Time for my first water change?

[ridgeburyreefer]

I’ve been cycling down for almost a month,

my ammonia has gone sky high and come back, my NITRATE has gone sky high come back down to around 10ppm and is again high(160ppm)

my nitrites has gone high, and has remained there.

is my cycle complete, and just needing a water change?

 

[JosephM]

How are you completing your cycle? Dry rock, cured live rock, uncured live rock, bottle bac, ghost feeding? I think for a proper answer we need that. Personally I would do a water change with that high of nitrites and nitrates. I believe it would at least bring the end of the cycle closer

 

[ridgeburyreefer]

I used bleach cured live rock, live sand, dr Tim’s ammonium, and microbacter 7, and later in the cycle added two pieces of live rock from a cycle tank I got from an LFS cus they were nice rocks.

 

[Rubberfrog]

A month in, it's definitely time for a water change.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

You are cycled and don't let anyone tell you any different. Nitrites are non toxic in marine systems so a large WC now can bring nitrate levels down to the 5-10 ppm we aim for. Enjoy the new tank!

 

[JosephM]

You are cycled and don't let anyone tell you any different. Nitrites are non toxic in marine systems so a large WC now can bring nitrate levels down to the 5-10 ppm we aim for. Enjoy the new tank!

Did you see how high is nitrites are? If he were to throw an invert in right now it would most likely die and if he went with a fish probably. With live rock his best bet would've to be doing daily water changes or big water changes every couple days, the goal would've been to keep the life on the live rock alive. Although the good bacteria is still probably alive.

 

[ridgeburyreefer]

Also I should note I do have diatoms showing, just to give an idea where I am in the cycle lol

Did you see how high is nitrites are? If he were to throw an invert in right now it would most likely die and if he went with a fish probably. With live rock his best bet would've to be doing daily water changes or big water changes every couple days, the goal would've been to keep the life on the live rock alive. Although the good bacteria is still probably alive.

i actually have 10 hermits that have been cruising around for the past two weeks, didn’t lose any, several have changed into new shells, they are really quite happy. ‍

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Did you see how high is nitrites are? If he were to throw an invert in right now it would most likely die and if he went with a fish probably. With live rock his best bet would've to be doing daily water changes or big water changes every couple days, the goal would've been to keep the life on the live rock alive. Although the good bacteria is still probably alive.

The reduction in ammonia and visible nitrate are really the only concern here. A large WC about 50% and the nitrites will continue to drop (again these are largely non-toxic in reefs). @brandon429 has a stockpile of threads with very similar circumstances.

 

[ridgeburyreefer]

Just to help visualize, I do have diatoms started, I turned the lights up to snap a pic

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Did you see how high is nitrites are? If he were to throw an invert in right now it would most likely die and if he went with a fish probably. With live rock his best bet would've to be doing daily water changes or big water changes every couple days, the goal would've been to keep the life on the live rock alive. Although the good bacteria is still probably alive.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php#5

Interesting article. Nitrite testing in a marine setup is just retail trying to convince us to buy more bottled bacteria.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Did you see how high is nitrites are? If he were to throw an invert in right now it would most likely die and if he went with a fish probably. With live rock his best bet would've to be doing daily water changes or big water changes every couple days, the goal would've been to keep the life on the live rock alive. Although the good bacteria is still probably alive.

Edit; I see that folks have already pointed out that nitrite is not toxic in marine systems.

 

[dmy535]

Did you see how high is nitrites are? If he were to throw an invert in right now it would most likely die and if he went with a fish probably. With live rock his best bet would've to be doing daily water changes or big water changes every couple days, the goal would've been to keep the life on the live rock alive. Although the good bacteria is still probably alive.

Most test kits will show nitrites when nitrates are present because they use similar testing so nitrites will react when nitrates are present. It’s almost like a false positive. But a WC like neon rabbit suggested will bring the nitrates down. The tank is fully cycled, especially with the addition of the live rock.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW, the nitrate is likely not nearly as high as you think. Maybe little to none at all. Nitrite can falsely read as 100x in nitrate (1 ppm nitrite reads as 100 ppm nitrate with some kits).

