The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

[Ky_acc]

If you haven't already bought bac and ammonia it's not needed, life rock cycling on page one shows it only needs water we have two full examples there. Adding any bac won't suppress or stop them it's just a mix of bac that balances out over time
B

Thanks for the reply, really appreciate all the info.

so if you don’t mind me asking, would you recommend that I don’t add any additional bacteria or ammonia (just leave life rock by itself) or should I add ammonia to fuel the cycle later this evening?

I was planning on adding liquid ammonia up to ~1ppm (based on dr Tim’s drops per gallon guide, not testing), but if I understand you correctly, the life rock by itself should cycle in 30 days?

Do you think it would hurt to add in ammonia? I just feel like the bacteria would starve out without any food source?

thanks again for all the help!

 

[brandon429]

It's ok to add ammonia or not, liferock has painted on bac and hydration alone and about two weeks will cycle it using nothing else. Everything painted on becomes active it has food source already there so either way is ok for sure

 

[Bpb]

This is a doozie of a thread. I’m sorry if it’s been covered. But if I’m doing a long cure of some dry rocks (4-6 months) while my new tank is built, I don’t need to continually add ammonia to it? The bacterial will somehow self sustain without a food source? I’ve been adding 1-2ppm of ammonia per week to it just to keep it live and dense with bacteria

 

[eschaton]

This is a doozie of a thread. I’m sorry if it’s been covered. But if I’m doing a long cure of some dry rocks (4-6 months) while my new tank is built, I don’t need to continually add ammonia to it? The bacterial will somehow self sustain without a food source? I’ve been adding 1-2ppm of ammonia per week to it just to keep it live and dense with bacteria

I think that probably depends upon the bacteria in question. Lots of bacteria basically just go into "hibernation" if they don't have their preferred food source. Other bacteria will have a dieoff.

 

[brandon429]

Yes I claim it will hold over without feed due to feed already added and natural contamination that are daily inputs of things that are protein based and degrade into feed. Food gets in constantly if we aren't in a bac lab making assessments.

Nobody has really studied and notated at what point bacteria starve, it's all guessing online. Google scholar doesn't log aquarium work, so formal references about how resilient bac are or aren't are not inclusive of aquarium studies they're all controlled lab experiments and peer reviewed items. No peers want to log that kind of stuff for us aquarists

Buried in pages here we have two studies which give me those inclinations above, these were live rock systems that went without feed for both two and three years and were able to oxidize ammonia 24 hours later just as any other cycled tank. Wether they overcame dormancy overnite, or never went dormant, the exact same test we use to stamp a legit cycle closed was demonstrated.

Like myth busters who take time to set up work threads vs guess, Dr Reef has an experiment where we may have found a limit, now we need more than on tester to find a pattern and document it

He added bottle bac to saltwater and media dry only a year ago

The system only got exposure to home/contaminants via a pinhole air vent and he kept it topped off.

After a year he oxidation tested it and couldn't see significant reduction. He never fed them at all

We didn't get to see a four day interval test, to see if they awoke.
We also need seneye digital readouts in future testing so that any movement can be seen, but that arrangement at least gave us an idea of what it really takes to starve bac. Yours have been fed repeatedly, which causes thick biofilm and from that more food items are caught/adhered considering this is an open topped system

We venture into starvation possibly if your system is capped off, no room exchange

 

[Bpb]

If it’s of any help I used all dry clean rock, with two L of siporax rings pulled from a mature system and dropped in, along with a bottle of brightwell MB7 and dr Tim’s ammonium chloride. I’ve thrown a few pellets of fish food in occasionally as well. Moderate flow, bubbling from an air pump, lots of surface agitation, and temperature maintained between 76-78 degrees with a salinity or 35 ppt. This is done in the garage. Open top.

 

[Ky_acc]

It's ok to add ammonia or not, liferock has painted on bac and hydration alone and about two weeks will cycle it using nothing else. Everything painted on becomes active it has food source already there so either way is ok for sure

So I hate to say, but I appear to be having issues with my cycle.

the tank will have been wet for 30 days this coming Saturday (1/11) and I am still getting an ammonia reading of ~1ppm. I have not dosed dr. Tim’s ammonium chloride for about a week now and my test kit is still showing ~1ppm.

also the water is cloudy with a noticeable haze which would suggest that there is free ammonia I believe?

