The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

[RobB'z Reef]

I started my cycle with dry rock, Microbacter Quikcycl, and Microbacter Start XLM. It has been 30 days, and I am still showing Ammonia .25 and Nitrite .5 on API test kit. I have had cloudy water (bacteria bloom?) for about two weeks now. No livestock in the tank. What should be my next step, water change?

I'm no expert, but cloudy water is often a bacterial bloom. Might be from your seeding the tank which is ok. Especially if you're fishless, it's not really a big deal in my opinion. Just annoying really and can be fixed with water changes and/or time. Just manage ammonia export with water changes and you'll be fine.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed, the random mix of metabolites and feed and cycling wastewater is able to misbehave in lots of ways, but it cannot stop the base filtration layer from forming well under 30 days when using bottle bac


we’d remove the offending water column and replace with new (api still wouldnt read correctly, but we know it’s clean) and at that point the base layer will handle any bioloading just fine

the old school rules wouldn’t have allowed for removing the bad water and starting clean. They would advise waiting indefinitely for three parameter compliance from the wastewater even if sixty days, though no cycling chart in history supports that assessment.

we know the cycle is ready due to the ammonia timelines found on cycling charts...day ten. He could change water twenty days ago and it would still be cycled. What api reports won’t matter, we don’t believe api we believe the submersion time cycling chart info as reliable, thats why the timeframe doesn’t change no matter which book or aquarium site we source the cycle chart

 

[brandon429]

In our thread here we discuss testless reef cycling and skip cycling.


We discuss how to make a cycle complete when you want not by some arbitrary wait window and our start dates on file keep bioloads alive because cycling has consistent timeframes tank to tank. We are dosing powerful bottle bac in most cases, skip cycle occur every day using group A all dry rock starts.


So when should we add fish?

Who do you trust / when to skip quarantine

Quarrantine everything wet and Only trust yourself. No exceptions. This

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Alexreefer]

In our thread here we discuss testless reef cycling and skip cycling.


We discuss how to make a cycle complete when you want not by some arbitrary wait window and our start dates on file keep bioloads alive because cycling has consistent timeframes tank to tank. We are dosing powerful bottle bac in most cases, skip cycle occur every day using group A all dry rock starts.


So when should we add fish?

Who do you trust / when to skip quarantine

Quarrantine everything wet and Only trust yourself. No exceptions. This

www.reef2reef.com

Hey Brandon, Its been quite some time since we last talked. The tank is doing amazing and I habve started slowly adding fish back in. I still havent got the courage to get corals but I plan to add them this winter. Dinos are completely gone, I only deal with some film algae on the glass and that's it. just a normal every 2 week water change has been working for me.

 

[brandon429]

that is really nice to hear, your tank was one of the most protracted dinos battles I recall in history

we would really appreciate knowing your summary of the events that helped it subside, what tuned things in the end?

Dinos challenges are expected nowadays in new reefs, wonder what the best chances are of preventing or lessening them?

 

[Alexreefer]

that is really nice to hear, your tank was one of the most protracted dinos battles I recall in history

we would really appreciate knowing your summary of the events that helped it subside, what tuned things in the end?

Dinos challenges are expected nowadays in new reefs, wonder what the best chances are of preventing or lessening them?

Keeping it simple worked for me. I didn't stress about parameters like some people would say. I did water changes regularly and cleaned my skimmer. That's all I did. I didn't dose anything like vibrant or dino X. I'm not sure if it true but since my reef is a living thing I thought it would develop am immunity to certain things like our bodies do. So I let it fight off the infection alone and it seems that it won. I have not seen any dinos anywhere so it seems its true. I've been dino free for about 4-5 months

 

[brandon429]

In my opinion the number one character that kept the tank going was your resolve, you know a lesser dedicated aquarist would've given up on page 10 alone. dang that was resolve, paul bunyan level those dinos had me stumped fully. nice way to simply refuse to stop, that's following through, well done.

 

[Alexreefer]

Thanks. I hope to be able to continue this tank through my high school education and hopefully further

 

[brandon429]

Trying to quick cycle in a week or two

I bought the Microbacter dry rock bacteria starter kit and I was wondering if anyone had pros and cons to it and if I use live rock how badly would it upset the balance?

www.reef2reef.com

JM wants to be cycled in a week, but we will likely just move it up to skipped altogether. It’s what we do here

 

[brandon429]

Nano Build - Octo High End SPS Skip Cycle Build....

Hey Everyone! Im going to start my build thread in hopes I get some pointers and help along the way. My last reef tank was in 2011. I had a 54 gallon corner tank and a 120 gallon reef tank. I loved it! However I was promoted and moved my family from NC to CA. Had to sell it all. We are...

www.reef2reef.com

I think that might be contender for the top skip cycle start I saw in 2020 and probably in many years.

