Updated cycling science trends in 2023

[brandon429]

This thread is intended to discuss current trends in reef tank cycling and to predict + track changes in reef tank cycling science compared to prior years of observation

*Post any cycle challenge from any reef board on the internet for a quick alignment. cycles do not stall, starve or take 3 weeks to complete nowadays anymore than songs you download require 45 minutes per track like they used to. Cycling has sped up exactly like internet speeds have increased.


****NON DIGITAL test kits you use in cycling are misleading you bigtime, that's the heart of this thread***

Here is the predecessor

Updated Cycling Science thread 2020

Thank you for posting! That's one reason brs offers the four month cycle buildup, agreed that curing out during coral loading is mass headache

www.reef2reef.com

we applied those rules from 2020 to run other people's reef tanks we can look back on today.

The trend since well before 2020 is that nobody has been failing their reef tank cycle, none are stuck or stalled, the animals were alive the day they posted in cycle cases where animals were present, such as fish added during the cycle with bottle bacteria.

we are saving discussion about non digital test kits for later, at the beginning here we want to simply look at groups of people who posted cycling tanks and observe the outcome: could the tanks carry fish that acted normally, swam normally, fed normally?




What we want to reflect on in pattern here is the fact uncycled tanks can't carry bioload and daily feed and handle animal waste, while cycled tanks can.

We think that fish are sensitive enough to display when they're ammonia burned, the disease forum diagnoses it off opercular rates and flashing behavior, aerotaxis, and we know in updated cycling science those same diagnostic tools apply to reef tank troubleshoots

we can no longer claim fish in cycles are burning fish until we see posts of those fish exhibiting burn symptoms, that's the trend I'm observing today.

I think readers are going to find a lot of arguments in cycling posts about what a non digital test kit says, this is why we haven't been using the kits in our work threads these last several years.

Testless reef tank cycling is fully developed now, and running, it's not experimental. Any one of several active threads will process a reef tank to-be-built and state the date the system can carry fish, before it's cycled, without using test kits. 2023 is evolution in reef tank cycling, it's not about stammering around with non digital kits any longer

it's not about an arbitrary open-ended wait for ammonia control to establish, the ways we copy one another lend ammonia control usually the same day the reef tank is built. it's how reef tank conventions handle all those costly displays with fifty grand or more in animals. full reefs, on the showfloor, without waiting 30 days for the ramp up.



consider this chemistry forum post below, how many confounds to you see that affect nondigital ammonia test kits? what has this done to cycling, before 2020? why didn't cycle umpires who worked cycle troubleshoots in 2015 tell us these factors?

Reef tank cycling, purchase expenditures all paid a price literally and for a long time when cycling was solely factored off what a non digital test kit says.

what has been the impact to bottle bac sales by millions of people believing their cycle was stuck>?

Can this bacterial phenomenon be explained?

As part of a experiment on the effects of decomposition of organics I’ve added a defrost shrimp (5g) to a vessel with 100ml of tank water containing a very small amount of carbohydrates. The goal of the experiment was to analyse the ammonia rise from the shrimp and the slow decomposition...

www.reef2reef.com

Seneye and digital nh3/nh4 ammonia test kits are shaping the view on cycling science and evolving it. any reef cycle umpire on boards must be able to reference digital studies of ammonia control or provide their own findings as they troubleshoots a tank's readiness to carry bioload, the old ways of solely using a non digital kit are dialup internet in a world of fiber

it should be noted that reef tank cycling is a niche subset of our hobby not allowed to evolve, we're still told by peers to expect 2-4 weeks for ammonia control

the truth is, that's not true, and to rush disease preps is the true crime. The fish disease forum here shows the real concern in reef tank cycling, it's not ammonia or nitrite issues:

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

Disease preps for soon to be stocked fish are the real focus in cycling for 2023 and beyond.

-Try and find any study ever made showing a reef tank, stacked in rocks, failing to cycle on a calibrated digital ammonia kit by day ten and post that link. (calibrated means it reads within spec on a running reef tank, before it's used to make inferences about cycling)

use google scholar if needed, search, try and find examples of a reef aquarium display that isn't able to carry fish on day ten, let's see if they're using one of the main methods. *please don't grab a study from scholar that is not specifically a reef tank display failing to cycle and try and link the two. I'm using actual reef tanks to hone the science, I expect for counter proofs to use actual reef tanks just the same, plus digital calibrated ammonia testers like Hanna or Seneye.

