The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

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brandon429

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why did you put a reef in that
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was close to it but thought I’d try the request mode again just to see if peace could win out finally, my gosh.

My goal this month is to not post in anyone’s thread who doesn’t want me to.

I don’t want to argue with MN here due to prior issues searches will show, but he asked something above readers may indeed want to know. It’s worth a review for them so we don’t get confused. Too bad we can’t get along — this is the kind of dialogue that builds but I won’t take the chance of destructive retort here so am speaking to readers in general but in acknowledgement of MN’s poke…it brings up a legit question.

Why do most cycles today get a ten day wait vs the 30 days here?




This thread here about the microbiology of cycling is six years old.

current cycle study threads, how to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle, are from 2020 and reflect six years of practice much was collected here. That updated thread reflects the advent of seneye nh3 tracking, which we didn’t have for this thread.
we had biology and prediction, but zero ways to confirm measure. We winged it, bro, is the answer lol.

Exactly like a Moore’s law exists that will put eighty billion transistors on a chip in 2028 where as today we can only fit twenty billion, things advance. Digital reflection vs everything being half green half yellow gave me patterns for much quicker compliance dates than back in the day.

The concept of ready rocks, group B here, and dry rock cycling / group A here was not well described in 2016

heck LRT you know in 2020 ish we barely got around to referring to these distinctions


so the major themes in this old post are

-at thirty days any random boosted stew is ready, no stalls happen beyond 30 days and that still holds true in today’s works although the ticker is usually ten days. Still thirty for mb7, it’s slow like tortoise heh they had five years to speed it up lol maybe with some seneye study it’ll get a quicker average ready date. It’s the rarest used cycling bac

-zero nitrite ever we didn’t care about it. This marks seven straight years of advising to not own a nitrite kit, same holds for my cycle threads of today. We’ve been testing Randy’s advice now for a long time


-we describe here how group b rocks never get bottle bac added, group A dry rocks do, this thread here hoped to be the first to distinguish cycle procedure based on known history of substrate.
 
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brandon429

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Also added

searches show me being a king jerk as well lol. In others threads at times

I try to temper it.

But at least here in the work threads there seems to be respite from the harsh evolution that is marine cycling. Main goal is zero failed starts, zero, not one tank mis called no matter the posted arrangement

this thread was our first foray into determinant start dates based on safety pattern, 30 days was the known safe wait time we tested on group A setups so that we could be testless, and for the first time independent from that rascal of a visual loop api ammonia.

earnest desire to find the patterns that link us all together in cycling keeps a healthy focus here
 
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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:

here’s fifty more:


thats not illegal, or unethical, its how nearly all reefs at MACNA are set up to meet the start date, for decades. this method of cycling has been conveniently left out of the manuals, formerly a domain for the sellers only.

buyers wait, sellers start when they want to. This is the first rule of updated cycling science for 2020. its better for buyers to be unsure of what filter bacteria do, and if sellers know what they do then the slant is in their favor for your $

we list the tricks here.

******look at this reef cycled only by adding feed and waiting a month like a cycle chart says, you don’t even have to buy bottled bac to make a reef ready when a common cycle chart says it will be ready



so if you wanted to take that set of rocks to a convention, you’d prep the cycle four week earlier than the start date, and just move them. It works like this everywhere, not just for the poster above.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The primary purpose of this thread is to demonstrate when to dose ammonia in a cycle and when not to dose ammonia into a new reef.

The secondary purpose is to challenge and highlight the bottle bac sales machine which is benefiting from unneeded bacteria sales, from people who read false claims about stalled cycles in the marine hobby and relate that to misreads on tests, then click buy.

Reef tank cycles don’t stall. they follow a predictable completion timeline set by the boosters applied to the system, and even systems you add no boosters to still self-cycle given enough environmental exposure time in a home (see all of the 1970's and 1980's in the hobby, delayed wait cycling)

Using API and Red Sea tests improperly contributes all the data to false stalled cycle claims. The wrong way to use API is to take a reading once of your tank and then make a change (or a purchase) off the single point reading (which is what the directions say to do)

if you do that, you will see free ammonia when there is none. Here below is how to get API ammonia to work correctly, and only the ammonia param is needing verification, the other two do not.


If you are using bottle bacteria to start, which is a fine use of bottled bacteria, then your cycle isn't going to take past 10 days you can look up Dr. Reef's bottle bacteria verification thread (97 pages) to see how long the common strains take to adhere to surfaces fully, so that a full water change doesnt change the oxidation ability of the new substrate after bacteria have seated in place and multiplied.