 

[Stick-y]

Hi !
I just started two tanks at the same times, I read the first ten pages of this thread and it was very very interesting.
The first tank is a 130 gallons and the second one is the Peninsula 15 from Waterbox.
I will cycle the tanks with live rock for Indonesia. The big tank is not ready yet so the rocks are in my sump atm. I would say that my rocks are somewhere in between "B" rock and uncured live rock : when I bought the rocks they just came at my LFS (they came in friday in the evening at his shop and they were in my sump sathurday morning). The rocks have the "CITES" certificate so I know for sure they really come from Indonesia. So I have live rocks but my lfs didn't cure it so I don't know if they are cured or not.

After reading this thread, I'm convince that monitoring nitrite isn't really needed. I have a Seneye so I can monitor the "free ammonia" in the water column.
I don't have free ammonia in my peninsula if I trust my Seneye. I took the seneye and placed it in my sump, and it read 0.05 free ammonia (so it's 1,2 ppm "NH3 NH4" according to HR calculator).

The only difference between the two system is the skimmer in the minipeninsula. Both system are running several pumps and a temperature controler, that's it.

Is it possible that if my live rocks aren't cured, some organism would die and produce ammonia ? Should I wait a bit and hopefully the bac in the live rocks will digest that ammonia ? (I can see a lot of macrofaune on my rocks, pods, etc).

I hope my message is understandable since english isn't my native langage.

Edit: I will post some pictures later on.

 

[brandon429]

Please do monitor the nh3 that will be such a needed data set for us
Thank you for posting!

we want to ultimately be able to directly link visual cues with real, true readings for free ammonia it will be a very important tie-in

sounds like you are getting the best rock possible above all

*seneye carries a big responsibility for us. We are using it to show how cycling dynamics dont follow what api and red sea usually indicate

If seneye shows nh3 holding in the tenths ppm we expect to see some water clouding, and notable smell at the top of the tank and then the meter and slide need to be able to run in the thousandths ppm conversion rate when tested on a cured system-post cycle this is what working seneye meters show to be the consistent range. Hundredths ppm at worst, but thousandths ppm .003-.009 is the running average on 95% of any reefs post-cycle.


tying in visual + olfaction senses as ammonia meters is gold for us

 

[Stick-y]

Please do monitor the nh3 that will be such a needed data set for us
Thank you for posting!

we want to ultimately be able to directly link visual cues with real, true readings for free ammonia it will be a very important tie-in

sounds like you are getting the best rock possible above all

*seneye carries a big responsibility for us. We are using it to show how cycling dynamics dont follow what api and red sea usually indicate

If seneye shows nh3 holding in the tenths ppm we expect to see some water clouding, and notable smell at the top of the tank and then the meter and slide need to be able to run in the thousandths ppm conversion rate when tested on a cured system-post cycle this is what working seneye meters show to be the consistent range. Hundredths ppm at worst, but thousandths ppm .003-.009 is the running average on 95% of any reefs post-cycle.


tying in visual + olfaction senses as ammonia meters is gold for us

I will try to go into more details with the cycling of the Peninsula 15.
Here is a picture of the front view of the tank, you can see red lines and yellow lines. The rocks I colored with red are rocks that were in my lfs for more than 2 months in his display tank, he sold me those rock as "already cycled live rocks". On those rocks you can see little worms and during the night there is a lot of pods. I think those rocks are in my tank since the 16th of december. As you can see there is a Seneye in the tank, the Seneye is in the tank since the rocks are in the tank. The seneye reads 0,001 ppm NH3 in the water column since the rocks are in the tank.
More informations about the tank : I produce my own RODI water (0 tds) and I used red sea salt pro. In the tank I have a temporary set up : a little heater, the return pump provided by Waterbox, an ecodrift 4.0 and a skimmer.

You can see on the picture yellow lines, the rocks behind those lines are the "uncured" rock that I mentionned in my previous message. I added those rocks last sathurday because I felt that I needed more rocks for my aquascape.

So since the rocks are in the tank I have nearly no NH3 (Seneye is always reading 0,001 ppm, to be sure it's not a mistake I put the seneye in my sump and it read 0,05ppm as you can read in my previous message). The tank doesn't smell at all so no olfaction sense.

The only weird thing is that apparently I have, according to red sea test and to Hanna Checker, 0,9ppm PO4.

So that's it for this tank.

TL DR : I bought already cycled live rocks from my lfs and I don't have any trace of NH3. I can see a lot of living organism on the rocks. I think this tank is already cycled NH3 wise but I still have to lower those PO4.

I will soon post detailed informations about my sump full of "uncured" live rocks (the same rocks that are behind yellow line on the picture ).

