Will I Ruin my Cycle? (Noob Question)

[BeanAnimal]

We may think alike - but I gave up (a long time ago) trying to dig my heals in and correct misinformation or argue with people who argue for the sake of argument.

This hobby always has been (and always will be) full of curious "rules of thumb", "reef bro science" and outright nonsensical information. Some of it propagated by participants of the hobby, and as much of it propagated by the vendors and 'experts' as well. Motivations vary, sometimes it is pure BS designed to sell stuff and other times it is just lack of understanding or people making stuff up the sounds good. I think most if it though is simply distortions that pass form one person to the next until they become something akin to urban legend or lore that is taken as science or fact.

Thankfully a lot of people learn and pass on good information as well. I gave up having drop down, drag out internet fights long ago.

 

[RockusDukakis33]

I loved Dr. Reefs research on bottle bacteria. Very thorough and balanced experiment.

I appreciate everyone’s advice, even those I don’t necessarily agree with at least caused me to pause and think through everything more and do more research.

 

[jabberwock]

Is there a "dumpster fire" emoji?

 

[BeanAnimal]

Is there a "dumpster fire" emoji?

I don't see a dumpster fire - do you?

 

[jabberwock]

I don't see a dumpster fire - do you?

Yes. Why would I just post that and not feel like this was a total mess of a thread?

 

[BeanAnimal]

Yes. Why would I just post that and not feel like this was a total mess of a thread?

When your only contribution to a thread is a back handed insult and a bit of snark to go along with it

 

[brandon429]

The ignore button is awesome, haven't seen a single offense so far

Totally normal thread from my view.

 

[Runnin'Reefer]

The ignore button is awesome, haven't seen a single offense so far

Totally normal thread from my view.

Thanks for jumping on this one haha. I'm not educated on the science of nitrifying bacteria enough to explain to people how it works

 

[brandon429]

Running reefer I thank you so much for posting

This thread got me a new algae correction job in private message just now.

I get to rip clean an algae infested tank using skip cycle science and add the after pics to my rip clean thread. Someone wants to let me remote pilot their reef back to gold look, that's fun, there's a demand market for the action


Not everyone who reads trainwreck threads think they're a wreck, neutral stance readers go to people's avatars here, they click 'find all threads' and they either see a post history of sideline evaluations or they see past history of working in hundreds of peoples reefs with a good outcome

They send private messages to the folks they think might help vs sideline them, evolution in reef practice continues privately where loud anti voices don't factor

@BeanAnimal

Having to endure arguments by people who would never make a work thread using other people's reefs/ money/ risk is the price to influence change in procedure on a large scale in my opinion

The armchair qbacks have the loudest voice and are the most resistant to change

If it were not this way, we'd all still be thinking a 25 gallon reef was the smallest that could be done, PNW would have no micro reefs to sell, there would be no jar reefs having fun on YouTube

Angry gatekeepers who don't cause change in procedure would stifle evolution in our hobby, somebody has to rib them mercilessly for combating that which they do not practice whatsoever

I've got time for that

 

[Rovert]

Clearly nobody is recommending buckets full, the wording was meant to highlight the point being made. Observing your ruffled feathers, I think you may have missed that point. I also did not advise dunking fish in ammonia

-There are many paths to a functioning natural denitrification system. I offered alternatives to the rather current "must bottle back and x y z" advice that I am seeing everywhere. There is nothing wrong with that methodology, but it is not the only way.

-You offered advice in a public forum, please don't be upset that other people's opinions, experience, or knowledge differ from yours and they offer advice as such.

But hey don't take my word for it - I only have 80 posts and may be new to all of this.

Exactly, the wording was dramatic. As to my feathers, I've dealt with far less civil than you so no, there's nothing 'ruffled' other than you seem to be going out of your way to find an argument. My point was that where I'm concerned, we ought not to be sacrificing fish for the purpose of a cycle which it seems you acknowledge. How we each get there is our own business, there are different modes and methods and I never once suggested that my way was the only way. Your reaction here seems particularly defensive. Perhaps your feathers have been ruffled, in which case, pay it no mind.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Islandlife

that’s an excellent perspective

trade shows is how we see what they do, how do they align 250 display reefs all ready by a Friday


with no extended wait cycle, like old cycling science advocate

that’s rows of fish, in reefs, one day setups, not being burned (clues abound we can see to discern fish harm vs fish health)


what are heavy hitters at macna, reef stock, aqua shella doing for 30 yrs

those are fifty thousand dollar reef displays at times

not just frag racks, am saying full reefs with live rock, some with dry + bottle bac starts who know enough about secret skip cycling to trust all their bounce corals


these cycles do not starve or run temporarily

every pico reef I’ve owned was a no test live rock skip cycle, like a trade show, and they run years on end. This recalls the rule that if a cycle is earned, it doesn’t retrograde or get weak or starve or stall