Cycle stalls have consequence, they're not just a minor test reading variation

Watch how many reefs we cycle in this thread, see if a single stall happens. A stall kills the first animals you add; it means the tank isn’t ready, the start was premature. if we pull off pages of successful tank starts, then no cycle stalled.



hesitation is non existent here, we have visual cues and or measures for ammonia alone that determine the start date for all reef tanks. MACNA has no trouble making start dates for 500 reefs in one building, all on a Friday, nobody gets much lead time, yet no cycle stalls when money is ready to be pumped


we can take those cycling rules and make them our own, then we're able to design better reefs and make them live longer by never hesitating about what bacteria can tolerate

you can cycle any aquarium (that requires cycling) without using test kits...because test kits are estimates largely, people are trying to sell you bottle bac when you don’t need it, and filtration bacteria mechanics are a science of submersion TIME and test kits merely indicate spikes and troughs in a graph so well known, that all cycling charts on google show pretty much the same time frame or number of days until nitrite always complies with ammonia performance. today’s bottle bac strains move that time up to same day, with bioload:




that doesnt mean all reefs should be one day setups, it means its possible because ammonia control is so consistent tank to tank (not variable, as non seneye ammonia readings would claim)


that could be a handy dry start skip cycle approach if we have to set up a hospital tank quickly, for some reason.

True live rock from a pet store reef tank with coralline and pods and fanworms is already cycled and it doesnt die on the way home at all

Do you see the interesting motile pods and creatures here below that are part of a new tank because purple coralline real live rock was used?



Don't burn them by adding ammonia. Ammonia is only added to tanks where no life is burned by it.


Video and tank by ChefNate

Study microbiology in the reef tank with us here and you'll never doubt nitrifiers ever again.

Learn to measure nitrifier presence by seeing growths on live rock, like algae waving in the current or by an attached fan worm. If those organisms had time to attach, bacteria were fully ready first.
testing relates to visual growth here, handy example of visual growth cues indicating a fully-cycled reef

Higher-order animals attached like anemones are even better confirmation:
(see how in that thread, attached anemones prove cycle completion?)

Don't let a $9 tester for ammonia completely wreck your view on what nitrifiers really do... We don't need test kits here to cycle any aquarium because they all follow similar rules and time frames to completion. Watch as we turn out tanks for pages, never measuring for ammonia but applying what we already know it does

look at this cycle where non Seneye ammonia is stating its not cycled after 90 days

bottle bac has you ready in 1-10 days time, not ninety. thats the impact of misreading tests.





All reefs at a marine aquarium convention like MACNA start on time for a reason, because reef cycles don’t stall. They are nearly all live rock instant skip cycle setups, because moving already cured live rocks among tanks doesnt uncycle at all. There are no mini cycles thats a hobby API test kit falsehood; live rock simply transfers unless its mailed and then that stress sure might kill some organisms. Moving it in aerated containers doesn't stress it.

Bottle bac cycles dont take 20 or 30 days, Dr Reef's bottle bacteria thread shows that these are truly fast cycling products.
Most bottle bac strains are adhered to surfaces in less than one week's timeframe, per Dr. Reef's comparison thread.
_____________________________________________________________________




Maturation vs Cycling for initial bioload carry ability:


Maturing the tank via food web establishment takes months and years, but not cycling/the ability to carry an initial bioload safely without any harm to the organisms we add. Your tank is cycled when full water changes can't affect the bacteria and when initial bioload is ready to be cared for safely (cured live rock keeps these characteristics no matter where you move it to, but mailing it in closed off bags might cause dieoff/KP aquatics live rock mailed example)

Do we think MACNA instant cycle reefs are willing to house $50K in rare frags and fish inside a weakly-cycled tank? no, they know a proper skip cycle is still bacteria fully attached to rocks, and they make use of that hidden secret. They move live rocks among tanks in wet + oxygenated transports and it does fine. if they're doing a bottle bac dry start to make the start date on time, they add water, surface area, bottle bac, and then they test for ammonia control which always works unless the bottle bac was dead (rare, we dont see that in this thread over the years)


they then set up the reef, like Ike did, and it works fine.

**surfaces in a reef tank actually do increase in filtration capacity over time but its through an unapparent mechanism that adds to your tank's surface area so that new bacterial populations have a place to adhere: vermitid snails, coralline, limpets attached, new coral growths, increase surface area therefore they increase filtration capacity as long as they're not blanketed in detritus waste which covers up the newly formed channels for bacterial attachment***


A cycle is improved over time by that slow mechanism.