-Any of Dr. Reef's bottle bac study threads using seneye cover fish in cycling, using updated measures, there isn't a burn in effect for fish noted.

-any seneye owner who calibrated their device and put it in a reef tank, during any phase, can state how fast ammonia control happens and whether it wanes during running of the tank

-the fact all the fish are alive when posting cycles-to-come, or present cycles. there aren't any tanks failing to carry bioload means something in 2023 and beyond

 

[brandon429]

feel free to scan internet reef forums, find a problematic cycle, and send them here for a troubleshoot, we should add new jobs to this thread and test the method live time in another new work thread using other people's reefs. post any aspect of reef tank cycling you can scour from the internet, let's run it on a reef tank and observe the results.



Here is a nearly forty page work thread, solely using other people's reefs, to track the outcomes from testless reef tank cycling using no test kits

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

non digital ammonia test kit readings (api, Red Sea, nyos, seachem badges) make you think you aren’t cycled when indeed you are if you owned a $200 expensive seneye meter, you’d never be doubting your cycle status. since .01% of the reefing population owns these, we need a way to help the...

www.reef2reef.com

I don't use the test kits, people still post them anyway because that's the trained habit. the decisions we make about when a tank is ready come from pictures of the tank, and from how many days the tank has had water in it. Notice among all those tanks: everyone's cycle was done before they posted unless they were posting before the actual build began

It's not possible to claim that reef tank cycles stall when we just did three years with 100% safe bioload carry and no cycles took longer than ten days, any of the ways they want to present.

when seneye spot checks of the method turn out 100% safe, that means something about a method.


The next iteration of that thread will be a three days max wait, we just wrapped up three years of ten day waits above. reef tank cycling is evolving just like internet speeds and computer memory evolves

ammonia and nitrite control are not a concern in reef tank cycles, disease planning is all the concern. reef tank cycling is 99% preparing for fish disease and 1% making an effort to bring water bacteria into the tank of water, that sets the cycle.


Old cycling science posts do not discuss disease preps, they have reefers focus for weeks on end instead the 2 parameters we never had to worry about, old cycling science kills more fish than updated cycling science does, this is a beneficial evolution.



This thread is on it's third year tracking false cycle stalls in completely post-cycle running reef tanks

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

the impacts of non digital ammonia testing carry over even to five year running systems, notice the theme in this thread---all normal running reefs and fish, a panic post help call, and a non digital ammonia test kit as the sole cause of every case. that's nine pages of straight false alarms, no digital testing for ammonia present

notice a trend?

 

[brandon429]

Benthic clues in reef tank cycling as a replacement for direct testing, using digital or nondigital ammonia kits:

one fascinating evolution in cycling is that any dry rock setup running long enough to develop the classic cyano or diatoms or hazy green algae inclusions was already cycled for basic ammonia control before those benthic clues appeared

it means in a large portion of cycle troubleshoot posts, we're seeing rocks with algae or cyano claiming to be not cycled, this isn't the case (any seneye owner knows)

you are going to hear the term benthic succession frequently in maturation/cycling discussions, its a term from marine biology and our reef tanks encounter it...we have been using that in cycle identification a long time now in the work threads, it's a very handy process. if we get some cycles to work here, that clue system will factor in the diagnostics.



there is a very good chance if someone is reading this thread, it was posted to them as a read to discern if their reef tank cycle is stuck: it is not, your tank will carry fish just fine and they won't display the symptoms of being burned by ammonia, its because your ammonia control was easy to establish, only the testing method is misleading you

 

[brandon429]

What is the # thing we need in 2023 and coming years to lower the rates of bottle bac sales sold to 'remedy' stuck cycles?

We need buyers, the people walking around the convention, owning seneye machines or any other digital meter uploading to the internet their actual ammonia measures starting day one


we must replace the millions of logs on file of a reef tank cycle requiring 30 days to earn ammonia control, stated by non-digital kits, with the new updated findings anyone with a seneye knows.

eventually a point of trust will come, where we can stop buying these costly ammonia meters because we all know what stacking rocks in the middle of a display and swirling fast water across them causes, but to undo this massive massive trend of overselling bottle bac for false stuck cycles it's simply going to take more digital test kits being used to discern truth

we also need our chemistry forum pros doing reef tank cycles, in reef tanks, and reporting on those with digital kits of one brand or another.

