Tank transfer cancel nitrogen cycle ?

[swagZ69]

LONG POST PLEASE READ NEED HELP

Hey guys I had a fluval evo 13.5 for around 11 months which was flourishing with a lot of expensive corals and last month I found a killer deal on a IM lagoon 25 with a bunch of equipment+lighting for 300$. So I decided then was as good as any to upgrade Shortly after getting it I transferred everything sand(biggest mistake ever), rocks, coral, and my fish. With that being said it has been an uphill battle trying to get my water Params correct everything is good except for ammonia 1ppm, nitrites between 2/5ppm and nitrates 40+ (hard to tell with cheap api test kits) so I’m wondering what I can do I’ve been doing 20% water changes daily for the last couple days while dosing prime and it has not gone down at all the last couple of days everything is still doing okay besides one of my hammer and one zoa frag just wondering what I could do I don’t want to lose thousands in expensive scolys and my other rare corals or my fish

Would it be best to just start fresh clean the sand out/get new sand because it was pretty dirty and I’m thinking that it’s the cause of all this after hearing about old sand nuking tanks
or maybe it’s just because it is a new tank and bacteria hasn’t had time to build up to take care of twice as much water as it use to

 

[ReefingDreams]

LONG POST PLEASE READ NEED HELP

Hey guys I had a fluval evo 13.5 for around 11 months which was flourishing with a lot of expensive corals and last month I found a killer deal on a IM lagoon 25 with a bunch of equipment+lighting for 300$. So I decided then was as good as any to upgrade Shortly after getting it I transferred everything sand(biggest mistake ever), rocks, coral, and my fish. With that being said it has been an uphill battle trying to get my water Params correct everything is good except for ammonia 1ppm, nitrites between 2/5ppm and nitrates 40+ (hard to tell with cheap api test kits) so I’m wondering what I can do I’ve been doing 20% water changes daily for the last couple days while dosing prime and it has not gone down at all the last couple of days everything is still doing okay besides one of my hammer and one zoa frag just wondering what I could do I don’t want to lose thousands in expensive scolys and my other rare corals or my fish

Would it be best to just start fresh clean the sand out/get new sand because it was pretty dirty and I’m thinking that it’s the cause of all this after hearing about old sand nuking tanks
or maybe it’s just because it is a new tank and bacteria hasn’t had time to build up to take care of twice as much water as it use to

You've likely just kicked off a mini cycle. Keep up with the water changes daily for now. Maybe even bump them up in volume to keep down the ammonia and start knocking down the nitrates. You can also dose a bacteria like Dr. Tim's One and Only, Microbacter7, etc. In this scenario, I wouldn't worry about the coral, just the fish and ammonia levels. Since youve already disturbed the sandbed, a good siphoning couldn't hurt. But I wouldn't worry about replacing it.

 

[swagZ69]

Okay yesterday I actually found a bottle of fritz turbo start but it had been in the fridge for well over the 6 month guarantee period probably close to 8 I still used it as I couldn’t see why it would be a bad thing and also did vacuum the sand bed and changed/cleaned filters and the fish is the reason for dosing prime the biggest set back is that I have to drive 45 min to get more rodi water why I’ve been doing 20% changes just still haven’t seen any changes on test kits but I’ll be going to my local coral shop Thursday when they’re open to see what there more expensive test kits have to say

Thanks for the input was really getting worried

You've likely just kicked off a mini cycle. Keep up with the water changes daily for now. Maybe even bump them up in volume to keep down the ammonia and start knocking down the nitrates. You can also dose a bacteria like Dr. Tim's One and Only, Microbacter7, etc. In this scenario, I wouldn't worry about the coral, just the fish and ammonia levels. Since youve already disturbed the sandbed, a good siphoning couldn't hurt. But I wouldn't worry about replacing it.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

^ -- This... Remember corals like ammonia, fish don't. So a good bottle bacteria to help. Water changes, not crazy ones. You are halfway there. Pretty soon you will be battling GHA! You could throw some macro algae in your tank also.

