first saltwater, dry rock, cycling with pure NH and seneye

[yougo]

Hey everybody

So im going to detail here my first build and most of all my cycling process with the seneye sensor. Im at my first salwater experiment but have been for close to 20 years into freshwater. This is the 3rd time i am using ammonium chloride to start a cycle in a tank and as im getting used to it it make that one the easiest for me so far.
So lets start with a little look at the set up

I used a 72 gal bowfront marine land aquarium

To wich i added a sump of 20 gal

and refugium of 35 half full also used as my overflow backup.

I builded those out of lexan polycarbonate 1/4 thick, i used methylcetate to fuse it and than made a seal out of cyanoacrylane gel and baking soda, covered with GE silicone 1200 (i had the polycarbonate and wanted to make it work) it is really strong and my test in water and hot water showed the seal to be as strong and stiff as epoxy.

I think keeping the skimmer off is just the best during the cycle to be sure 100% of my bacteria stays into the water and im letting the socks get as dirty as they want

The ATO system is directly connected to the city water system wich is pumped underground in mountain and read a constant 0ppm for the past 4 years. It also explain why im running 12 freshwater tanks aside this new one and wanna go even bigger as we start breeding many species with my girlfriend.
Return pump flow at 800 GPH and i have a 1200 gph powerhead installed . The overflow is custom made out of glass by myself and help aerate my water (trying to lower PH slowly)

I have put 40 pound of arag alive pink fiji sand in my sump and 40 pound of arag alive black Hawaiian sand in the display tank. For the aquascape i've used around 50 pound of dry marco key largo rocks (10 were flat cut) and followed a lot of the BRStv trick to get a flow and different level for a multi species reef tank, hoping to be able to have SPS LPS and softies in one tank...

So the tanks was filled with water on the 23 april 2023, salinity set at 1.026 using instant ocean reef crystal.

Waited 2 days to dose my ammonium on the 25 april. I dose at 2 ppm according to redsea regeant test. i find it work faster by not reaching the limit bacteria can tolerate (in freshwater though) i dose faster later as you will see

got my seneye set up by april de 28 using a compac PC i found for 80$ on amazon, set with the probe on a different system for it so i can now use my cellphone app wich is a bit more annoying than on the pc itself as the app get one reading every 30 minutes where the PC is instant live reading all the time .

Using the seneye made me discover a new variation to the cycle wich is different reading to NH4 and NH3. The first stable reading i got were NH4 4.3 ppb (wich is 0.004 ppm) and 0.035 ppm of NH3 (note here that my red sea reagent test still test 2 ppm nh3/nh4)

I actually dose 20 ml of microbacter7 and 20ml of microbacterclean daily and today on 5 of may , 10 days after i dosed first ammonium, i got a seneye reading of 0.005 ppm of NH3 and the NH4 is still stable at 4 ppb. Red sea test is lower than 0.2 ppm. I have a high nitrite (over 1 ppm) and nitrate just started to show for the first day at a low 2ppm color wich mean all the beneficial bacteria started to grow .

At this point i need to dose again to feed them. So today on 5 of may i added a new 2ppm of ammonium regarding red sea test. I do get a really similar reading at 0.036 ppm NH3 and 4.31 ppb NH4 with seneye. I did crank up my heater a bit hoping to get 24°c tommorow

My PH is high but as everything seems to be in harmony i decided to let it be at least during cycle. The 90% water change at last day may make it better i hope.

No light during cycle to avoid bad algae growth. Only for picture and they are not well installed yet. The cabinet will also be covered after cycle

Tanks info :
72 bowfront display + 40 running under cabinet
Day :12
Red sea reagent test reading :
Dkh: 9
Cal: 400ppm
Mg: 1380 ppm
Sal: 1.026
PH: high 8.95 low 8.7
Nh3/Nh4 : 2 ppm
No3 : <1ppm
No2 : >2ppm

Thanks for pointing stuff i may not understand properly, there is so much to learn here . I honestly can feel that i may end up switching my monster freshwater tank to reef one day ... Even with a empty tank. The geek in me is just enjoying that complex ecosystem care

 

[UkiahTheTurtle]

Nice details! Anyway exited to see how it evolves!

 

[yougo]

Nice details! Anyway exited to see how it evolves!

Thanks ! Doing my best as french to be easy to understand too

 

[yougo]

So 36 hour later i have seen my first drop in NH4 , ph is still stable but really high. I am at day 1

0.030 ppm of NH3 and 0.0031 ppm of NH4

What **** me a little bit is that my red sea reagent test 1.5 ppm of ammonia at te moment and seneye have a reading of 0.06 ppm...