*we need a chemistry author to produce and write updated studies using seneye or hanna machines if possible

We need a measurement revolution to speed along the evolution of reef tank cycling, the procedures and purchase rates it commands will change when digital measures are the reference and api and red sea take a back seat in telling us what water bacteria are doing.




________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Acclimation errors are usually the first insult fish encounter in a new system, so plan accordingly

we see a stark trend in pet stores holding fish at .017~ water to keep disease suppressed in the cramped holdings

aquarists take those fish home many times, and bag float them for an hour to acclimate, beginning ammonia stress inside the holding bag as it floats to equalize temperatures

in some cases the reefers then net over the fish into the display, sometimes as high as .025 salinity and that's a massive jump in salt levels + potential initial ammonia burn to the fish due to holding conditions

Jay, in the fish disease forum, says any jump that high is directly risky to fish/it's a guaranteed stressor.

Reading the fish disease forum to discern best acclimation practices solves this issue in new tank cycling setups.


We discovered before 2023 that other factors to the side of ammonia and nitrite are the concern in reef tank display cycling.

 

[brandon429]

if I use live rock will I still have to cycle my tank

They say you’re supposed to wait 6 months or something like that to get corals, so that way you rock and filter get established. So I’m wondering if I just buy a whole bunch of live rock that’s already been cycled will I still have to wait?

www.reef2reef.com

This thread above shows there's work to do. It shows that the masses still haven't trained on skip cycling to be able to use it as an effective reefing tool.

Buyers who walk around a reef convention aren't sure of updated cycling science, but the sellers are.

That sales gradient is shown at work above.

Sellers are the ones with full running reef displays at the convention, fully stocked fish and corals and live rock on day one who skip cycled into the convention, and will skip cycle unsold materials right back home with 0% loss


Only buyers which make up the bulk of online cycle umpires refuse the art of skip cycling, this is beneficial $$ to the sellers


Old cycling science is the buyer reading this post thinking right now: yea but a reef convention only lasts five days, the cycle didn't have to last long. Any form of expiring cycle fear is trained old cycling science. Reef tank skip cycles do not stall, spike, stop, mini cycle, quarter cycle, they simply just skip cycle

Sellers simply just skip cycle full running displays because they're not buyers they have the apex information and that's solely what updated cycling science is after.


Look at this thread in contrast to the one above. I estimate this to be two million dollars worth of other people's reefs enacting skip cycle science during rip cleans. Is it -really- possible to handle reefs that long on bad science, anecdote or luck? Is anyone reading able to find anywhere on the internet another tank transfer thread like that, so we can compare methods?


Have there been any macna podium talks on skip cycle science?

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

How do sellers get huge instant display reefs to the convention? They take a running reef apart, handle the sand separately from the rocks and animals, and put the reef back together in another place *twice* (coming and going from the convention) and that's exactly what we've been doing for eight years in the sand rinse thread. That is an updated, TESTLESS, skip cycle control thread still taking on new jobs today. We didn't test at all for fifty pages, we controlled all skip cycles for everyone. Free of charge, free of hesitation, see the pattern in total contrast to the panic thread examples.



***Bottle bac sellers, purveyors of biobricks and mb7, don't want you to have the apex information they want you buying four different bottles of bacteria for a single cycle attempt*****


If buyers think api .5 means stuck cycle they'll buy two more rounds

If Red Sea owners think .2 means stuck cycle, like in our ammonia alert misread thread above post #2, they'll buy prime and several bottles of bacteria plus bio bricks to hopefully save their tank: this is a fleece in action.




@BRS you should use your resources to make seneye- based experiments on the things you sell. Show a change in ammonia control in a reef display by adding to or subtracting from any number of bio bricks in a common reef display sump, and attach those results to your YouTube page that sells a hundred thousand biobricks a year for you.


Let buyers see digital trending regarding the surface area you sold them, play fair in marketing.

 

[brandon429]

Upgrading Tanks-Do I have to recycle the new tank with same filtration?

I'm considering upgrading my 20g H to at least a 75g and was wondering if I transferred my filter, sand, and rock will I have to recycle all over again or will it do a mini-cycle in half the time? Can I mix the new sand together in a bucket or should I layer the old sand above the new sand and...

www.reef2reef.com

How does advice in that thread above square up with updated skip cycling science here below:

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...

www.reef2reef.com

Studying the disparity in cycling information and purchase impulse between those two threads is exactly why updated cycling science exists.


