Water changes during cycling?

[NaturalDisaster0]

Hi folks,

I'm in the process of setting up my first saltwater aquarium. I'm currently on week 4 of the cycle process and after testing water pretty much every day since i started cycling the tank i was pretty shocked to see my nitrite and nitrate suddenly maxxed out on the color reference sheet. My nitrate is showing 160ppm and its basically blood red. My question is was i supposed to be doing water changes during the cycle process, or simply leave it alone until the system is completely cycled? I asked this qustion on Reddit and a Facebook group and got conflicting answers. "Don't touch it, you'll stall you're cycle" and "Change the water, or you'll risk stalling your cycle". Some input would be appreciated, thank you.

 

[brandon429]

you can easily change all your water for new and it will be cycled, as was done here.

study this example like yours, it'll change the way you see cycling. it'll remove the fear component.

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

how many gallons is your system

if you learn that thread your view on cycling permanently changes. for the better

while the random stew created and sustained for this long may indeed foul on those kits, as a wastewater assessment, a clean water assessment sure is a nice alternate option.

the trick was we didn't have to wait another month for the stew to clear. you can just rip it all out for new, and what's left behind is the functional slicks. don't re test ammonia like he did, just go and post us updates when you do add life.

 

[NaturalDisaster0]

you can easily change all your water for new and it will be cycled, as was done here.

study this example like yours, it'll change the way you see cycling. it'll remove the fear component.

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

how many gallons is your system

if you learn that thread your view on cycling permanently changes. for the better

while the random stew created and sustained for this long may indeed foul on those kits, as a wastewater assessment, a clean water assessment sure is a nice alternate option.

the trick was we didn't have to wait another month for the stew to clear. you can just rip it all out for new, and what's left behind is the functional slicks. don't re test ammonia like he did, just go and post us updates when you do add life.

Thanks for the input, ill give it a shot. The tank is the Fluval EVO AIO 13.5g.

 

[brandon429]

My goodness yay

not a 66 gallon

this will work great, that's about how big his tank was too. Excellent.
you are now testing updated cycling science and as long as you have rocks and sand to a common degree in your tank, like Jack did, by rule of cycle linkage given this many number of days we already know how your tank will fare.

hey can you post a starting tank picture here, so we can see your ratios of water/rocks / sand

we already have the time underwater factor, and that's the #1 most important factor of them all. just needing those final bits on surface area and we're underway for a fine test again.

 

[NaturalDisaster0]

My goodness yay

not a 66 gallon

this will work great, that's about how big his tank was too. Excellent.
you are now testing updated cycling science and as long as you have rocks and sand to a common degree in your tank, like Jack did, by rule of cycle linkage given this many number of days we already know how your tank will fare.

hey can you post a starting tank picture here, so we can see your ratios of water/rocks / sand

we already have the time underwater factor, and that's the #1 most important factor of them all. just needing those final bits on surface area and we're underway for a fine test again.

For sure. I got about 8-9 pounds of dry rock from my LFS. I went with sand over gravel since i liked the more natural look, theres about 2"to 2 1/2" of fine sand for the bottom. Other than that i replaced the stock light and made my own mesh lid for helping with temperature stability.

 

[brandon429]

excellent. those ratios are completely in line with typical nano cycles and what happened in his tank will work the same in yours. specifically if you add life to the reef after a complete exchange of water, after any sand settling has been given time to die down, the benefit of waiting a whole month in lead up was every surface in that tank is covered in bacteria ready to be worked.

much of what we do in start date assignment has to do with the timing already shown on cycling charts. of the three major cycling params, ammonia is the only one that burns and we're well past day ten here.

you can see in researching api and red sea test kits that misreads happen to a substantial degree, that's why we use new method now/gets those results above.

in addition here's 24 more pages of pretty much the same testing

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

All our reef tanks behave similarly given one month stew with the boosters we tend to add, the final big water change is how we balance it all out/handle those with heavy ammonia or who used Prime at the start etc.

 

[brandon429]

hey what brand of bottle bac did you use

we know from prior studies how fast each brand takes to adhere/they're all ready given this long but curious if it was Dr Tims bac or fritz etc or mb7

 

[NaturalDisaster0]

hey what brand of bottle bac did you use

we know from prior studies how fast each brand takes to adhere/they're all ready given this long but curious if it was Dr Tims bac or fritz etc or mb7

The only thing ive used was Dr Tims Nitrifying Bacteria on week 1. I added a protein skimmer about a week ago as well.

 

[brandon429]

perfect. its ten day bac. in the thread above we do the water changeout on day ten and start using that brand, or if they never did spike ammonia heavily we just add the animals on day ten and log the outcomes to see how it works.

we simply don't use the common test kit approach to cycle reefs in that thread because mis reads and errors in the test are as common as solid reads, cycling is precise when using digital testers so all our start dates are aligned with cycling charts and those digital measures from other tanks who in scale also used just that same degree of rocks and sand.

I specifically think if you had seneye it would show safe here, while the current kit shows pegged out.

Post #2 on that thread above has direct examples of this convergence reading among kits. I think your current nh3 would track in the low hundredths, but in case that's wrong the full water change is the parachute.

 

[NaturalDisaster0]

So just a quick update, i did a 100% water change and my test was still showing strong levels of nitrite and nitrate but ammonia was showing at a safe level like before. I didnt have any ammonia to do the experiment but i went to my LFS and had them compare my test results to theirs and their readings were much lower than mine. So i came home with the first fish today.

Have to say im a little paranoid that i feel like i cant trust my testing kit results right now but the fish arnt showing any signs of stress and even ate already. They havnt explored the tank yet but im guessing they will once they are fully settled in. Ill be keeping a close eye on them this week.

 

[brandon429]

I had to scroll up to post five to re see the surface area in play here

happy, set, I endorse this start date as safe and add this work link to the last page of our collection. The reason am adding now, vs in two months which many would consider better proof, is because we want the *prediction* on file how January is going to look, before January comes.

if that reef dies in a horrible cloudy mess I know you’ll let me know


and if January looks like I said it will, well heck let us know that too. Linking to the pattern study right now establishes accountability for disregarding those test kits. You just saw the lfs get a different number than yours, nice clue on why we moved forward here.

a perfect work thread, a clear start date, an inspection is in place thank you!

 

[discostew]

excellent. those ratios are completely in line with typical nano cycles and what happened in his tank will work the same in yours. specifically if you add life to the reef after a complete exchange of water, after any sand settling has been given time to die down, the benefit of waiting a whole month in lead up was every surface in that tank is covered in bacteria ready to be worked.

much of what we do in start date assignment has to do with the timing already shown on cycling charts. of the three major cycling params, ammonia is the only one that burns and we're well past day ten here.

you can see in researching api and red sea test kits that misreads happen to a substantial degree, that's why we use new method now/gets those results above.

in addition here's 24 more pages of pretty much the same testing

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

All our reef tanks behave similarly given one month stew with the boosters we tend to add, the final big water change is how we balance it all out/handle those with heavy ammonia or who used Prime at the start etc.

When doing such a large water change are you literally draining ALL the water out (exposing the rock and sand) and then adding it back?