The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

[Jgoal55]

So I just read all 23 pages of this thread and first of all, thanks to OP for the time put into this. I've been in this hobby for a long time and have cycled tanks both with true live rock (pretty darn instant) and with dry rock, bottled bac and a fish or two. I can't say with 100% certainty, but I don't think I've ever "failed" a cycle as all my tanks have been pretty successful years in (I had one crash many years later, but obviously not related to cycle).

However, because I like to complicate my life, I decided to cycle my newest tank using a "fishes cycle approach" instead of what I have always had success with (wanting to avoid pests, etc). All dry rock, but I did use Arag-alive special grade live sand (however, I filled tank with RO water which took two days and then added salt so I am not sure if that killed the bacteria in the sand).

At any rate, what's done is done, but now I am not sure what the heck is going on. I followed BRS video (which after reading this forum I realize is in stark contrast to some of the advice here).

I added bottled bac and I added two dead shrimp. For about 1 week I didn't notice any change in ammonia (stayed in "safe") and at the end of the week the shrimp were gone. So, I added two more shrimp. Finally, I noticed an ammonia increase on my seachem ammonia badge the next day, but 4 days later it went back to "safe" and the shrimp were gone; completely disintegrated.

I'm gonna go out and get a real ammonia test kit tomorrow (Salifert), but is this normal for the shrimp to disintegrate so fast. Is it possible that the bacteria in my live sand, plus the Microbacter7, has already established itself?

If so, and my tank is cycled, I wasn't quite ready to add fish yet since I thought it was going to take so much longer. If I don't add fish right away, can I continue ghost feeding to keep the bacteria alive?

I'm very tempted to just go grab some fish and go old school by throwing them in there and adding more bottled bac.

But the main reason I went fishless this time is because I went pretty light on the rock work and I didn't want to start with territorial clowns/chromis, etc. I'm still working on my fish list, but my plan is to add all the most peaceful/least territorial fish first. Of course, they're generally the more expensive ones too.

And yes, I have a full QT setup ready to go for when I'm ready so hopefully will deal with diseases well.

Thanks for the help and feedback here.

 

[brandon429]

JGoal thank you for posting! We have made some significant strides even in the last 15 months regarding cycling since seneye machines have come on line and we are able to collect cycling details using them as posters report back critical timing using the various means you’re familiar with to cycle

tuned seneye machines remove the guess portion of being ready; they prevent having to buy more kits to get average reads etc and due to rules posted here, reef tanks *share* cycle timing they don’t diverge much from updated known completion dates like the old rules would have us think (where some reefs couldn’t cycle after 4 months wait, it never happens, thats mis testing on non digital kits)


and I bet your cycle is done too so hold off on test kit or new bottle bac / this thread was written for basic rules well before seneye came on scene and we weren’t needing accurate ammonia testing back then either to be able to know when a cycle was done (any fed or dosed arrangement you want to make is done by day 30 matching a cycling chart)

and now with seneye reports, we can see that most boosted cycles (any form of feed or bottle bac added vs zero additions at all and just pure wait time) are done in about 10-15 days max


yours is a boosted cycle, a degraded shrimp plus bottle bac


so the Grand question is: how many days has this tank had this stew running in it in total


this example is the meter for your cycle.

Build Thread - My SPS Waterbox Peninsula Mini 15

Hi all. Long time member (I think I joined right around when R2R started or took off years ago) but got out of the hobby for about 6 years and now I am back! I don't see many build threads for the PM 15 (mostly the 25) so thought I'd share my journey here. This post will be a bit behind...

www.reef2reef.com

that proves with feed only, no bottle bac, your cycle will be done before or on day 30. You have provided both feed (shrimp) and bottle bac, so yours will be even quicker


how many days underwater has your mix been running, I bet it’s close to two weeks given the time enough to degrade a whole shrimp

 

[Jgoal55]