@brandon429, this is a good discussion, but there is a significant difference between setting up a tank with known live rock and using dry rock with bottled bacteria. The trade show analogy you used works because those tanks are set up short term. Kind of like shipping a fish or a coral, it would be really hard for a significant amount of ammonia to be built up in that short term. The real test IMO is how the tank and its inhabitants survive over the long term. If an entity such as WWC uses the same method to set up their in store display tanks as they do for a trade show, then yes, I would think that they trust that method for the long term. However, what they show in their videos is a set up that takes months to get ready, not really feasible for a weekend trade show. So, why do they have different methods? My current tank was set up about six years ago. I still have two of the three original fish as well as the first corals that I added to the tank. Can the same thing be said for trade show live stock. Do these vendors transport the same fish and coral for 6 years? I don't know, but I doubt it. Again, I'm not saying that you can't use dry rock and bottled bacteria and immediately add fish to your tank. What I am saying is just because the tank survives doesn't mean that the inhabitants were not harmed. That type of experiment would take years to prove with multiple blind tests and controls. Only then could you compare the life expectancy of the tank inhabitants to see if they were statistically identical or if one method produced better results in terms of life expectancy over the other.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Exactly, the wording was dramatic. As to my feathers, I've dealt with far less civil than you so no, there's nothing 'ruffled' other than you seem to be going out of your way to find an argument. My point was that where I'm concerned, we ought not to be sacrificing fish for the purpose of a cycle which it seems you acknowledge. How we each get there is our own business, there are different modes and methods and I never once suggested that my way was the only way. Your reaction here seems particularly defensive. Perhaps your feathers have been ruffled, in which case, pay it no mind.

You posted your opinion in a public forum. I commented in response, posting my opinion as well. You bristled and here we are. No argument. I already made my point.

Happy Reefing

 

[BeanAnimal]

@brandon429, this is a good discussion, but there is a significant difference between setting up a tank with known live rock and using dry rock with bottled bacteria. The trade show analogy you used works because those tanks are set up short term. Kind of like shipping a fish or a coral, it would be really hard for a significant amount of ammonia to be built up in that short term. The real test IMO is how the tank and its inhabitants survive over the long term. If an entity such as WWC uses the same method to set up their in store display tanks as they do for a trade show, then yes, I would think that they trust that method for the long term. However, what they show in their videos is a set up that takes months to get ready, not really feasible for a weekend trade show. So, why do they have different methods? My current tank was set up about six years ago. I still have two of the three original fish as well as the first corals that I added to the tank. Can the same thing be said for trade show live stock. Do these vendors transport the same fish and coral for 6 years? I don't know, but I doubt it. Again, I'm not saying that you can't use dry rock and bottled bacteria and immediately add fish to your tank. What I am saying is just because the tank survives doesn't mean that the inhabitants were not harmed. That type of experiment would take years to prove with multiple blind tests and controls. Only then could you compare the life expectancy of the tank inhabitants to see if they were statistically identical or if one method produced better results in terms of life expectancy over the other.

-You don’t NEED bottles bacteria to start a tank with dry rock, it is an option.
-Long term they will all behave the same.

 

[brandon429]

'are set up short term'

@IslandLifeReef

There are no expiring cycles

Don't try and make leaps for things you don't have links for, show these readers one example of an expiring cycle you've seen. That's a direct hint from you that skip cycle tanks at trade shows barely last till then end of the event.

Also, none of my tanks in that thread are short term, those are running reefs

We used trade show technique on reefs you can click on today, to see them still running, please address that gap you left

I'm aware of the difference between dry and live starts, I have large work threads using others examples for both kinds of setups.

 

[brandon429]

This is the same path Eli who is also aquabiomics, making tons of money off measuring bacteria for reefers, stated here https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/instant-tank-cycle.612166/#post-6155066

In my opinion Eli tried to set us up for cash based cycle certification.

I made it cashless and testless.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

'are set up short term'

@IslandLifeReef

There are no expiring cycles

Don't try and make leaps for things you don't have links for, show these readers one example of an expiring cycle you've seen. That's a direct hint from you that skip cycle tanks at trade shows barely last till then end of the event.

Also, none of my tanks in that thread are short term, those are running reefs

We used trade show technique on reefs you can click on today, to see them still running, please address that gap you left

I'm aware of the difference between dry and live starts, I have large work threads using others examples for both kinds of setups.

I think you are misreading what I am saying, or I am not doing a good job explaining. I have no arguments about using live rock for a skip cycle. I agree that cycles don't expire.

What the OP was asking about was using bottled bacteria and dry rock and immediately adding fish. I thought you said that there was no danger of harming the fish using that method. That method is a far cry from a skip cycle using known live rock.