Buyers walking around the convention have doubt in their cycle, they buy something to feel better.

Buyers think 30 days is required to handle ammonia control but those fully stocked reefs they see weren't there 30 days ago, the trick is standing right in front of them they just don't see it.


Sellers standing right in front of them with full running reefs all ready by last Friday, no stalls, have the retail items ready to help with that doubt plus they use marketing like this to keep the sales gradient going:

Look what brightwell wrote about perceived loss of filter bacteria during tank cleaning towards the end. At least they tell you it's perceived vs truth... perceived by your api or red sea ammonia kit at .2

after all, nobody using a seneye has to support their original cycling bacteria during a tank cleaning and we never added any during fifty pages of rip cleans during the sand rinse thread.

You are seeing plainly the marketing in action that depends upon buyers being trained to doubt what water bacteria do in a reef tank. A huge sales and procedural gradient is at work, studying that is updated cycling science 2023

 

[brandon429]

Anything that is not part of the sales engine will be claimed to be anecdote, poor/unrepeatable science

Why is it that BRS, brightwell, or reefing sages aren't using the legit agreed upon science to run work threads using other people's reef tanks? They should have no trouble managing fifty pages of cycle help posts or designing tank moves and swaps and upgrades using objective orders of operation anyone can copy



They would never risk their profit margins nor would they risk encountering a non- compliant outcome in a live-time job. Getting hands dirty and being accountable for live time results isn't part of the sales machine.

 

[GatorGreg]

Anything that is not part of the sales engine will be claimed to be anecdote, poor/unrepeatable science

Why is it that BRS, brightwell, or reefing sages aren't using the legit agreed upon science to run work threads using other people's reef tanks?

Because that's against the gradient.

They would never risk their profit margins nor would they risk encountering a non- compliant outcome in a live-time job. Getting hands dirty and being accountant for results isn't part of the sales machine.

I actually have a conspiracy that that's why these big online reefing companies are pushing dry rock so hard. It's not about sustainability in the oceans. Especially when it's man made aquaculture leases that are taking rock from the land and marinating it at the lease site for months or years. How does that harm the ocean? It dont! They've probably seen a correlation in their sales compared from when everyone was buying ocean rock from their brick and mortar LFS.

They probably LOVE when reefers. Especially new reefers. Are plagued with year 1 and 2 problems with dry rock. Look how many products and gidgets and gadgets it allows them to sell to remedy the problems that the sterile "pest free" environment they promote is creating. I got news....most dem pests are going to br coming right back in your tank via CUC, frags and fish. You can dip all you want but you ain't killing them eggs.

Ok put it in Qt for weeks or months. What you gonna do? Throw all the frags away that you just bought that are now compromised and break down your QT and re-cycle and assemble because a pest made it via a frag? Are there people actually doing this? I applause you if so. I'm lazy and uneducated about reefing. So there is that I admit.
Every tank that I have seen that left me in awe because of its beauty had some kind of pest or algae problem. They just manage it.


What they don't tell you about those glistening beautiful 10 and 20 thousand dollar systems they feature. Is that they're probably plumbed into matured systems and or have a sump filled with aged media or mature live rock. Which is why they can start with dry white rock and sand and at month 8 have it filled with expensive fuzzy sticks that their buddy *insert massive coral dealer* gave them for free for a plug in the video. Then you come here and see countless builds of regular people trying to emulate those videos and have the laundry list of problems. Every day. It never fails. Of course there are the reef gods on here who could go outside and fetch some ditch water from a sewer plant set up a tank and in 2 months be growing out a homewrecker frag. I'm talking about the normal pleabians in the community like myself.

Look at the tanks that WWC start up when they do feature videos. They build the setup and pack it with 5 grand in coral almost immediately. I watched one where they have rock that's literally locked in a caged area behind bars im. Not kidding......youll never be able to buy any of that rock its not for sale. I believe that rock is a huge part of their success. Not the 100s and 1000s of dollars of remedies their buddies company is trying to sell you.

Rant officially over

 

[brandon429]

I can understand how my posts on cycling are in line with that reason

I don't know how to alternatively interpret these conflicts that come from authoritative sources on cycling, and if there's a better way to interpret them I'm open to hear it.