JGoal thank you for posting! We have made some significant strides even in the last 15 months regarding cycling since seneye machines have come on line and we are able to collect cycling details using them as posters report back critical timing using the various means you’re familiar with to cycle

tuned seneye machines remove the guess portion of being ready; they prevent having to buy more kits to get average reads etc and due to rules posted here, reef tanks *share* cycle timing they don’t diverge much from updated known completion dates like the old rules would have us think (where some reefs couldn’t cycle after 4 months wait, it never happens, thats mis testing on non digital kits)


and I bet your cycle is done too so hold off on test kit or new bottle bac / this thread was written for basic rules well before seneye came on scene and we weren’t needing accurate ammonia testing back then either to be able to know when a cycle was done (any fed or dosed arrangement you want to make is done by day 30 matching a cycling chart)

and now with seneye reports, we can see that most boosted cycles (any form of feed or bottle bac added vs zero additions at all and just pure wait time) are done in about 10-15 days max


yours is a boosted cycle, a degraded shrimp plus bottle bac


so the Grand question is: how many days has this tank had this stew running in it in total


this example is the meter for your cycle.

Build Thread - My SPS Waterbox Peninsula Mini 15

Hi all. Long time member (I think I joined right around when R2R started or took off years ago) but got out of the hobby for about 6 years and now I am back! I don't see many build threads for the PM 15 (mostly the 25) so thought I'd share my journey here. This post will be a bit behind...

www.reef2reef.com

that proves with feed only, no bottle bac, your cycle will be done before or on day 30. You have provided both feed (shrimp) and bottle bac, so yours will be even quicker


how many days underwater has your mix been running, I bet it’s close to two weeks given the time enough to degrade a whole shrimp

Thank you Brandon. You’re spot on. Tomorrow will be exactly 2 weeks. I added bottle bac according to instructions everyday the first week, then followed instructions thereafter.

So, do I keep ghost feeding since I’m not ready for fish?

 

[brandon429]

It will not matter if you ghost feed as cycles cannot be starved once set in like this one. The tank can currently carry fish for sure and if it were my tank I wouldn’t test further for nitrite or ammonia, you’ve met the ammonia line wait portion of a cycling chart / all set

ghost feeding to prevent cycle stalling is purely made up in forums and has been circulated around for years as a required practice, our homes contaminate too much feed into water systems for bacteria to starve

 

[Jgoal55]

It will not matter if you ghost feed as cycles cannot be starved once set in like this one. The tank can currently carry fish for sure and if it were my tank I wouldn’t test further for nitrite or ammonia, you’ve met the ammonia line wait portion of a cycling chart / all set

ghost feeding to prevent cycle stalling is purely made up in forums and has been circulated around for years as a required practice, our homes contaminate too much feed into water systems for bacteria to starve

Interesting. Thanks for the help! So I don’t want to add fish until my QT is all set up (about 2-3 weeks).

I guess I’ll enjoy staring at an empty tank for a while.

should I do water changes based on nitrates?

 

[brandon429]

it simply wont matter regarding nitrates at all. Paul B's 50 year old tank runs as high as 160 ppm nitrate at times he's stated, and then ULNS and or Zeovit reefs used to scrub nitrate down to 1 ppm averages so there's that much range in acceptance.

truly all focus goes to fish disease prevention. if it was my reef there would be cuc and corals going in, a rock scape that is accessible for removal cleaning if needed vs inaccessible and locked into place, the system would have lower level lighting vs high power sps production lighting and the first round of selected corals would fit that bill so they're selected to do well.

no fish, I'd build up the tank with inverts for months first and hand guide out all expected uglies phase. once ready, then go fallow for 80 days, then add quarantined fish.

The number one concern in all cycling scenarios isn't cycling completion, we havent come across an incomplete cycle this whole thread...its fish disease yep. how we handle fish disease matters most of all.

*you also have a dry start reef, which means nothing has brought in fish disease yet.

that means if you added pre quarantined fish right now, you still aren't violating any disease protocols and can reverse my method above. The second you add a non qt fish to the tank, a disease prevention protocol has been unselected.

 

[Jgoal55]

it simply wont matter regarding nitrates at all. Paul B's 50 year old tank runs as high as 160 ppm nitrate at times he's stated, and then ULNS and or Zeovit reefs used to scrub nitrate down to 1 ppm averages so there's that much range in acceptance.

truly all focus goes to fish disease prevention. if it was my reef there would be cuc and corals going in, a rock scape that is accessible for removal cleaning if needed vs inaccessible and locked into place, the system would have lower level lighting vs high power sps production lighting and the first round of selected corals would fit that bill so they're selected to do well.

no fish, I'd build up the tank with inverts for months first and hand guide out all expected uglies phase. once ready, then go fallow for 80 days, then add quarantined fish.