This is what you said.

@RockusDukakis33

thank you for posting that I really miss that thread, miss being able to back edit more examples of successful fish-in cycles working fine all in one place and gain testimony from keepers where it worked fine, the taboo stuff most cycle umps claims isn’t working or is harming fish. BeanAnimal’s take on cycling matches our hundred thousand examples of successful non-burnt fish with bottle bac cycles


ammonia control isn’t something this hobby needs to worry about, disease vectoring is

there are so many fish-in cycles nowadays, hundreds of thousands of them, it would be nice to be able to reflect on them without folks wrecking my threads until they’re closed. It’s a form of science suppression=resisting inevitable change of procedure/ but in the end people are simply going to keep doing it, successfully, and even if my thread is locked preventing hindsight analysis it’s not going to stop folks from simply making their own pattern studies of the daily posts of fish-in cycles where no animals are harmed



from start to finish it was an analysis simply of why there’s so much success with fish-in cycles, all of them turn out fine, even the extreme examples

like this one, I dedicate this non-burnt, no harm, anemone as proof fish in cycle using NO bottle bac to Erin, and most specially, JDA:

How to cycle my biocube

So I’ve had my biocube 32g set up for about a week now and I put live rock and live sand in there and used imagitarium water from the pet store what should I add to the water to build up the proper bacteria to add fish and when should I do my first water change and about what percentage should I...

www.reef2reef.com

details to not miss there, relevant to my closed case study above:

wet sand alone cycled that reef and the fish wasn’t burnt

he didn’t even need bottle bac


100% of the cycles I collected in pattern before my thread was censored involved that same sand, plus bottle bac, and the cycle umpires still claimed it was burning fish so angrily until my retrospect study was stopped


yet more fish-in cycles continue everyday, and they’re all fine, and any of them tested on a seneye are fine too

closing one thread will not stop updated cycling science, it will force the change resistant forum peers to rethink their stance one day, but not soon

fish disease regardless of how we cycle is the concern

You also stated that there are numerous threads about this which proves your claim and a hundred thousand examples. I disagree. Just because there are numerous threads about a subject which support your point of view doesn't make that point of view true. I can find numerous posts on the internet that state that the earth is flat and they provide "evidence" to support their claim. So, does that mean the earth is flat? Is that science? The thread you linked above was started in January of this year and it looks like the tank was started about the same time. Do you think that proves long term survival of the clown fish? Does that prove long term success of the tank? Where is the science in that link?

So, just to clarify again, I am saying that just because a person can start a tank with bottled bacteria and immediately add fish doesn't necessarily mean that there is no harm done to the fish by ammonia as you stated. Citing threads with anecdotal evidence isn't proof IMO.

 

[brandon429]

There’s more of a chance I didn’t read thoroughly to get what you were saying

I live in a constantly primed state for peers to doubt water bacteria in water lol there’s both good and bad that comes from that habit

 

[brandon429]

Those are fair questions. you can’t leave your expiry date open though

make it specific

do skip cycles expire @ 4 mos then?

this thread isn’t when skip cycle began, I made all my reefs that way since 2001, on every forum

but that is this threads age, so, Im kicking up a few entrants to see if they made years. Takes a sec to get respondents

 

[BeanAnimal]

I think a lot of things get conflated in this threads. There are varying degrees of organic input that force the speed and size of the associated ammonia and nitrate spikes and speed of colonization. They all lead to the same place in oddly the same relative (with regard to the life of the aquarium) amount of time. Some methods allow livestock to be added very early but at a minimum and other methods may allow larger stocking in a shorter relative period. In the end you get to the same place.

There is more to a healthy system than just denitrifying bacteria. I prefer to take my time and let things naturally progress. It is not the "right" way. It is just a way.

As for the safety of fish. If it were me, I would not use bottled bacteria to force a large spike (let alone pour in fuel) AND add fish at the same time. I am not going to get into the weeds with ammonia levels and what is or is not safe as there are many variables (species, temperature, etc.).

 

[Garf]

Will I Ruin my Cycle?,​

No.​

I’m building my first tank and I have everything set up and ready to go. I plan on cycling the tank with live Carib Sea Agra Alive, Dry Rock, Fritz Turbo Start, and 2 Clown fish.

Will it be okay to have the Agra Alive sand and Saltwater running in the tank for a couple days before I add the Turbo Start and Clowns? Will not having the Ammonia source make the batería for dormant (does it work that)?

I want to make sure I get off to a good start so I appreciate the help!

I would add the turbo start now (and a bit of crushed flake ((to simulate fish feeding)) as advised for nitrite stall procedure on the fritz sales bumpf).

Do you intend testing for ammonia and nitrite for the initial weeks?
Did you use RODI water?, no chlorine, Chloramines?
Temperature and salinity control sorted?