Ammonia vs no ammonia, when should I blast ammonia into my system as a new aquarium?


when the rocks you bought were dry, kept on a shelf, with no living animals-we place those in water and add ammonia and bottle bac and wait, for the cycle to complete

when you buy live rock that brings in life in any form, especially forms you can already see, we do not add ammonia, as that kills/stresses the life you paid $ for and the presence of the animals already means your filtration bacteria is in place

you wouldn’t add bottle bac to live rock setups, you just paid extra for bacteria rocks.



_____________________________________________________________________



When can I add fish?
***read this before adding any fish to your cycling reef***** your cycle wont kill them, disease will







____________________________________________________________________


Which parameters do we test for using updated cycling science vs old rules: Ammonia nitrite and nitrate?




Testing. no ten testers will report the same rating on a given sample, yet our entire concept of what bacteria do is based upon how we interpret ranging test kits, this should be shocking to readers.



we only need to control ammonia to cycle, nitrite and nitrate do not have to be tested in updated cycling science.


Randy’s chem forum searches show us that Chloride presence in reef water neutralizes nitrite effects on fish, so we don’t factor it. That alone stops thousands of dollars of extra bottle bac purchases, to know we don’t care about nitrite in updated cycling science.
we dont need to know nitrite in updated cycling science.







When ammonia is oxidized nitrate is by rule being formed, we do not have to test for nitrate to know when a cycle is ready, and they do not factor nitrite or nitrate compliance in MACNA starts they only verify ammonia control, that's whats needed.



reminder, we dont add ammonia to obviously live rock to prove it, that burns live rock animals:


don't add ammonia to live rock. If you are dealing with live rock you withhold ammonia, not add some. Adding ammonia is for dry rock cycling. was the rock wet at your pet store, then wet when you brought it home? did it have live copepods on the rock in the morning on your tank walls? what about the tank holding it at the pet store, any pods or worms lying about on the edges? This distinction is critical in setting the boundaries for how you clean an aquarium, how you can respond to emergencies in the tank, and it's all related to how you think bacteria work in an aquarium. we don't add ammonia to live rock in a civilized society of new tank cyclers.




What is the impact of using new cycling rules vs old ones, any benefits other than shorter waits?


* how you handle cycling impacts how you handle tank invasions and algae problems even though those two seem unconnected currently. they're completely intertwined, and what filtration bacteria will allow sets your action boundaries when responding to tank invasions or algae issues. By knowing what marine filtration bacteria will permit, you can control your tank in amazing ways. Cycling is about bacteria, not plants, so don't permit algae as part of a cycle, keep your new tank hand cleaned until maturation takes over.


keep your tank cleaned manually if its of the size where that's practical. we do no invest money only to wreck it for half a year or longer, learn direct gardening and make it as often as needed. expect twice the work if you choose white dry base rock, we can see above.



____________Most common types of reef tank cycles with examples_______________________________________________


These are the main types of tank cycles, what you are attempting is one of these, and each version does something different with ammonia:

1. fully cured live rocks, transferred. You just move the rocks from petco home in a bag, set them in your tank and add water.


2. all dry materials, this gets the ammonia + bottle bac to cycle since there are no bugs/pods/worms to kill on dry rock.

3. mixed cycling where both live and dry materials are present at the start. a few different options exist here. dont add ammonia, burns the live portion. Give the set of rocks twenty days to coexist and theyll all share bacteria via water transfer:



4. uncured ocean rock
its plant base will be massive on the rock, it will look amazing, and since your whole tank doesn't look that way now we can only expect uncured rock to dieback and match what you can currently sustain. some even pre-remove these growths via reef surgery before adding to the tank. expect this rock to produce ammonia, we sure don't want to give it any. try and suppress ammonia production from this kind of live rock as it cures

5. Caribsea LifeRock cycling
this rock is painted in bacteria within the coralline paint on the surface. to cycle liferocks, you merely add saltwater and wait two weeks. change out the water, begin. they're cycled. no feeding is required, submersion is required.
here's a caribsea setup


we use known submersion times to predict when a cycle is ready, we are unreliant on test kits to cycle reef tanks in this thread. They merely confirm what our timelines w already show, and to get a test kit to read correctly you have to change the way you run the test...we don’t look for zero ammonia, it doesn’t run at zero in a reef tank.