The number one concern in all cycling scenarios isn't cycling completion, we havent come across an incomplete cycle this whole thread...its fish disease yep. how we handle fish disease matters most of all.

*you also have a dry start reef, which means nothing has brought in fish disease yet.

that means if you added pre quarantined fish right now, you still aren't violating any disease protocols and can reverse my method above. The second you add a non qt fish to the tank, a disease prevention protocol has been unselected.

Great call. That’s exactly the process I will follow. At least inverts will give me something fun to look at.

I do want to go heavy SPS eventually, but all my lights are controllable (except T5s) so I can definitely tune them way down for early corals when I get there.

but great strategy because this process allows me to finalize a fish list and finish QT setup prior to adding fish.

Thanks again Brandon! Especially for the quick responses!

heres the tank by the way, prior to water

 

[Paston1]

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:

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

Is my tank cycled???

My tank has been cycling with live rock for 17 days now. Early on I had a spike in nitrate, and since my salinity is 0.024, ammonia has sat at a constant rate of 0.5, my nitrite sometimes goes to 0.25, but then quickly back to 0, and my nitrate remains at 0 since the spike. I know 0 ammonia is...

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here’s fifty more:

A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

THE GOLDEN EXAMPLE OF A SKIP CYCLE DAY 1 REEF https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/ read that entire thread before you read ours. that's the heart of skip cycling. Everything we do going forward in this thread reflects on that ability above, in the #1...

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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

Build Thread - My SPS Waterbox Peninsula Mini 15

Beautiful build and scape!

www.reef2reef.com

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.

100% Water Change

So in my previous thread, I had an ammonia issue that was out of hand. As suggested, I did a 100% WC and now i’m wondering when I should start adding fish back. If anyone has suggestions, let me know!

www.reef2reef.com

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:

Bio-spira works great

I just started a new tank a little over a week ago. I started with all dry rock and new sand. I added a bottle of Bio-Spira and put fish and coral the same day. Never saw any ammonia and fish and coral seem healthy.

www.reef2reef.com

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

Tank cycle

Does green and brown algae mean the tank cycle is coming to a end? Ammonia is at zero nitrates 5ppm and nitrites are zero ph 7.8! Thanks for the help.

www.reef2reef.com

Higher-order animals attached like anemones are even better confirmation:

Identify Please, unknowns on my Live Rock

The rock you got is going to save you maybe 20+ new tank problems! Best of luck

www.reef2reef.com

(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

Four weeks of cycling -- nitrites are 0, nitrates are at ~12, but ammonia won't drop.

So, as of today, I've: Turned off the skimmer completely for a week (didn't realize that was a thing with bacteria additives) Filtered with carbon for a week ahead of time (turned off now) Pumped 15 gallons (20%) out of the tank Carefully sifted about 15 dead snails out of the sand bed Added 15...

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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

Who do you trust / when to skip quarantine

AlgaeBarn raises live stock in tanks that have had nothing wild for years and should therefore be clean. Reef cleaners has fish free systems, so their inverts shouldn't be carrying fish diseases. Do folks who follows the "QT anything wet" philosophy trust those vendors enough to make exceptions...

www.reef2reef.com

____________________________________________________________________


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.

Nitrite Toxicity

Hey guys I have an aquarium system that has about 45gallons of water cycling so I Let it cycle for about week and I added seeded marine pure ceramic balls and the bacteria in a bottle. I had no choice but to add my 2 clownfish from my quarantine into the tank.. because I needed to put a sick...

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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:

Connecting Established Reef To New Tank

EDIT: In conclusion, if using the method I did - connecting an established reef to a new system with dry rock (clean), I recommend the following: 1. Dose your new tank prior to connecting to your old tank with NO3 and PO4 enough to raise to your established tank levels. 2. Take your skimmer...

www.reef2reef.com

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

New cycle and zeo light method

Hi, I have recently started a new tank (Reefer 250). I put carib sea life rock and live sand in it. After 5 days of no activity, I added a raw shrimp and let it rot for 4 - 5 days. Then I took it out. Now my measurements are No2 1 ppm and No3 100+ ppm. This has been like this for more than a...