 

[brandon429]

Well wow this is just so fitting for us to see and read, thanks so much for posting I’ll watch for all updates. We get to tie in known origins and cure levels, today’s best nh3 reading avail, standard kits and visual cues all at once


we want to be able to solve for any side of that and discover allowed start dates, cycling algebra!


your lfs source is legit, they’re selling quality items

 

[brandon429]

A thread tracking the incidence of seneye nh3 misreads

My Seneye isn’t reading pH or ammonia correct and they are sending a new unit. My question is with a bad unit is the par meter wrong also?

www.reef2reef.com

hey quick update I thought of your post when in the chemistry forum they were talking about calibrating seneye for accuracy

 

[Brian Drab]

Wow is all I have to say. I've spent the last few hours researching and reading about why my tank won't cycle and made it to this thread.

I have a 60 Gallon tank that has been running for about 2 years 11 months. As many people do, I wanted to upgrade to a bigger tank. I decided to keep my 60 gallon and set up a new 240 and keep both.

The 240 has been set up for 10 months and 8 days and all I have in there are two clown fishes. There are many reasons for this but that's for another time.

So I have a 40 Gallon quarantine tank that I have been trying to cycle for 6 weeks now. Because I want FISH!!! I've talked to people from my LFS and people online and everyone tells me to just wait.....that this is a patient hobby, etc. But in my opinion 6 weeks is too long which is why I started researching.

I put in a few pieces of PVC, heater set to 78 degrees, a powerhead, HOB filter, nano-skimmer (not powered on) , Seachem Ammonia Badge and a whole bunch of marble looking glass things all over the bare bottom of the tank. I then purchased Dr. Tim's One and Only Nitrifying Bacteria along with his Ammonia Chloride and followed the instructions exactly (except that I used RO/DI water instead of tap water).

Even after two weeks I couldn't get my Nitrite below .5. I use a Hanna ULR checker and it always flashes 200 which means it's higher than 200ppb. Using other tests like Seachem it appears to be maybe 2 or 3 ppm and there's definitely Nitrate....maybe 10ppm but honestly those tests are so hard to read. I just know it's below 20 at the moment. After two weeks I bought another bottle of Nitrifying Bacteria along with a couple pieces of fake objects (surface area for bacteria to grow on) from the LFS and threw that in there as well but still not much of a change after a few more weeks.

Then I found this thread! OMG! It all makes sense to me. I'm going to try it.

Here is a side view picture of the quarantine tank.

So per this article I did the following... (80% water change....had trouble getting 100% of it).

Tested for Ammonia.

Added 20 drops of Ammonia Chloride and waited 10 minutes. Then tested Ammonia again.

I'll test tomorrow evening (maybe even tomorrow morning since I'm excited) and if the ammonia is down I'm getting fish for the new year and I will never cycle my tank the "old" way again.

 

[MnFish1]

stop adding ammonia. your tank after this time should be cycled. Seems like you're getting caught up in 'chemistry' rather than common sense (no offense) - @brandon429

 

[brandon429]

Thank you for posting such a clear three-part test Brian! Very helpful to see actions, and we can give that tester 48 hours to show movement if needed vs expecting it down in ten hours - thats a very low -surface area- setup compared to displays that contact wastewater to thousands of touchpoints in the water flow. It indeed might still move down on time, but if not that’s no remark on bacteria, you were fully correct that at six weeks whatever area is in the tank or moved over to it is active-absolutely full of bacteria to the max. And a cycling chart agrees.

adding extra bacteria here seems like a safe move but the real hidden gem is low surface area, extra bac have no where to attach


the water in that system swirls around with ammonia in it and touches only a little bit of surface area compared to a normal reef, so there’s nothing stuck whatsoever here, we are just about to see the relationship of surface area to water volume and flow characters in your third pic, later today or tomorrow


MN thank you for the heads up for some reason I didn’t get the post alert here and would have missed a fine looking ammonia motion test on a low surface area setup, not as predictable as our many display tank challenges. I’m truly tuned in to see what it can do, these are true challenges here- displays r easy
Brian’s post hits the nail on the head regarding the two part interaction in cycling between surface area, and bacteria.

our hobby focuses solely on bacteria but it’s flipped, surface area is the bigger deal the bacteria will always do what a cycling chart says, or faster. But not slower~

The fascinating part of this particular QT cycle is that his ammonia readings don't remark on the degree of bacteria stuck on that rock. They remark upon wastewater eddy currents vs contact from swirl vs throughput-style contact like what canister filters do really well.
b

 

[Brian Drab]

Here is what it looks like 20 hours in. The one on the left is from last night and the one on the right is the one I took a short while ago. There was barely any movement so I had to put them side-by-side to ensure that there was indeed movement. It's slight but I see it and as you stated, because of the low surface area I should really expect more like 48 hours to see a difference. So I'll report back again tomorrow.

 

[brandon429]

Solely because those pics are so clear, in clear light, I can see it. That’s really neat to see