Summary of cycling conflicts stated vs found in web posts anyone can search out:

-told in a youtube video from macna speech that nitrifiers aren't found in reef tank water. User Tuffloud here proceeds to set up a dry rock, dry sand, no bottle bac no feeding given extra 200 gallon setup and cycle it ONLY with reef water from his running reef within twenty days. He then moved the whole reef into that new one. The truth: perhaps nitrifying bacteria/ classic nitrosomonas and nitrobacter aren't found in water samples (they're found on surfaces) but several alternate strains of bacteria that process ammonia just fine surely do exist. Its possible to easily cycle a reef tank using solely reef water, free of charge, given twenty days... why is that left out of the podium talk


- why is careful testing, open- ended wait times and 100% belief in anything a non digital test kit says the given method to the masses but sellers at a reef tank convention use testless guaranteed skip cycle science and don't need the bottle bac they sell to do it? Where's the macna talk on that option, it's free and reliable. Just talk about pure cycle control vs hopeful hesitant and verifying 5x over cycle control, that distinction is fascinating. Buyers who can't fathom skip cycling is an option want that talk, so that legitimate permission is given from the professional reefer talk and the practice isn't viewed as useless anecdote.


This one is for the readers, and -in favor- of what bottle bac sellers have been telling us a while now: the initial use of bottle bac to bring up dry rock systems is the legit use of bottle bacteria: it doesn't burn your fish with ammonia or they'd be acting burned vs completely normal in every searched fish- in cycle you can find. The risk is bringing in disease to your tank by skipping quarantine and fallow, the risk isn't ammonia burning. You can clearly see in tracking fish-in cycles the fish loss comes later via crypto or the common maladies

 

[carguy4471]

If the above is all true, can we show side by side readings from a digital ammonia test vs an API? I'd like to see that all the analogue tests are off. That should pretty easily provide undisputable evidence of everything stated above.

 

[brandon429]

ok here's one, api showing dark green and a calibrated seneye showing .04:

New Cycle - Seneye vs API

Hello All, Have just started to cycle a new DD ReefPro 900. Am using Fritzzyme Fishless food and Turbo Start and am 2 days in. I have dosed twice with Fishless food on the back of the seneye readings which are as follows: But the API result seems to be showing a different story. I`ve seen a...

www.reef2reef.com

100% of chemists, reefers, scientists, board posters would say this is a proven factual lethal level of ammonia, and it's actually .04 nh3 on a fully running reef tank years old, per the thread:

 

[brandon429]

back to reef tank work, live time, where if someone's tank dies I'm to blame but if they keep living I need 1000 pages of repetition to prove success

Look at what we just did for Humu's tank as the final entry here, he skip cycled twice over and we did this massive cleaning job with no bottle bac and no testing:

Old tank syndrome is vanquished in reefing now

Gordon as you may know I hate DSBs. But if you want a UG filter, the ones sold don't have holes in them. They have thin slits which wouldn't clog with gravel and the slits are thin enough to prevent most finer particles from going under neith them. As I said, mine was good for 40 years. Of...

www.reef2reef.com

the point of that entire thread is how we have vanquished old tank syndrome in reefing using skip cycle rip cleans.


and if that's doubted, maybe it won't be by page 50 again ~ it's barely page 8. those are big, deep jobs though and if I searched this entire reef site I can't find hands off methods doing even two pages of that work.

*people who make cycling rules don't actually have to handle tanks live time to make those rules: we are going to change that.


in every thread I post: we don't use testing we use updated cycling science to predict what ammonia will do, ahead of time. we don't use bottle bac ever, unless its for a dry rock start. one time.

 

[brandon429]

@carguy4471

I can understand how we base success solely on what test kits say, we all did at one time. I'd ask for a fair read of my actual work threads, it's not possible to handle this many reef tanks using a bad rule. Let's say I didn't have that quick comparison test I just posted above handy...that wouldn't mean I was making up these rules.


These rules are how I remotely run all this reef tank life $ in work threads linked here


there's a bigger picture to analyze vs just what test kits say. outcomes matter the most...I humbly request any doubts to base them on a faulty outcome and if it's all good outcomes, consider that we're evolving reef procedure live time.

**anyone claiming to upend established cycling rules should be vetted and verified extensively, I appreciate that part for sure. scrutinize away.

the single best way to test updated cycling science is to send work jobs live time right here where the reef owner agrees to follow the order of ops already listed in these threads so far. we will customize the job right here, no planning, using no testing and no bottle bac typically. I'm fully accountable for the outcome.