What is related to cycling and what is not:

NO UGLIES PHASE ALLOWED

Cycling has nothing to do with letting green hair algae show up and you hope it goes away




Cycling has nothing to do with letting cyanobacteria overtake your tank for any period of time, cycling has no ugly phase, because you can't see the bacteria that cycling hopes to implant on your rocks and sand.

do not start out your tank with unrinsed sand (cloudy). its not that its harmful, its that sand (including live sand) is ideally pre-rinsed before use, so that it cannot cloud, and you are freer to clean your tank better than normal. clouding sand makes people hesitant to act. this is a six page thread on sand rinsing, tank transfers, tank cleaning and restorations for proof:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445

Algae and cyano can come on strong anytime, unrelated to cycling we can see in problem algae threads, so don't begin your new tank down an invasion path. keep it cleaned, manually, and as it matures your work will lessen.







Pictures of types of rocks, we call them Group A (can't be visually verified, looks barren) and group B (easily verified as live/cycled with coralline, attached animals, tubeworms and pods)








20140125_110413-picsay.jpg
20140125_110419-picsay.jpg







Top pics are group A, the unverified gray no visual life barren rocks. This is where dr Tims and other bottle bacs come into use, and rotting shrimp or (much cleaner and workable) raw ammonium chloride dosing.

Visual cycling / things we can see is a recurring theme here... proofs where we can verify cycle completion without using test kits.







Group B rocks
Bottom pics are cured live rock with months/years of coralline and fanworms and calcifications, colors, growths, pigments, textures, smells nicely...the nitrifier-verified, group B rocks. Group B rock has attributes you can spot from across the room, those details mean it has a full complement of filtration bacteria. you do not need to cycle it by adding ammonia.
example of group B
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tampa-bay-saltwater-live-rock.245819/




*the hallmark of group B rocks is that the living growths and pigments take longer than bacteria do to adhere as colonies on the rock surface exposed to the currents. Any rock that has accreted organisms is full up completely on filtration bacteria... these communities deposit on marine substrates in a sequential order always. Bacteria first, and last, given no meds dosed.

Applying raw ammonia to group B rock is counterproductive, it's stressing animals we were charged top dollar for, to verify a group of organisms we can already see are there plain as day.


Group B rock we handle like a living organism, it's a collection of them indeed. Do we add raw ammonia to a bag of fish while we float them in the tank to equalize temperature?


One can forego the entire wait time of biological cycling by using coralline covered rock or coralline spotted rock and caribsea wet pack sand and transporting it home in a reasonable way. From this fact, we can move tanks between homes or cities without a cycle (how all marine convention tanks are set up) and we can make upgrades and downgrades without a cycle



Do people who set up aquariums at massive aquarium conventions show up three weeks before the event to cycle?




We aren't advocating rushing, we advocate being exact in your cycle based on the substrate you paid for, the microbiology at hand, and not adding ammonia to living organisms when ammonia articles say it stresses them.





The actions the reefer takes when dealing with type A or B rocks are polar opposite, what we do to cycle live rock is opposite of what we do to cycle dry rock.


Once the bacteria are established on rocks, only meds or extremes will kill them * not ever moving between aquariums* and this sets the stage for our unique cycling thread here and why starting a tank with live rock and sand is very different than starting with dry substrates. Keep in mind that when you move live rocks between tanks using any reasonable preservation method, say an old tank vs a new one, or your pet store back home to you, your bacteria doesn't die, it actually stands to get a boost (if dieoff occurs this is feed)

You can only kill the live rock bacteria by introducing it to any extreme such as temp, desiccation or true drying, and meds, and it takes something that pronounced to kill them. nothing we do practically in tank work kills them, now we begin to trust bacteria and see them as the strongest group of animals we keep...not the weakest. You can NOT starve a completed cycle by withholding fish food, that is a hobby falsehood.

*of any life form in your tank at any time, bacteria as a community are the toughest and most resilient and adaptive to any change, any cycling thread needs this opening frame of reference.



Changing the way you see cycle testing is the first step in becoming an efficient tank cycler, free from retail influence over matters of microbiology you can likely wield free of charge. Watch our example set grow here, year after year.

I also do not wait for a cycle. I just setup a custom-built 120 gallon bow front. I used CaribSea live sand in the bottom, added some live rock from my other 2 tanks, and moved one of my canister filters from one of my existing tanks to the new tank. I did a water change on my existing tanks and added the 40 gallons I took out to the new tank and mixed and added new water to finish filling up the tank. The sump is up and running and everything is fine.
 
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brandon429

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why did you put a reef in that
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SuperN from nano-reef.com right?? thank you for stopping by old friend good to see you

how have you been, I still check out nano-reef.com for cycle jobs or invasions to undo but it seems there’s just more work opportunities here so that’s where the fun is
 

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