Tank cycle help!

DMVReefer

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Not sure if I’m allowed to post here but I definitely do not consider myself anything more than intermediate at best [emoji28]. Anyways I’m in the process of cycling a Innovative Marine Fusion 20G and I’ve made some mistakes I’m hoping the R2R community might be able to help me fix. I set up the tank roughly about 3 weeks ago and upon getting the tank wet I used this product (Royal Nature Bacto: https://royalnature-usa.com/products/copy-of-royal-bacto-500ml ) since it’s what I had and figured it would help start the cycle along with some DR. Tim’s bottled ammonia. A week later the girlfriend and I went to RAPNYC and picked up some Fritz turbostart 900 which I then ended up using on the same tank. I started testing them and everything seemed off to a good start. Saw ammonia then shortly Nitrite and then Nitrate. Everything seemed to be under control but a few days after that then ammonia showed up and then nitrite and numbers aren’t coming down. A couple people have told me that the two different bacteria might be fighting each other and preventing from processing the ammonia and nitrite. At this point I’m not entirely sure what to do to remedy this but just in case I have some Fritz 9 Nitrifying bacteria arriving tomorrow from amazon. Thanks in advance for the guidance!
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Ebslinger

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This is what I would do... test your ammonia every few days... then add some ammonia chloride if it get below .5...

And just wait...

Everything will be okay.

If your adding Ammonia chloride, feel free to do water changes to keep the Nitrates down.

This is what I did.
 
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DMVReefer

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This is what I would do... test your ammonia every few days... then add some ammonia chloride if it get below .01...

And just wait...

Everything will be okay.

If your adding Ammonia chloride, feel free to do water changes to keep the Nitrates down.

This is what I did.

Hey thanks for the reply! I’m not sure what you mean by adding more ammonia. My main concern is that it’s simply not going down and effectively pushing the cycle through. Here’s my most recent testing results with my API test kit:

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Ebslinger

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Great Info, thank you!

I would do a water change to try and get the Nitrates down. You don't want an algae bloom as soon as you turn the lights on.

Other than that, I would just wait.

Things are looking good.

You have some ammonia which is what your fish will be producing...

Your on the right track.
 

lapin

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Ipinion:
Here is what happened. The bacteria ate all the ammonia. So much in fact one strain multiplied out of control . When there was no food left some died off and that lead to more ammonia. The bacteria needs to be fed ammonia to grow. With your API test when ammonia gets down to .25 dose to bring it back up to 1 or 2. If that goes away in 24 hour you are done. Your tank is processing nitrite and producing nitrate. Its just the waiting game to build the bacteria colony to support fish.
 
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DMVReefer

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Ipinion:
Here is what happened. The bacteria ate all the ammonia. So much in fact one strain multiplied out of control . When there was no food left some died off and that lead to more ammonia. The bacteria needs to be fed ammonia to grow. With your API test when ammonia gets down to .25 dose to bring it back up to 1 or 2. If that goes away in 24 hour you are done. Your tank is processing nitrite and producing nitrate. Its just the waiting game to build the bacteria colony to support fish.

Awesome! So I’ll test tomorrow and then Monday. If Ammonia is still testing at .25 I’ll dose more Ammonia. Thanks for the help I really appreciate it. Been scratching my head over this one haha
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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Your tank is cycled :)

The reason= you’ve met the submersion times from this thread while using both bottle bac and feed for them.

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

The tester that matters now is ammonia only, if it goes down within 24 hours after being spiked then that’s more proof it’s cycled, but the submersion time alone was all we needed to know to call it ready. Nitrite and nitrate are more likely to misread than read correctly we show, so they’re kicked out of the evaluation. It’s why no cycled tanks ever stall there or fail to be ready by day 30...water, bac and ammonia and a month or so underwater = all tanks cycled, none fail to cycle even if the ammonia and bottle bac weren’t exacting- the submersion time makes up for any approximation
 
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DMVReefer

DMVReefer

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Your tank is cycled :)

The reason= you’ve met the submersion times from this thread while using both bottle bac and feed for them.

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

The tester that matters now is ammonia only, if it goes down within 24 hours after being spiked then that’s more proof it’s cycled, but the submersion time alone was all we needed to know to call it ready. Nitrite and nitrate are more likely to misread than read correctly we show, so they’re kicked out of the evaluation. It’s why no cycled tanks ever stall there or fail to be ready by day 30...water, bac and ammonia and a month or so underwater = all tanks cycled, none fail to cycle even if the ammonia and bottle bac weren’t exacting- the submersion time makes up for any approximation

Alright so I tested Sunday and Monday and it was still at 0.25 so I dosed ammonia. After dosing it Ammonia was testing at 0.5 and nitrite at 0.25. Waited 24 hours and tested again. It the results were ammonia at 0.25 and Nitrite at 0.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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Ok linked to our thread thanks tons for update
 
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