Why is my reef rock taking forever to cycle?

[brandon429]

*your ammonia tester isn't what tells you about the tipping point

its the cloud

the smell

the fish who must hover at the very top/even sideways if possible so a gill is as close to o2 as possible, since the gills are burned by literally any free ammonia that remains in the tenths. nh3 is utter devastation, exactly like kidney failure in dogs or cats, there is no time that free ammonia is present at unsafe levels as an 'irritant'

its lethal, in a day, when uncontrolled. that's why you can depend on a safe start, you have tons of surface area already passing the test. I estimate that set of rocks can carry forty fish, right now lol

though if you do that, crypto n brook...lol

that's how much nh3 it can control right now, though you've only brought in one fish.

*bacteria does not adjust to the number of fish your present during cycle, the full amount seats in place when using one fish, or forty for cycling.

that's a firm rule of surface area mechanics, though nobody in reefing would agree. does anything I ever type align with a greater rule set I ask you heh

the exact reason it works that way is this: your rock has X amount of available surface area, which is finite. ten fish or one still fills up all gaps when a cycling chart, not an ammonia kit, says it will. once the surface area is used up, benthic bacteria have no more attachment points and the biofilms are fully set/locked into place.

using one fish does not leave some spaces open to bac at day 30, they're all full at day 30 and using ten fish can't add more bac, the surface area is used up.

 

[brandon429]

about fish in cycling:

that dilution and bottle bac was safe, its why ten thousand a month pull it off, symptom free


the naysayers do not get to claim nh3 as so inconsequential that fish wont react. they'll be dead.

since its 2021 you can cycle with a fish if the bottle bac is alive.

technically you should pre test for ammonia oxidation before the fish, but they ship good bac nowadays so everyone gets away with the assumption.

 

[brandon429]

Disease vectoring is the risk, not nh3 lack of control. the fish aren't harmed, so they didn't act harmed.

 

[brandon429]

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's an entire reef and anemone setup on dry rocks within an hour (plus biospira, Brightwell or mb7 can't do it this fast) been alive a year +

 

[IsaiahS609]

Cyclin a tank with a fish, in 2021, come on man. You guys have been to the moon.

‍

 

[brandon429]

It's a legit unpopular notion on boards agreed

But I posted out in the general forum in our fish in cycling thread that bottle bac directions allow it and major companies like brs practice and endorse it. Can't blame someone for following retail rules written out. We in the hobby haven't provided any proof for the claim, that it's harmful, so they're winning.

 

[IsaiahS609]

It's a legit unpopular notion on boards agreed

But I posted out in the general forum in our fish in cycling thread that bottle bac directions allow it and major companies like brs practice and endorse it. Can't blame someone for following retail rules written out. We in the hobby haven't provided any proof for the claim, that it's harmful, so they're winning.

Thanks for all the info you’ve shared. I always thought that the concentration
or population of bacteria in the rocks depended on how much ammonia is being produced by the fish and only the amount that is needed. It makes sense because of all the surface area is covered the. There wouldn’t be enough food (ammonia) for the bacteria to go around? So how can a huge population of bacteria that CAN support 40 fish have enough to go around?

 

[brandon429]

Food gets in without our help, we're just adding to natural ability to feed

even if we don't add any food, some still gets in.

Cycling charts are about 80-100 years old they come from wastewater science not necessarily aquariums, they're written based on natural feed natural bacteria getting in all bodies of water, long before bottle bac or our offer of liquid ammonia. The two reasons we have sped up cycling away from 30 days are with concentrated bac, plus our feeding in addition to natural stores. The max time a cycle takes is 30 days, although people using non seneye tests reporting total ammonia vs nh3 won't agree.

One fish takes longer within 30 days to fill up the spaces than a cycle using more fish or heavy feed. But the rock only holds so much, it can't stack infinite bac to match higher fish loads and when a breakpoint is reached, we get the cloudy water and smell, crash, loss mentioned. Ammonia noncontrol events don't require any test kit to detect.

A common practice is fallow redo where people catch all fish out of a running reef to re- fallow the setup, to fix a disease outbreak.

The tank goes fishless 80 days and then all are put back at once after treatment for whatever disease was at hand

The system didn't lose its bacteria or crash when they came back due to these rules.
One fallow period is three cycling periods with an unmatched bioload, then all fish go right back in harmlessly.

Surfaces submerged trend within 30 days to full colonization with or without our feeding, this is the basis and nature of contamination. In the hobby we make use of this principle routinely.