Someone go find a stuck cycle post at reefcentral

send them a private message to come here to this thread let me work their cycle live here. I would do that myself, however reefcentral did not permit updated cycling science posts in 2014 -- they kicked me out of the playpen for stating that api .25 is a misread since that was a mere anecdotal claim and not published science.

I noticed lately it's not debated much that .25 on api is a misread...

that's always how change goes down, gotta lose a couple twenty year name badges to get that updated cycling science locked in.

 

[carguy4471]

ok here's one, api showing dark green and a calibrated seneye showing .04:

New Cycle - Seneye vs API

Hello All, Have just started to cycle a new DD ReefPro 900. Am using Fritzzyme Fishless food and Turbo Start and am 2 days in. I have dosed twice with Fishless food on the back of the seneye readings which are as follows: But the API result seems to be showing a different story. I`ve seen a...

www.reef2reef.com

100% of chemists, reefers, scientists, board posters would say this is a proven factual lethal level of ammonia, and it's actually .04 nh3 on a fully running reef tank years old, per the thread:

I appreciate the link and the photo. Now this whole thing has my attention.

With that said, I am a scientist, although my PhD is in psychology so it's of little use here. My better half on the other hand has her PhD in organic chemistry. I'd be very careful about saying 100% of chemists agree with anything. The fact is that is never the case (I've learned this the hard way in discussions with her). While it looks like you are doing great work I think speaking plainly about your findings rather than hyperbolically is a great way to keep everyone interested and engaged in the work you are doing.

As I said, I really appreciate your link and am now very interested in doing some reading. That is such a wild difference in test results that it is almost difficult to believe. As I'm soon to start a new tank after a few years off of reefing I already know I'm going to be investing in digital testing, even after only having read a small about of the source material above. I'll likely be investing in multiple testing options so that I'll have the means to compare and contrast. The above work has already had an impact on this novice reefer.

I'm going to be following along on this thread and as time permits going through the linked source threads. Thank you for such a timely response and the photos to really drive the point home. Keep up the great work!

Lastly, since I am still in the planning phases for my new tank let me cross off any cycling bottled products and instead ask what tests you recommend. I see the seneye brought up a lot above. Are there any others you recommend? Triton, hanna, or any others? And although after going through the linked threads above I may find it but do you have a clear and concise write up on your current preferred cycling method?

Much thanks!!

 

[brandon429]

I do that to rile up chemists so they'll take offense then post me some tank challenges


agreed fully to that assertion!

 

[brandon429]

I want to shortcut the typical discussion on cycling for you, the testing and bottle bac and instead recommend you build a tank with true skip cycle live rock from here, any source that provides these kinds of rocks that are instantly ready:

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...

www.reef2reef.com

reasons why:

no cycle hassle

instantly brings your tank up to age vs you taking 3 years to turn white rocks into that


prevents dinos

safer for fish than white rock starts

skip cycle transfer rocks are the best rocks in reefing and better than ocean sourced rocks as well, more control over hitchhikers and they're already cured down to what reefs support.

 

[carguy4471]

I do that to rile up chemists so they'll take offense then post me some tank challenges


agreed fully to that assertion!

Could anyone elaborate on how an NH3 test vs an NH3/NH4 may differ?

 

[brandon429]

I have no idea, maybe someone will chime in. That's good discussion material glad you posted, helps get some momentum

 

[xabo]

Was having issues with rocks leeching phosphates, dinos and red turf algae that I could not get rid of. Pulled all of the rock and soaked in muriatic acid for 6+ hours. Rinse the rock, set out to air dry. During this time the rock was rained on twice and snowed on once.

Let the rock air dry again for 4 days. During all of this vacuumed the $h!* out of the sand bed and drains the tank of all water. Placed the rock into the tank(225 gals.) and dosed with 32 oz. of Turbo Start 900. Waited for water to clear and added fish this past Saturday. Today Seachem ammonia wheel shows zero and Hanna Nitrate HR shows 46 ppm.

Fish are swimming around, eating and looking fine. Do I wait for nitrates to drop or do a water change?

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

I just started a new tank with rocks ive had 20+years.. they were phosphate bound so i "cooked them" for the last 2 years. I put about 120 lbs of my "old "rock in with 15 lbs of newer corraline covered rocks from my existing reef and added 6 clowns the same day .. i dont use test kits but nothing has died and its been 6 weeks. I only worry about ammonia in fish only tanks, anything with alot of live rock seems to work itself out by itself.