I’m running a bare bottom tank using Carib sea life rock with a fair bit of ceramic biomedia in the rear chamber. I added 2 doses of microbacter clean during the initial two weeks and dosed ~2ppm of ammonium chloride two times (dosed 2ppm once per week)

in week 3 i dosed 2ppm of ammonia again (prob wasn’t smart in hindsight) and then the next day I added a bottle of fritz 9 nitrifying bacteria as I was thinking the cycle had stallled and wanted to give it a boost.

About 4 days later I did a 20% water change which was suggested by the dr Tim’s website as a troubleshooting step to raise the ph if it had dropped below 7 (I don’t have a ph test, so I don’t know what my actual PH is).

it has been 2 days since the 20% water change and the water is still cloudy and my ammonia test is still showing 1ppm.

I also benchmarked the ammonia test kit (cheap api test) against fresh mixed salt water and it read zero ammonia (turned bright yellow) whereas each test I run of the tank water shows clearly green (about 1ppm based on their scale).

I am not sure what the next steps should be, I’m a little frustrated to be 30 days into my cycle with no progress - any help would be greatly appreciated!


this picture shows the cloudy water:

 

[Ky_acc]

I also just tested nitrates which are at ~1 per the test... which seems to mean there are not any nitrates being produced as ammonia is not being broken down.

 

[brandon429]

I can't thank you enough for posting, really. We don't want work threads to seem like unreal claim factories



only noncompliants/removal of comfort zone tests the right way

we claimed no cycle acts surprisingly and this one is seeming that way, so its perfect for us.

-we stated firmly on page one that half the time you've been underwater is enough to cycle life rock, measurably. nothing needed but time and saltwater (about to be verified fact or fiction regarding life rock)

you then added redundant items designed to cycle surfaces in one day...fritz especially. Dr. Reef's thread has tested fritz's ability to be dosed, then the tank undergo a full water change within 24-48 hours, and the re dosed system (ammonia) still clears overnite. The full water change and short submersion time couldn't "unstick" bacteria from surfaces once dosed even though they were only recently added.



there are three things at play here causing doubt in the cycle: cloudiness and api ammonia persistence and wastewater testing. I want to investigate those and try and prove that 1/4th of the effort you've given would still pass a cycle verification test/

this is what I would do, change 100% of the water for new water, now its not cloudy and its not wastewater, 2 variables under control. if it goes cloudy again in a few hours that's castings off surfaces, you don't have ammonia at all in the new setup nor any feed residues if any. clean start assessment

the last doubt flag is api. Somewhere on page one or google in general, we see API ammonia readings varying wildly. We also see it being used accurately (Dr. Reef) so api searchable readings are a mix of accurate, and highly inaccurate ammonia readings we linked a few on page one to show trending.

This doesn't mean api is bad, it means its a variable, we can use search returns to establish as variable accuracy. For contrast, try and locate a single seneye user or mindstream user on the whole internet that says .25 has hovered or even 1.0 for any length of time

zero examples, ammonia doesn't hover after submersion dates already on file long before me

I know your system says that's happening, and you could own a correct tester too, but the way we work here is bioload focused where seneye can't be used. We just don't yield to api as the going theme. in our searches we have no false start cycles, now we get to test that again and see if you were sent multi dead bottles of bac, and/or the liferock was handled in such a ways as to neutralize it (very unlikely)

we claim a starting reasonable bioload can be handled by your system now, and it does not have to proof at 2 ppm even if you did have seneye to measure inputs and oxidation levels. -any- degree of movement from ammonia at this interval is proof of cycling, since you are using enough surface area in the system to spread out bacteria that produce the small amnt of movement in ammonia. Your back end surface area spheres/balls whatever really help out, liferock isn't live rock, its not as porous, its not as high surface area as live rock so this is another reason we don't need to test for 2ppm in your system. between the rear compartment and front, you have enough surface area to handle a starting bioload.

so in final test, wanna do a 100% water change then go spend ten bucks to test our theory

buy a few snails and a couple hermits, drop em in the non waste water, don't feed just yet lets see if they die overnite.

predictably next morning, alive, let em crawl some more. put in one single food pellet end of day let em fight over it. see if alive next day

even a small cuc will pollute a totally uncycled system within a few days guaranteed + feed pellet but I think your system wont.