You cycled with one fish, that didn't hurt him by overloading waste. Now your rocks can carry forty fish worth, because that's a lot of rock and surface area way past 30 days, just like the re fallow example. See how it all ties in

A cycle cannot be starved once set, they self feed forever because a home is a microbially- filthy place and if we stop feeding, food still gets blown in by the minute.
Bacteria from the home having nothing to do with reefing bloom and quickly die when they hit saltwater. They decay into ammonia

Gnats

Skin cells are good carbon source

Dander, what makes white blinds in an apartment need cleaning is all bacteria feed when hydrated

Dr Tim himself in a chat two years ago reminded us that major self feed comes from the water we prep. Lots of contamination bacteria still get in because this water isn't sterile, the holding containers aren't sterile nor our hands or aquarium parts. There is a hundred feed pathways for natural bac

 

[IsaiahS609]

Food gets in without our help, we're just adding to natural ability to feed

even if we don't add any food, some still gets in.

Cycling charts are about 80-100 years old they come from wastewater science not necessarily aquariums, they're written based on natural feed natural bacteria getting in all bodies of water, long before bottle bac or our offer of liquid ammonia. The two reasons we have sped up cycling away from 30 days are with concentrated bac, plus our feeding in addition to natural stores. The max time a cycle takes is 30 days, although people using non seneye tests reporting total ammonia vs nh3 won't agree.

One fish takes longer within 30 days to fill up the spaces than a cycle using more fish or heavy feed. But the rock only holds so much, it can't stack infinite bac to match higher fish loads and when a breakpoint is reached, we get the cloudy water and smell, crash, loss mentioned. Ammonia noncontrol events don't require any test kit to detect.

A common practice is fallow redo where people catch all fish out of a running reef to re- fallow the setup, to fix a disease outbreak.

The tank goes fishless 80 days and then all are put back at once after treatment for whatever disease was at hand

The system didn't lose its bacteria or crash when they came back due to these rules.
One fallow period is three cycling periods with an unmatched bioload, then all fish go right back in harmlessly.

Surfaces submerged trend within 30 days to full colonization with or without our feeding, this is the basis and nature of contamination. In the hobby we make use of this principle routinely.

You cycled with one fish, that didn't hurt him by overloading waste. Now your rocks can carry forty fish worth, because that's a lot of rock and surface area way past 30 days, just like the re fallow example. See how it all ties in

A cycle cannot be starved once set, they self feed forever because a home is a microbially- filthy place and if we stop feeding, food still gets blown in by the minute.
Bacteria from the home having nothing to do with reefing bloom and quickly die when they hit saltwater. They decay into ammonia

Gnats

Skin cells are good carbon source

Dander, what makes white blinds in an apartment need cleaning is all bacteria feed when hydrated

Dr Tim himself in a chat two years ago reminded us that major self feed comes from the water we prep. Lots of contamination bacteria still get in because this water isn't sterile, the holding containers aren't sterile nor our hands or aquarium parts. There is a hundred feed pathways for natural bac

Does anything change if I’m still getting a nitrite read? I tested today and the ammonia test looks teal and my nitrite is a light pink despite my water being clear and my damsel is eating. (I tested before feeding). Should I do a 33% water change?

 

[brandon429]

All my cycling links show to omit nitrite data, don’t own the kit. We show why in the threads on updated cycling science

so it factors zero, but that’s only to macna tank owners. All of forums would wait ninety days for all nitrite to clear and then some
simply choose your method of cycling and all ends are the same


the wait time differs, tremendously. How you cycle affects how long your reef lasts in an invasion challenge

I know that seems untrue, but it’s not.

hesitant cycling = something over takes your reef within six months because bacteria are seen as weak, therefore deliberate action to curb the invasion will be ruled out. The bacteria will die if you take action to rid an invasion, so only a retail purchase is allowed.
and if you follow the nuisance algae forum, you can see how dosing for invasions is working out.

The current method used here is going to elevate the risk of an invasion takeover due to restriction of action and hesitation due to mis testing. You need to be able to reef without cycling test kits if you want to be strong, you can reef off biological rules and not guessing misreading non TAN factored test kits.


google clearly shows other posts like yours that weren’t stalled, you can find the proofs other than my posts. The way you know is the test kit always causes alarm, but nothing in the tank ever does.

 

[Garf]

The bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate are slower to adapt to load changes in the water. Perhaps your low water volume is making it more pronounced.