 48 doing a fishless cycle with dr tims one and only and dr tims ammonia. The tank has approx 75lbs of marco reef saver dry rock, 2x maxspect nanotech bio blocks in sump and 45lb of fiji pink dry sand. I am running a slightly lower salinity at around 1.020 as per dr tim recommendation and ph has been stable at 8.1.

Day 1 I dosed ammonia to 2ppm which took a week to reach 0, nitrites were unmeasurable during that time and nitrate was 10ppm after a week. Week2 I redosed ammonia to 2ppm which again took a week to go to 0, with nitrites measuring 0.05ppm and nitrate around 25ppm at the end of the week. Over the next few days nitrites rose to offscale on the test kit which maxes out at 1ppm ( I am using red sea test kits). It has now been over a month with the nitrites well over 1ppm and nitrates are still at around 25ppm. With the nitrates not going up after a couple weeks I was feeling like the process was stalled and added the recommended dose of fritzyme 9 to try help it along. That was a few weeks ago and still nothing seems to be changing.

I know this is a game of patience and I was expecting a slower cycle starting with dry rock/sand but I was also expecting that I would have been able to track some sort of progress with the nitrite by now and be seeing elevated levels of nitrate. I have tested fresh saltwater with the test kit and it reads 0 so I am fairly sure the test kit is ok. I have only just turned my skimmer on and fit filter socks about a week ago also if that makes any difference.

So for those of you in the know... does this seems right /normal?

Thanks

 

[Dbichler]

You were cycled after the first week. Do a full water change and begin. Like anything in this hobby slow is best so don’t go adding everything at once. A fish or two to start wait a couple weeks and another fish or two.

 

[ChrisNH]

I personally found it hard to track amounts of nitrates over 20. The test kits just seem to say "lots". I used three different kits (because I had them) and they all got kinda wonky with higher levels. I peaked around 50ish (maybe?) before I did a massive water change at the end.

I did see nitrites rise and fall slightly offset from ammonia but in my daughter's FW tank nitrites never showed up, I just saw Ammonia -> Nitrate so YMMV.

For what its worth, I found the API Nitrite test is a rare case where their test is better for cycling. It has a higher range and the color change is very easy to read, at least for me. I agree with previous post, its probably moot now.

 

[Blown]

You were cycled after the first week. Do a full water change and begin. Like anything in this hobby slow is best so don’t go adding everything at once. A fish or two to start wait a couple weeks and another fish or two.

Shouldn't I be waiting until I have no nitrites before adding fish? I have 2 clownfish that have been quarantined and are ready to go. I have 2nd lot of fish which is a royal grammar, 2x bangaii cardinals and a lawnmower blenny still in quarantine.

 

[Dbichler]

Nitrites don’t effect saltwater fish. Do a large water change and add fish

 

[Blown]

Nitrites don’t effect saltwater fish. Do a large water change and add fish

ok, thanks for the help. I'll do a 25% water change and throw the clowns in later today. So in general should I not even bother measuring nitrites then?

 

[Dbichler]

Correct nitrites are a non factor and so as big of a water change as you can to get your nitrates between 5 and 10

 

[Blown]

I ended up doing a 35% water change today and retested the levels. Ammonia 0, Nitrite 1ppm (maybe a touch over), Nitrate 10-20ppm. I have held off dropping the fish in until tomorrow.

How long until I can expect to see the nitrites start going toward 0 do you think?

 

[Dbichler]

A while but won’t matter.

 

[Blown]

Sweet thanks for the help

 

[brandon429]

Agreed with all above.

if this was 2006 and on another forum DB would be banned for saying what he did as a cycle assessment, Id be banned for agreeing with it lol so glad we are allowed to progress with the times on the right board.

bottle bac simply works this well, across strains, they're skipping cycles left and right with them and that first drop of ammonia + the surface area in your tank for bac to attach to + that week's submersion time is the new reason you are cycled, its not really about the test kits anymore as our hobby became keen to their misreads, but the action sequence down for ammonia is the only param that matters and these kits can report that movement consistently. its the zero reading that trips up new cyclers, hard to get that reading on those kits.

ushering in the new wave of skip cycles is fish disease galore, independent from cycling. have a plan, what we think will work as a plan usually wont, the fish disease forum daily activity shows.

 

[brandon429]

these dry rock and sand starts + bottle bac have an interesting lead on fish disease handling vs live rock tanks, you dont have to go fallow at the start like you do with typical mixed reefs and aged live rocks from infected systems.


the tradeoff to that is bare white rocks dont have much disease-suppressing microfauna so any imports are likely to bloom, but you're starting off disease-free in these arrangements so if you add only quarantined fish you are still in line with today's best disease control. non qt fish brings in the first vectors.

 

[Blown]

I have been doing as much reading as I can to try and get things right. Most of what I have read leads you to believe that the nitrites are an issue, including the bac bottle instructions.

I have run all my fish through TTM quarantine and they have been treated with general cure. So hopefully I will get away to a smooth start.

 

[brandon429]

agreed, about 99.98% of all prior material says to factor it, and what's fascinating I found from reading here is that in freshwater it sure does matter... its the most critical cycling param due to their lack of chloride in freshwater setups.


the script flips over oppositely for reefing, doesn't impact us at all due to presence of chloride and how that interacts with receptors in fish/animals we keep. it does't impact cycling bacteria, unless causing the purchase of more bottle bac is an impact

updated cycling science that omits nitrite and nitrate in calling a cycle ready is an acceptance of today's testing variation in favor of something we can clearly measure-ammonia going up then down after adding a suspected bacteria source.

it used to be we all thought our API tests were infallible...in 1998 if a kit said you had 4 ppm ammonia then you had it, even if the tank was running and looking just fine. nothing else was there to challenge the reading

but now there are comparison threads about, our non digital test kits vary greatly. they often miss the accurate reading/calibrated against digital meters by a long shot, so reducing the number of tested params that can cause misreads has direct benefits to reefing, we know exactly when a cycle will be ready before the tank is setup, no more waiting is one benefit.

reef conventions are mass gatherings of hundreds of ready reefs all by Friday for 25 years or better, and not one of them uses common cycling rules that buyers are told to use.

they use skip cycle science, to meet a desired date, and in doing so they start and end with total control over what their reef is doing. they make money off the differences in practice, we're shoring that up here

this is my version of updated cycle science with tank examples we cycled

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

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