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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)

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 have a question. I have a live tank. 240G display and 50G sump. In the sump 15 pounds of rock.
I plan to remove all my rock from my display maybe 80-100lbs and add a new pre made aqua.
Do I need to use a bottled bacteria? Can I change all my rock one day.
I have 120 lbs of live sand in my tank that will remain in the tank.
3 fish and a eel but lots of corals.

should I add a brute of water and rock with bottle bacteria for safety or just change it since I have a sump full of life and my sand is full of life?

 

[brandon429]

I remember your job from another thread

glad to have the transfer logged here agreed, we practice skip cycling and that’s what you’ll need to keep those costly fish and corals alive after swapping the main biofilter surface area over for new




The job can be done 100% certain successful.

prep questions:

you lose all your benthic growth earned on current rocks which repels invasions and potentially some fish disease in exchange for bone dry rocks likely to leak phosphates as they cure among fish and corals you don’t want invaded

before we begin, curious why the swap current tank looks great


either way, the job can be done. The first step is prepping the new rock

Of the ~4 options for cycling we review, bottle bac and dry rock are the last I’d ever do. in fact for money I wouldn’t do that to my reef even if someone paid me $5000 to change my rocks out.


if I was determined to use new rocks in my tank they’d be group B rocks from page one, solely those types.

if determined to use dry rocks and bottle bac you can, you’d prep the rocks then move your stuff over and it will skip cycle fine. Don’t move any form of unrinsed sand from any portion of the current setup, move over zero detritus and only clean surfaces already pre cycled and the job will complete perfectly. Run your lights low in the new setup a few days to acclimate

to prep your rocks in a brute, set up the brute add one bottle of cycle specific not tank cleaning bottle bac, two pinches of flake feed wait ten days it’s cycled. No testing will be needed on any of it, we work test free in this thread / to prevent misreading we omit the testing portion. Bottle bac works great, use expensive Fritz refrigerated kind from the pet store, not any other. The job will complete and you won’t need to test and it won’t recycle.

 

[Paston1]

I remember your job from another thread

glad to have the transfer logged here agreed, we practice skip cycling and that’s what you’ll need to keep those costly fish and corals alive after swapping the main biofilter surface area over for new




The job can be done 100% certain successful.

prep questions:

you lose all your benthic growth earned on current rocks which repels invasions and potentially some fish disease in exchange for bone dry rocks likely to leak phosphates as they cure among fish and corals you don’t want invaded

before we begin, curious why the swap current tank looks great


either way, the job can be done. The first step is prepping the new rock

Of the ~4 options for cycling we review, bottle bac and dry rock are the last I’d ever do. in fact for money I wouldn’t do that to my reef even if someone paid me $5000 to change my rocks out.


if I was determined to use new rocks in my tank they’d be group B rocks from page one, solely those types.

if determined to use dry rocks and bottle bac you can, you’d prep the rocks then move your stuff over and it will skip cycle fine. Don’t move any form of unrinsed sand from any portion of the current setup, move over zero detritus and only clean surfaces already pre cycled and the job will complete perfectly. Run your lights low in the new setup a few days to acclimate

to prep your rocks in a brute, set up the brute add one bottle of cycle specific not tank cleaning bottle bac, two pinches of flake feed wait ten days it’s cycled. No testing will be needed on any of it, we work test free in this thread / to prevent misreading we omit the testing portion. Bottle bac works great, use expensive Fritz refrigerated kind from the pet store, not any other. The job will complete and you won’t need to test and it won’t recycle.

The current I just hate due to having pull and then drill holes for new corals.
New scape is premade from art reef, with holes and items in it already. Very pourous rock. It’s been cured but not cycled yet.

Since I have rock in my sump that won’t move, wouldn’t that help me here actually in cycle aspect? Granted it needs to multiply so brute is still the best option here. Could pull a rock from another tank and then add that to the brute also. But either way still probably 10 days for it to cycle.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed it will help, that current rock. Have the rest prepped by bottled bac and transfer over only perfectly clean rocks and sand and it’ll all assemble nicely

 

[Paston1]

to confirm my understanding.
Will go with brute, water, salt, heater, return pump in the brute along with a healthy clean piece of rock from a separate tank that’s running. Add atm colony or could use prodibio start up vials. Add 2 punches of flake food. Then cover the brute for 10 days.

