Re cycle?

[VicGon90]

Hello all I'm new to this and have started a 10Gal waterbox I have a small live rock and live sand I started the cycle with turbo900 and used ammonia chloride from fritz it's been 7 weeks now and my parameter readings are all over the place my ammonia is at .025 my nitrites are 0 and my nitrates are at 160ppm I have been doing water changes 50% and the readings are still the same, I have no fish no corals no invertebrates, can I start all over, new rock,new sand?? Start from scratch? Can I just clean my filter media? It's driving me crazy I'm being patient but I just want it get it right,any advice will be appreciated

 

[brandon429]

your tank is likely already done, as moving live rocks from pet store to home doesnt kill the bacteria they transfer.

you can see from google searches that api .25 is common/no problem. post a pic of your rocks w white lighting and we can tell you if it was already cycled. the rock came from water/tank at the pet store right, wasnt dry?

fritz cycles any tank in 48 hours, this is in addition to your live rock likelihood.


the reason you dont seem cycled: you are using test kits that dont give accurate readings. thankfully, pending pics we dont need any test pics to see if rock has the pigmentation of live rock vs bone white dry rock.

 

[VicGon90]

How can I put pictures here, so you can see

 

[brandon429]

go to edit/attach file then upload ones that are saved to your pc

 

[VicGon90]

your tank is likely already done, as moving live rocks from pet store to home doesnt kill the bacteria they transfer.

you can see from google searches that api .25 is common/no problem. post a pic of your rocks w white lighting and we can tell you if it was already cycled. the rock came from water/tank at the pet store right, wasnt dry?

fritz cycles any tank in 48 hours, this is in addition to your live rock likelihood.


the reason you dont seem cycled: you are using test kits that dont give accurate readings. thankfully, pending pics we dont need any test pics to see if rock has the pigmentation of live rock vs bone white dry rock.

 

[brandon429]

Nice, good looking setup we are almost done cycle proofing. Two last bits of info:


did that sand come from a bag, wet or dry


and the rock that has some pigmentation on it I can see, it does look live, is that rock from a pet store tank/ sold wet

since you have nitrates we can see your tank is cycled based on these conditions, moving wet materials tank to tank does not require a new cycle each time.

 

[brandon429]

U were about to hate this cycle, but it’s done :)

 

[VicGon90]

Nice, good looking setup we are almost done cycle proofing. Two last bits of info:


did that sand come from a bag, wet or dry


and the rock that has some pigmentation on it I can see, it does look live, is that rock from a pet store tank/ sold wet

since you have nitrates we can see your tank is cycled based on these conditions, moving wet materials tank to tank does not require a new cycle each time.

I bought the sand from amazon it came on a bag live sand and had water on it the instructions said to pour all of it in the tank as it contained live bacteria as well, I bought the rock from my lfs and they have the rocks in a small pond like tank it was only out of the water when I took it home and when I was setting up the tank so out of water for no more than 30 mins l, I did took it out 3 weeks later to add that small dry flat coral that is showing in the pic but only for 15 mins so the epoxy could dry, can that be a bad cause of high nitrates?

 

[brandon429]

You are fully cycled I’ve added this to our no-stuck-cycles thread.


even the nitrates are an estimate. There are threads showing any other brand reading fifty points higher or lower than that reading, and we dont know which kit is correct.


nitrates however are a good sign here, it’s proof number five that you have a ready tank, it’s the end point of waste conversion. it cannot burn anything, nitrate is harmless. Do a big water change and add something, the reef is ready. As you progress and buy other nitrate kits then you can manage it, but it’s not required

I have never been without a reef since 2001 and these are the two test kits I use on all of them: temperature and salinity. No others.

hanna has a digital nitrate checker, accurate, if you want to pay up for it $

 

[VicGon90]

You are fully cycled I’ve added this to our no-stuck-cycles thread.


even the nitrates are an estimate. There are threads showing any other brand reading fifty points higher or lower than that reading, and we dont know which kit is correct.


nitrates however are a good sign here, it’s proof number five that you have a ready tank, it’s the end point of waste conversion. it cannot burn anything, nitrate is harmless. Do a big water change and add something, the reef is ready. As you progress and buy other nitrate kits then you can manage it, but it’s not required

I have never been without a reef since 2001 and these are the two test kits I use on all of them: temperature and salinity. No others.

hanna has a digital nitrate checker, accurate, if you want to pay up for it $

How critical is the temperature for a salt water tank, also my salinity has always been 1.025 it has never gone done or up, it did go up once but I balance it to 1.025 my temp since I have a studio and it tends to get really warm it's always above 80 but my heater is set at 79 max, it heats every 20ijs but both my thermometers have a reading of 84 to 88

 

[brandon429]

Heres my breakdown of temps range and effect:

76 lowest

78 just right

hottest I’ve ever seen a reef tank run was consistent ~87 degrees but he had constant algae / scum growth issues it was near impossible to keep the tank clean since that warm speeds up metabolism and growths take over faster than normal

87 would kill most corals we keep but I had a friend in private message who simply couldn’t get it cooler/ lived in a small house on an island and collected animals used to those temps. Reef temps in Philippines hits 90 degrees water sometimes

for practicality, no hotter than 82 in your tank, ever

 

[VicGon90]

It's

Heres my breakdown of temps range and effect:

76 lowest

78 just right

hottest I’ve ever seen a reef tank run was consistent ~87 degrees but he had constant algae / scum growth issues it was near impossible to keep the tank clean since that warm speeds up metabolism and growths take over faster than normal

87 would kill most corals we keep but I had a friend in private message who simply couldn’t get it cooler/ lived in a small house on an island and collected animals used to those temps. Reef temps in Philippines hits 90 degrees water sometimes

for practicality, no hotter than 82 in your tank, ever

It's my first saltwater tank I have freshwater tanks so I'm familiar with everything but never had to cycle a saltwater so I'm worried that it might now work for me that's why I was ant to do everything right, before spending alot of money on the hobby, my lfs told me to just keep doing water changes every week for a month and that'll lower the nitrates, also can live rock completely die off if I have taken it out of the tank a couples times while cycling? It's only been out for no more than 30 mins because mainly it was just to try to make a better aquascape

 

[brandon429]

It’s fine, I have YouTube videos of me draining my whole reef, corals rocks and shrimp for 33 minutes as tidal simulation (All water removed for half an hour, the tank is fifteen years old)


even if you set the rocks in your trunk, and drive home and submerge them, that still won’t kill bacteria. Your cycle is done, reef however you were going to.


we have a whole article about this:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

old cycling rules cannot allow a skip cycle. We can

u did :)

within one minute of setting those rocks in your water, the aquarium was cycled. It can house as many animals now as it can in eight more weeks, but that doesn’t mean fish disease and other issues can’t win now that cycling is done and locked. That post is 25~ pages of skip cycle examples just like yours.


if anyone ever doubts skip cycling, ask them how macna reef conventions manage to start five hundred full reefs on time, no cycling time allowed for any entrant, for 25 years.




dry rocks need bottle bac, feed, and time underwater to build up bacteria.

but rocks that are cycled never uncycle if you simply keep them wet with saltwater. This means you can move tanks, clean tanks, or set one up as just a ‘move’ from the pet store to home

 

[brandon429]

I just read it’s been seven weeks. Thats awesome. You were cycled seven weeks ago that is rather shocking. What started as a bad cycle is now flipped to be the most cycled tank on this new tank forum.