Ill be 10000% curious to know if a normal tiny bioload acts normal day to day in the system. you could easily input some candy corals, mushroom corals etc if they do, each day without crash is proofing by not using API.

if that exact order of ops is followed and all your clean up crew die, we want that on file as the first totally non compliant cycle ever seen here in the thread.

it feels weird to simply stop referencing api Im aware, but that's why we're different here. if we followed api we'd be like all other cycling threads on earth, so to be different and test alt bac theories we test with simple bioload starts that a normal reef would take. agreed on your nitrate interactions that's proof of nitrification but again we'd just forego the test and see how cheap animals fare. we'll really know something after 5 days in tank, one pellet feed, and seeing how things appear and if the water goes hazy again although unrinsed rear media or castings from liferock can't be eliminated.

the 100% zero cloudy insta-setups are the group B ones. true live rock doesn't leach anything but awesomeness.

Hate to make such a long post but I care about tying in past claims, patterns, and being thankful we can retest and revisit them again.

in the clean condition water setup with light bioload, Id be interested in knowing how seneye or mindstream would report the ammonia if you have a way to take a sample to anyone locally.

but for api, google search returns can find same ammonia reading above in year old tanks, running well, just because api reported it so I just can't use their data here its too squirrely.
Sometimes people use Prime without reporting/that makes false readings. if not prime, some other factor etc. we think cycles behave normally when api and wastewater are not a factor, though some api kits work well agreed.

 

[Ky_acc]

I can't thank you enough for posting, really. We don't want work threads to seem like unreal claim factories



only noncompliants/removal of comfort zone tests the right way

we claimed no cycle acts surprisingly and this one is seeming that way, so its perfect for us.

-we stated firmly on page one that half the time you've been underwater is enough to cycle life rock, measurably. nothing needed but time and saltwater (about to be verified fact or fiction regarding life rock)

you then added redundant items designed to cycle surfaces in one day...fritz especially. Dr. Reef's thread has tested fritz's ability to be dosed, then the tank undergo a full water change within 24-48 hours, and the re dosed system (ammonia) still clears overnite. The full water change and short submersion time couldn't "unstick" bacteria from surfaces once dosed even though they were only recently added.



there are three things at play here causing doubt in the cycle: cloudiness and api ammonia persistence and wastewater testing. I want to investigate those and try and prove that 1/4th of the effort you've given would still pass a cycle verification test/

this is what I would do, change 100% of the water for new water, now its not cloudy and its not wastewater, 2 variables under control. if it goes cloudy again in a few hours that's castings off surfaces, you don't have ammonia at all in the new setup nor any feed residues if any. clean start assessment

the last doubt flag is api. Somewhere on page one or google in general, we see API ammonia readings varying wildly. We also see it being used accurately (Dr. Reef) so api searchable readings are a mix of accurate, and highly inaccurate ammonia readings we linked a few on page one to show trending.

This doesn't mean api is bad, it means its a variable, we can use search returns to establish as variable accuracy. For contrast, try and locate a single seneye user or mindstream user on the whole internet that says .25 has hovered or even 1.0 for any length of time

zero examples, ammonia doesn't hover after submersion dates already on file long before me

I know your system says that's happening, and you could own a correct tester too, but the way we work here is bioload focused where seneye can't be used. We just don't yield to api as the going theme. in our searches we have no false start cycles, now we get to test that again and see if you were sent multi dead bottles of bac, and/or the liferock was handled in such a ways as to neutralize it (very unlikely)

we claim a starting reasonable bioload can be handled by your system now, and it does not have to proof at 2 ppm even if you did have seneye to measure inputs and oxidation levels. -any- degree of movement from ammonia at this interval is proof of cycling, since you are using enough surface area in the system to spread out bacteria that produce the small amnt of movement in ammonia. Your back end surface area spheres/balls whatever really help out, liferock isn't live rock, its not as porous, its not as high surface area as live rock so this is another reason we don't need to test for 2ppm in your system. between the rear compartment and front, you have enough surface area to handle a starting bioload.

so in final test, wanna do a 100% water change then go spend ten bucks to test our theory

buy a few snails and a couple hermits, drop em in the non waste water, don't feed just yet lets see if they die overnite.

predictably next morning, alive, let em crawl some more. put in one single food pellet end of day let em fight over it. see if alive next day

even a small cuc will pollute a totally uncycled system within a few days guaranteed + feed pellet but I think your system wont.