FWIW, it is not worthwhile to measure nitrate in the presence of significant nitrite.

 

[JosephM]

Edit; I see that folks have already pointed out that nitrite is not toxic in marine systems.

Is it really not toxic? that's new to me and very interesting

 

[brandon429]

its always ok to uphold the old way and wait wait wait, that's no harm at all.

but as Neon mentioned, you're ready

past a cycling chart timeframe/ 30 days.

you've added ten day bacteria.

you've seen ammonia movement down, nitrite was neutral in the evaluation

you are seeing clean new growths from benthic organisms that bring the first depositions onto your rocks, having that visual change alone would have let us infer all the other details above even if those were left out and only a pic was provided, that's why you're cycled.

the test kits are reporting interference with all the spiking that's went on, but ammonia is indeed safe and that's all that matters, and the test actually looks closer to zero ammonia above than most test kits from api show, nice one.

change out some water because its algae potentiated, not that its harmful (or it would smell bad, it smells normal Ill bet all chips)

any animal you add right now will live in the tank, change water to reduce algae and the uglies.

the live rock portion added was skip cycle ready and already inoculated all the other surfaces with its cast-off bacteria given 20 days alone. this tank is cycled due to excellent wait time and redundancy of import for bac.

*there's no harm with anyone wanting to wait out nitrite like the old days, that's no harm.

the reason for the new ruleset for cycling is just to impart total control to home reefers like LFS owners always seem to have total control over their animals/able to keep losses within spec to earn a profit even with high turnover rate. lfs owners never have trouble with cycles stalling, never ever. it would affect the bottom line poorly if they did.

or to be totally in control like the entrants at huge reef conventions. cyclers on forums tend to take a backseat with being hesitant, the new rules simply elbow in some even handed performance expectations for everyone.

I fully believe natural nitrite converting bacteria aren't ready by the start dates we use, but it just doesn't matter as we've seen on Randy's chem posts. if this was planted tank cycling, it would matter greatly.

nitrite systems catch up in reefing long about when a cycling chart shows too, but our testers may not show.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Is it really not toxic? that's new to me and very interesting

The very high chloride concentration competes with it for the same transporter uptake into tissues like gills.

 

[brandon429]

and what's also amazing is we don't see it harming any other animals, gill-less ones too

cleaner shrimp lysmata are about the weakest most intolerant of change animals we keep, high nitrite isn't even burning them or causing any symptoms at all in our exacting start date cycle posts (where ammonia is controlled but nitrite probably hasn't been given sufficient time yet)

nor corals of any type, nor snails from the clean up crew

total neutrality, it seems.

 

[ridgeburyreefer]

So a cleaner shrimp wouldn’t be a good one for me to get in terms of inverts next up? I’m making a mental list of whose next up, I’d like a few more inverts was thinking of a cleaner shrimp but if now not a good time I’ll wait

 

[brandon429]

those are the most sensitive creatures we keep pretty much, he'll be a heckuva cycle verifier for $30

acclimate him carefully should work just fine.

yes I do believe all animals w be ok but those are sometimes held off on until general stability is verified like topoff, water changes, pumps working etc. I believe he will be fine in the tank given those basic parameters, general stability etc.

I have no concern for free ammonia in that tank whatsoever as it sits now.

 

[Dan_P]

I’ve been cycling down for almost a month,

my ammonia has gone sky high and come back, my NITRATE has gone sky high come back down to around 10ppm and is again high(160ppm)

my nitrites has gone high, and has remained there.

is my cycle complete, and just needing a water change?

Who knows what nitrate level is with very high nitrite level. The reading is probably meaningless.

As for high nitrites, yeah the nitrite oxidizing bacteria seem very slow to establish themselves. I am not arguing about whether a high nitrite level is good, bad or neutral. I will say, traditionally speaking, your system has not established a nitrification capability. It only has an ammonia oxidizing capability.

I have just started running experiments on establishing nitrification in small aquariua. I also found the nitrite oxidizers to be sluggards. A month and they are barely doing their job.

If you find away to get the NOB’s working let me know. I will try just adding more Biospira.