 

[brandon429]

Eliminate atm colony and prodibio, not used here

use refrigerated Fritz cycling bac from a pet store this job needs all safety gaps covered before running

all pet shops w have some alongside the phytoplankton and other refrigerated not frozen items


those others may work, it’s just directly not recommended and if used you’ll need to verify the systems reduce ammonia clearly before using. They’ll eventually work, but by what date not known


Fritz w work on time though for sure.

 

[BlakeFL]

I setup my first tank a few days ago with Special Grade Arag-Alive Sand and Dry rock. I have been adding MicroBacter7 for the past 2 days and a small amount of fish food. I have ammonia coming tomorrow but not sure which Ammonia test kit to go with. Any recommendations @brandon429?

 

[brandon429]

Hi Blake thank you for posting this work thread is really collecting lots of jobs we can look back and inspect

my recommend for the mb7 cycle is this

add in about a third of the bottle now and three pinches of finely thumb ground flake feed then let it run 20 more days. Do a full water change or at least most of it on 29th and you’re cycled. Mb7 is the slower cycling option compared to Fritz, and the only ammonia test we have here is not seneye, so that’s the known completion time. If you had seneye we could pinpoint a sooner date

we can see from post 462 this time delay working well

 

[MnFish1]

Hi Blake thank you for posting this work thread is really collecting lots of jobs we can look back and inspect

my recommend for the mb7 cycle is this

add in about a third of the bottle now and three pinches of finely thumb ground flake feed then let it run 20 more days. Do a full water change or at least most of it on 29th and you’re cycled. Mb7 is the slower cycling option compared to Fritz, and the only ammonia test we have here is not seneye, so that’s the known completion time. If you had seneye we could pinpoint a sooner date

we can see from post 462 this time delay working well

I was under the impression that cycles complete within 10 days? this is confusing (to me)

 

[brandon429]

MnFish I had directly asked you not to wreck or steer my personal made work threads into arguments, I asked for zero posts from you in my built work threads. I assessed a longer cycle here due to mb7 and I didnt want to rush, if this was Fritz it’d be different. I’m directly asking you not to post in my threads, send a chat if you want clarity on something. of course we’re both free to post in others threads on cycling back and forth.




click my name, select ignore so that we don’t cross paths in posts. I honestly try to never post on a thread you made equally, I’m willing to give exactly what I’m asking.

 

[BlakeFL]

Hi Blake thank you for posting this work thread is really collecting lots of jobs we can look back and inspect

my recommend for the mb7 cycle is this

add in about a third of the bottle now and three pinches of finely thumb ground flake feed then let it run 20 more days. Do a full water change or at least most of it on 29th and you’re cycled. Mb7 is the slower cycling option compared to Fritz, and the only ammonia test we have here is not seneye, so that’s the known completion time. If you had seneye we could pinpoint a sooner date

we can see from post 462 this time delay working well

Any issue with switching to Fritz? I don't mind spending a little extra money to speed up the cycle.

 

[MnFish1]

MnFish I had directly asked you not to wreck or steer my personal made work threads into arguments, I asked for zero posts from you in my built work threads. I assessed a longer cycle here due to mb7 and I didnt want to rush, if this was Fritz it’d be different. I’m directly asking you not to post in my threads, send a chat if you want clarity on something. of course we’re both free to post in others threads on cycling back and forth.




click my name, select ignore so that we don’t cross paths in posts. I honestly try to never post on a thread you made equally, I’m willing to give exactly what I’m asking.

This post just showed up on my timeline from the person you’re talking with. I read their question and your response. No. To answer your question. I won’t go back to every thread for which I get a notification to see if you are the OP. But I will respond to the person as compared to responding to you directly. As I have already tried to do. The one exception will be when you interrupt another persons thread and I disagree with you. Have a good day.

 

[LRT]

Report it Brandon its that simple. Its the only way its going to stop..
You where clearly quoted in that post no matter how its twisted lol
The mob mentality and wreckless destruction of other folks threads has to stop.
We are for sure seeing behavior pattern and common denominators now.