Ill be 10000% curious to know if a normal tiny bioload acts normal day to day in the system. you could easily input some candy corals, mushroom corals etc if they do, each day without crash is proofing by not using API.

if that exact order of ops is followed and all your clean up crew die, we want that on file as the first totally non compliant cycle ever seen here in the thread.

it feels weird to simply stop referencing api Im aware, but that's why we're different here. if we followed api we'd be like all other cycling threads on earth, so to be different and test alt bac theories we test with simple bioload starts that a normal reef would take. agreed on your nitrate interactions that's proof of nitrification but again we'd just forego the test and see how cheap animals fare. we'll really know something after 5 days in tank, one pellet feed, and seeing how things appear and if the water goes hazy again although unrinsed rear media or castings from liferock can't be eliminated.

the 100% zero cloudy insta-setups are the group B ones. true live rock doesn't leach anything but awesomeness.

Hate to make such a long post but I care about tying in past claims, patterns, and being thankful we can retest and revisit them again.

in the clean condition water setup with light bioload, Id be interested in knowing how seneye or mindstream would report the ammonia if you have a way to take a sample to anyone locally.

but for api, google search returns can find same ammonia reading above in year old tanks, running well, just because api reported it so I just can't use their data here its too squirrely.
Sometimes people use Prime without reporting/that makes false readings. if not prime, some other factor etc. we think cycles behave normally when api and wastewater are not a factor, though some api kits work well agreed.

Thanks for the reply Brandon -really great info you have provided.

Unfortunately, I probably wont be able to test this theory over the weekend as I will be traveling, but if I am able to I will certainly post an update.

Also, I was not going to buy any ammonia test kit at all as I read this thread prior to filling the tank and knew how unreliable they were. However I got worried when the cloudiness persisted and wanted to see if I could see any change in the ammonia level.

What are your thoughts regarding the low nitrates? I was thinking a readable nitrate level would indicate that the tank has cycled, so that is really what is throwing me off right now.

thanks again for all the help!

 

[brandon429]

due to test variability we just can't even consider the nitrates too. I know it sounds dodging but its more accurate to say its being selective on allowed input...I accept digital calibrated readings but eye/color readings are just not reliable at low levels. we trust in ammonia only since its the only factor that can burn an animal.

we have people with full running aged reefs who can't detect nitrate, and go about introducing it in all kinds of ways/stump remover etc. we have on file here nitrate tests from different brands showing a 50 ppm spread on a given sample, so you may have more or even less nitrate than what's shown.

so if a full running reef with a billion oxidizing reef organisms can't be found with nitrate in some cases, I cannot expect a cycling tank's nitrate to matter its just too messy out there.

I think you should change all your water before travels if possible and leave it clean condition running the whole time, a fine test for re clouding without animals. I might even prefer that pre-step over the snails and crabs after the water change. that tank should not re cloud in the clean condition with no bioload in place, its a fine placement of your upcoming travel in also analyzing your cycle. can't wait for updates

 

[brandon429]

your tank really aligns our testing vs outcomes approach to cycle verification, really fun tank to work with here. It'll be astounding if all that bottle bac was doa!

 

[Ky_acc]

Okay I am going to try to do the water change this weekend, I travel during the week for work so hopefully I can change the water on Sunday once I get back in town!

if I can change the water Sunday, it would sit for about 4-5 days without being touched while I am traveling for work.

also last thought. How important is a 100% water change in you opinion? I am in an apartment and can only store 25 gallons of RODI water at a time. My system volume is ~39 gallons. I can do a 100% water change but it would take a bit of effort. Do you think a 100% change would be worth the effort over a 70-80% WC?

I really appreciate all you help and info!