 

[Nano Chris]

Okay yesterday I actually found a bottle of fritz turbo start but it had been in the fridge for well over the 6 month guarantee period probably close to 8 I still used it as I couldn’t see why it would be a bad thing and also did vacuum the sand bed and changed/cleaned filters and the fish is the reason for dosing prime the biggest set back is that I have to drive 45 min to get more rodi water why I’ve been doing 20% changes just still haven’t seen any changes on test kits but I’ll be going to my local coral shop Thursday when they’re open to see what there more expensive test kits have to say

Thanks for the input was really getting worried

If you can go with Salifert test kits I’ve used them for years definitely a lot better than API. API is okay for just cycling a tank but it’s not all that accurate. A lot of people use Salifert or Red Sea test kits as well as those Hanna digital testers. Hope you get your parameters in check Also I would invest in a cheap ro/di system. They have ones you can connect to your sink & when done you can put away. I believe they’re like $60-80 on Amazon. Don’t have to have anything too fancy but the way I see it is in the long run you’ll save a heck of a lot of $$$

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Did you not rinse the sand before the transfer? If not, then you transferred over a bunch of fish poop, wasting food, and other rotting stuff, which will all have been stirred during the transfer.

If you had rinsed the sand properly, that should not happen.

 

[swagZ69]

Did you not rinse the sand before the transfer? If not, then you transferred over a bunch of fish poop, wasting food, and other rotting stuff, which will all have been stirred during the transfer.

If you had rinsed the sand properly, that should not happen.

No I didn’t rinse the sand and I believe that’s what is giving me these problems seems everyone knew to rinse the sand but me I figured it was like the rocks and didn’t want to lose the good bacteria but I now realize that was a big mistake and need to know what to do to combat this

So far I’ve cleaned everything I can
Changed filters
Doing 20% water changes daily and
Added little bit of fritz turbo start
Is there anything else I could do that I haven’t thought about

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

How long has it been? It might be worth it to transfer your rocks and corals and animals back to your 13.5 spend a day rinsing the sand properly, and then transfer everything back. It sounds like a lot of work, but it will be the fastest safest way, otherwise you will struggle for some time , perhaps add additives to try to balance the tank for you….

 

[swagZ69]

If you can go with Salifert test kits I’ve used them for years definitely a lot better than API. API is okay for just cycling a tank but it’s not all that accurate. A lot of people use Salifert or Red Sea test kits as well as those Hanna digital testers. Hope you get your parameters in check Also I would invest in a cheap ro/di system. They have ones you can connect to your sink & when done you can put away. I believe they’re like $60-80 on Amazon. Don’t have to have anything too fancy but the way I see it is in the long run you’ll save a heck of a lot of $$$

Yeah I know api is not very good usually just have local coral shop test my water with their Hanna kits and I haven’t gotten my own rodi system just because as much of a task as getting water is it’s only about 30 cents a gallon and most of the time I get it for free because I’m in there so much also give me another reason to go see what they have in stock more often but definitely in the works of getting one

 

[swagZ69]

How long has it been? It might be worth it to transfer your rocks and corals and animals back to your 13.5 spend a day rinsing the sand properly, and then transfer everything back. It sounds like a lot of work, but it will be the fastest safest way, otherwise you will struggle for some time , perhaps add additives to try to balance the tank for you….

It’s been a month and the evo was cleaned and put back in the box the day of transfer but yeah it does seem like something I might have to do but was really wanting to avoid doing just because it’s alot of stress on everything

If I did go this route I’m thinking about taking everything out and just using a new bag of sand

 

[ReefingDreams]

It’s been a month and the evo was cleaned and put back in the box the day of transfer but yeah it does seem like something I might have to do but was really wanting to avoid doing just because it’s alot of stress on everything

If I did go this route I’m thinking about taking everything out and just using a new bag of sand

Completely unnecessary at this point. Just keep doing what you're doing. Focus on the ammonia reduction. Removing the sand would likely end up getting another destabilizing setback. Consider picking up a more fresh bacteria product. Preferably the same as what you already used to reduce the chance of bacterial competition. I can't think of any other product that you could buy to help you further aside from an RODI unit.

