Suspected stalled cycle, verify my test results please

David M.

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Hey folks,

I started my cycle on 9/30 with Dr. Tims and seemingly misread the instructions during ammonia dosing, this resulted in a spike to 5ppm ammonia. Obviously this wasn't ideal but I didn't want to overcorrect and decided to let it play out. Over the course of the past few weeks the cycle seemed to be progressing nicely but as you can see, from 10/8 onward, ammonia is still dropping but Ni and Na are holding steady (keeping in mind these are color matched values so they are as close as I could estimate). The test kit I'm using is Red Sea basics.

Am I right in assuming my cycle has stalled, or should I continue waiting? If it has stalled I believe the correct action to take is a large (~25% - ~50%) water change to reduce Ni and Na and hopefully allow the beneficial bacteria to do its thang again. But I would like some verification on that as well.

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Miami Reef

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Just by reading the title, I know @brandon429 is gonna have fun with this one.

It shouldn’t take long to get a response from him.

What I’m going to assume he will say:

“We don’t track nitrites & nitrates in our work threads…get a seneye and you will see it’s fine!”

Ps. Don’t actually get the seneye. Your tank is fine.
 

mdb_talon

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Always a lot of disagreement on this topic, but personally I think your cycle(in terms of ability of your tank to process ammonia) is finished. I am not a big believer in the "stalled cycle" theory, but am a big believer that depending on the tank and the test kits used you may always see a small amount of ammonia and nitrite in your readings. If it were me I would be doing a large WC to bring the nitrates down and then start slowly adding livestock.

If you are really concerned you could dose more ammonia. My bet is you will see that the tank processes it pretty quickly (even if your reading does not go down to 0).
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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not stalled, see here:

you met the # of days underwater we require for action.

Look at that ammonia drop on day 10 ish

for us its an action date, so well proven that's one link of ten/all approaching 20 pages
 
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David M.

David M.

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Wow, first off thank you all for the quick responses. I've been out of the game for a few years and it seems like cycle assumptions have slightly changed! This is great news
 

brandon429

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its amazing how on all these cycles, the ammonia drop line follows predicted suit even on non seneye kits. its that bottom end we ignore, but this facet detail ties all cycle approaches together in amazing ways after bottle bac use that's for sure. no reef cycle stalls, none of them.
 
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David M.

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That thread is mind blowing, I cant believe I missed it before posting this. It's completely changing what I thought I knew!
 

brandon429

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you should know the chemistry sages here dont necessarily agree with ignoring nitrite, does the old guard ever readily agree to changes? no lol and they shouldnt, snake oils will get through.

but once we hit fifty pages of happy tanks who never factor nitrite, 3 old guardsmen will change tune. only three tho
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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this thread could be neat fun to compare assessments from other forums. if you are member at any other forum you should post same analysis + chart there and ask em, let's see how congruent assessments are site to site. link that thread here so we can watch

if you aren't a member elsewhere, keep it that way

:)

lol jj
reef2reef is forum friendly with all forums, we can link to anyone at any time np. if you have an account at nano-reef.com I'd really be interested to see how they handle start date assessment, or reefcentral, just brainstorming it would be a fun comparison to watch unfold intersite.
 
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David M.

David M.

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After being berated countless times on the other popular reefing forum, I made the full swap to reef2reef. And yes, I do plan to keep it that way lol
 

brandon429

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hey we'd like to use your example in our work thread. if anyone's newly added fish keel over in a gray haze of doom then Im on the hook for that, but if they keep not dying in stink, I'm using page patterns to sell the old guard on acceptable change in the hobby based on Randy's 15 year old nitrite article that says we can safely ignore it. what we do in that thread is test Randy's article using about 150 grand in other people's collective reef tank investments. we dont use non digital testing as the determinant, we use whether fish live day by day acting normal and whether or not the water stays clear, which uncycled tanks won't do.

can you post a pic of your tank shot we always use that before adding fish to assess surface area.
 
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David M.

David M.

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Surface area seen below, tank is a Waterbox Marine X 110.4 with ~50lb of rock and an additional 8x1x1 marine pure block in the sump
 

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brandon429

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It’s a perfect setup, all set. What new cycling science has found is that this repeating drop near day ten, when all cycling charts show to expect a drop down of ammonia (where it remains relative to surface area and flow characteristics in the system) is the signal of the closed out cycle. It’s not about the bottom end numbers and that accounts for all the ranging interpretations and even nh4 reporting vs nh3, action down is the marker.



*since you are seeing the drop not a hold, you dont need the water change. simply begin. per our thread if it was a hold, a perceived stall, one big water change would unstall it and the drop would manifest.

we know now by analyzing seneye pattern threads that the motion around active surface area cannot stall from the drop down mode into a held .5 or .25 that's all test kit clearance limits in reporting. the trend is always, always to thousandths ppm nh3 per anyone's seneye, and then now we're getting testing in super crammed nanos/tiny systems that show hundredths level may be the consistent maximums for nh3 given crowded conditions.

there isn't any mechanism that can cause a hold or a stop just shy of the safe zone, to trend down at all means it completed before we even received the measure.


regarding nitrite, reef posters may never agree on its need to be factored. that's why forums play an important role in procedural shaping, much moreso than books because we develop new methods faster as a collective team in free forums who never mind outlinking to other places. if we dont have a group willing to forego nitrite measure, then we don't have a whole pie to look at. the going standard was always wait for zero nitrite, that group is well tested, its every cycle on any other board they're all staunch nitrite adherents as you can see. They're failing disease retention percentages at an awful rate though, they got no benefit in the arbitrary additional wait time.

we like precision start dates, precision disease preps and outcome patterning by pics.

all I can do is compile massive number of tanks who ignore nitrite, we see how they turn out and there's no reason to change course, all our cycles in 2020 and 2021 worked, we wouldn't undo things going into 2022. the thread of accurate start dates continues with good posts like yours thanks tons.

when there's fish in there a few days to proof clarity and bioload carry I would like to add it to our study threads so we can stay up on the system as it ages.
 
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David M.

David M.

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Again, incredible findings and completely changing what I thought we knew as fact. I'm more than happy to be a part of the study and will keep this thread up to date. Thank you again, your insight here has been invaluable. It's always exciting to learn something new and be a part of positive change in the hobby.
 

kittenbritches

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I still waited until both ammonia and nitrite were 0ppm, and did a 24-hour check by dosing ammonia again and making sure it was all converted to nitrate the following day.

For me, I was interested in seeing how long it would take -- the bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate grow more slowly than the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite. I'm sure that everyone saying to ignore nitrite is right, but it also doesn't hurt anything to wait. ;)

ETA: Full nitrogen cycle line chart here.

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brandon429

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hey but that shows it never cured out

when's the nitrite drop date on that setup

if its still holding at five to this day, I recommend three bottles of fritz in direct reaction

not :)

curious really if it dropped by day 25-30?
 

kittenbritches

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hey but that shows it never cured out

when's the nitrite drop date on that setup

if its still holding at five to this day, I recommend three bottles of fritz in direct reaction

not :)

curious really if it dropped by day 25-30?
Haha...I copied the wrong chart! Hang tight. ;) It was exactly 30 days...
 
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