 

[brandon429]

Yes safe call there, make up the practical amount and change what you can it won't harm our clean up crew test but it may not render perfect clean water variable. We will know if that clouding is ammonia indicative if cuc absolutely can't survive in it. Most people are using wet pack sand, the common skew as it's skip cycle ready. I like how your tank focuses on rocks and a little help from back chamber, not dealing in excessively easy surface area for once.

Activating a bunch of extra bac in a low surface area system w no export or skimming can also account for cloud, in hindsight that seems best candidate. I think this arrangement though masked by a few roadblocks will hold clear after a change if the actual makewater is clear after mixing. it should not go back to cloud on just contact with front and back surface area. The initial bioload proves safe, then tiny feed plus bioload, then a few cheap mine canary corals then fish after fallow

 

[brandon429]

How do macna reef conventions pull off 100% successful skip cycles for a decade, compare and contrast forum vs real world cycling

Reef convention skip cycle aquariums for the last 20 years and rogue cyclers

Compare and contrast today's forum cycling advice with reef convention tanks let me know what you think Forum: you can't rush anything in reefing Macna: five hundred reefs you'd kill to own set up Friday morning, looking sharp all other following days and you buy stuff from them with glee...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Ky_acc]

Yes safe call there, make up the practical amount and change what you can it won't harm our clean up crew test but it may not render perfect clean water variable. We will know if that clouding is ammonia indicative if cuc absolutely can't survive in it. Most people are using wet pack sand, the common skew as it's skip cycle ready. I like how your tank focuses on rocks and a little help from back chamber, not dealing in excessively easy surface area for once.

Activating a bunch of extra bac in a low surface area system w no export or skimming can also account for cloud, in hindsight that seems best candidate. I think this arrangement though masked by a few roadblocks will hold clear after a change if the actual makewater is clear after mixing. it should not go back to cloud on just contact with front and back surface area. The initial bioload proves safe, then tiny feed plus bioload, then a few cheap mine canary corals then fish after fallow

okay quick update. Today I was able to complete a ~95% water change. I also added a dose of microbacter clean just to keep a bacteria source going


I also did an ammonia test for a baseline (see pic below).

I have to leave out of town to travel this week so I can’t add a test crab. That said, my question for you is what do you suggest I do next? Should I add ammonium chloride? Or maybe put in a couple of food pellets in a mesh bag and just let them sit a few days?

thank you!

 

[brandon429]

I would leave it as is, you can go months and it will not starve. Ready for use / test when u get back

 

[Ky_acc]

I would leave it as is, you can go months and it will not starve. Ready for use / test when u get back

I just got back in town, and things are looking good (visually at least) since the 95% water change last weekend (1/12).

my plan is to add a fish this weekend (likely just a firefish of some kind). I am also thinking I might add another bottle of fritz nitrifying bacteria just to be safe -any thoughts on if this is a good idea?

also, I put a bag of carbon in the rear chamber and turned on the protein skimmer today, so that hopefully it breaks in over the weekend.

before 95%water change:

5 days after 95% water change (water remaining clear):

 

[brandon429]

looking good its ready

lots of people buy bottle bac for the insurance factor, its a prime selling point for them. since it cannot hurt to add it, they sell millions $ for the feel good aspect. It wasnt needed past the first dose in dry systems, maintenance additions are ok, but extra padding for bottle bac sellers. we've been studying the resiliency of bacteria, and testing to support it. Your bac would not fail an oxidation test after the wait, they're alive so adding more wont help or hurt it will be a neutral impact to things you can measure.

 

[Ky_acc]

Just a quick update:

looking good its ready

lots of people buy bottle bac for the insurance factor, its a prime selling point for them. since it cannot hurt to add it, they sell millions $ for the feel good aspect. It wasnt needed past the first dose in dry systems, maintenance additions are ok, but extra padding for bottle bac sellers. we've been studying the resiliency of bacteria, and testing to support it. Your bac would not fail an oxidation test after the wait, they're alive so adding more wont help or hurt it will be a neutral impact to things you can measure.

another update, I added two clowns yesterday and they have been acclimating nicely.

I went ahead and threw in another bottle of fritz nitrifying bacteria. Probably a waste but for 10 bucks I thought it would be worth the peace of mind.

thanks for all the help, looking good so far.