 

[Garf]

It’s been a month and the evo was cleaned and put back in the box the day of transfer but yeah it does seem like something I might have to do but was really wanting to avoid doing just because it’s alot of stress on everything

If I did go this route I’m thinking about taking everything out and just using a new bag of sand

Adding prime does nothing to reduce ammonia and may be confounding your test kits, I wouldn’t add any more. At least all your livestock is ok, and after a month, well, that speaks for itself. If your 1ppm ammonia reading is real (unlikely) then a pH reading would allow calculation of the harmful free ammonia fraction.

 

[brandon429]

Post your tank pic

ammonia is not the issue, we have fully cycled two year old reef tanks that post 1 ppm ammonia not because it’s real, but an artifact api registers as false ammonia

reef sandbeds don’t store ammonia to release it

cycling bacteria can’t help you since ammonia isn’t the issue. It’s waste in the sandbed, detritus upwelling and rotting waste compounds that are the irritant but it’s not actual ammonia. There are searchable posts of people getting 1 ppm ammonia from api by merely moving rocks around in the tank. Ammonia is not stored in a reef tank in any area outside of an animals metabolic waste output body machinery. By reacting to a false reading it’s preventing you from taking correct action


depending on how the pic looks yes a redo is wise. We don’t use bottle bac in tank transfers

you also forgot to drop the light power levels, something we do in every safe tank transfer job

another way we know your testing is a misread is because in 100% of cases a reef tank oxidizes test load ammonia in fifteen minutes, there’s no possible mechanism in reefing for it to persist for days, but you have to own a digital meter to see this fact

api ammonia is the most misleading wrong reading lying test kit in all of reefing, throw it out and never use it again.

 

[swagZ69]

Post your tank pic

ammonia is not the issue, we have fully cycled two year old reef tanks that post 1 ppm ammonia not because it’s real, but an artifact api registers as false ammonia

reef sandbeds don’t store ammonia to release it

cycling bacteria can’t help you since ammonia isn’t the issue. It’s waste in the sandbed, detritus upwelling and rotting waste compounds that are the irritant but it’s not actual ammonia. There are searchable posts of people getting 1 ppm ammonia from api by merely moving rocks around in the tank. Ammonia is not stored in a reef tank in any area outside of an animals metabolic waste output body machinery. By reacting to a false reading it’s preventing you from taking correct action


depending on how the pic looks yes a redo is wise. We don’t use bottle bac in tank transfers

you also forgot to drop the light power levels, something we do in every safe tank transfer job

another way we know your testing is a misread is because in 100% of cases a reef tank oxidizes test load ammonia in fifteen minutes, there’s no possible mechanism in reefing for it to persist for days, but you have to own a digital meter to see this fact

api ammonia is the most misleading wrong reading lying test kit in all of reefing, throw it out and never use it again.

 

[swagZ69]

Post your tank pic

ammonia is not the issue, we have fully cycled two year old reef tanks that post 1 ppm ammonia not because it’s real, but an artifact api registers as false ammonia

reef sandbeds don’t store ammonia to release it

cycling bacteria can’t help you since ammonia isn’t the issue. It’s waste in the sandbed, detritus upwelling and rotting waste compounds that are the irritant but it’s not actual ammonia. There are searchable posts of people getting 1 ppm ammonia from api by merely moving rocks around in the tank. Ammonia is not stored in a reef tank in any area outside of an animals metabolic waste output body machinery. By reacting to a false reading it’s preventing you from taking correct action


depending on how the pic looks yes a redo is wise. We don’t use bottle bac in tank transfers

you also forgot to drop the light power levels, something we do in every safe tank transfer job

another way we know your testing is a misread is because in 100% of cases a reef tank oxidizes test load ammonia in fifteen minutes, there’s no possible mechanism in reefing for it to persist for days, but you have to own a digital meter to see this fact

api ammonia is the most misleading wrong reading lying test kit in all of reefing, throw it out and never use it again.

This is with white on still very blue my bad on that
and I did lower light levels for transfer
My only coral issue is I’m having problems with the green hammer and some of my zoas
Glass is Also dirty as I’m trying to keep some algae on it to keep Dino’s away as my phosphates are not zero but way lower than my nitrates
I don’t mind doing a full rework just would suck at the same time but if it truly needs done I’ll do it but I’m getting mixed messages

Also my water has slowly become cloudy? Anyone know what that could be?