Anyway. Im going to let bacteria eat all this NH and wait for the no2 to increase drastically. Normally after the second dose is fully consumed i wait 2 days before adding a 3rd, so nitrifying bacteria will have time to take over and dont stall the cycle

Too much ammonium to fast turn in NO3 and thats where the cycle can stall if you reach over 10/15 ppm of it

There is no light since day one so no algae growth at all !

 

[yougo]

Day 15 into cycle

Ammonia start to drop a lot faster , with a 0.010 drop within 24 hours.

Got my temperature at 24°c , ph is high but stable CA at 400 and MG at 1380

NH4 has fluctuate and came back to 3.3 now

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Aquascape looks great in your tank!!

 

[yougo]

Aquascape looks great in your tank!!

Thanks ! Its my first aquascape in salwater and i must say that this video from BRStv was such a great help.

Ive been upgrading my skill in freshwater previously .

Here my 125 gallon in the kitchen
3yrs old

 

[brandon429]

How did you prep the slides for the seneye, they can't just go right in/ need prepped how did you get the slides ready

 

[yougo]

How did you prep the slides for the seneye, they can't just go right in/ need prepped how did you get the slides ready

I followed the recommended way to do it from seneye, using the little paper/stocker inside and fit it with water on the sensor.

First time ive put my finger on it and have scratch one reader with my nail . I changed the slide for a new one with extra care to see the reading is the same . On the picture highe in the post you can see the peak it made as the new slide take a couple hours to stabilise reading .

 

[yougo]

Today upgrade

Day 16 into cycle .

The NH3 dropped of 0.02 in 24 hours , wich represent over 1ppm on the red sea reagent test wich actually showed light green almost yellow 2 hours ago ( then my seneye was reading 0.003. now its at 0.001) NH4 stay pretty stable

The nitrite show over 1ppm (limit of redsea reagent test) and nitrate have passed from 2 to 5 ppm in 2 days.
Im going to stop feeding nitrosomonas for 2 or 3 day and let the nitrobacter reproduce and reach at least 10 ppm of nitrate before next dose of ammonium as i can't see where my nitrate stands. With high 02 and good temperature it can double each day (3 ppm in 2 days , so tommorow i expect em to have digest and produced 4 ppm of nitrate and 8 the day after) i will the feed 2 more of ammonium and i think i should be done by day 22 to 25 and be able to nitrify 2 ppm of ammonia per 24hrs.

With the temperature higher, 02 level went to 8.3 wich is 120% saturation oxygen in water

I have noticed a drop in alk and Mg , that i guess is due to my high ph , or it may be due to bad testing procedure , those red sea are messy and i see many moment i can loose precision . I also lost salinity wich i assume is because of the close to 1 liter taken for test in the past 16 days.

Ph : 8.82
Alk : 7,4dkh
Mg : 1280
Nitrate : 5 ppm
NH3 : 0.001 ppm
NH4 : 0.00385 ppm
02 : 120%
Salinity 1.025

Tested my cheap budget light (viparspectra) to test the par meter of the seneye and see what it says about my light, it is located on top of my aquascape where i plan to add sps

Wondering how the red spectrum illustrated may influence my future coral.

 

[yougo]

Day 18 into cycle .

For 2 day my reading have been weird. My red sea test is also going up and down and confirm what my seneye say
-- i have had unwanted spike of ammonia during night into my aquarium .

Yesterday it went up to 1.5 ppm on redsea test, and 0.040 on my seneye , nh4 was lower to 0.030 wich explain IMO the lower value on my red sea test but i cant explain why my nh3 is rising by itself as we have not added any source of it. My only possible explanation is it could be dry rocks leaching ammonium 2 weeks later tomorrow i will take off the sock and see if it helps .

Im into a fishless cycle and havnt added any ammonium chloride since day 12, My calcium has drop to 350 as my alk is 9.2 dkh and mg 1280 ppm . Ive just added some white vinegar to drop my PH . I realized the baking soda ive use with CA glue to make it epoxylike is probably the cause of that high PH

Nitrate are still increasing wich mean to me that my cycle is about to be done. Im close to 10 ppm .

Im just affraid that this unwanted ammonia leach may bring my nitrite to an uncontrollable level. Planning to make a big 80% water change this week end ...

 

[brandon429]

Rocks can’t store ammonia nor nitrate

test kit drift can’t be ruled out

are you soaking the slides for 48 hours before using in the seneye

 

[yougo]

Rocks can’t store ammonia nor nitrate

test kit drift can’t be ruled out

are you soaking the slides for 48 hours before using in the seneye

I havnt soaked em , thats not what they say to do ? I have seen readin going off in the first 24 hours after slide change though ... Ph and nh where drastically unstable. I fit the slide in place under water as the user manual say to avoid air being trapped, but not soaked em. So far i use reagent test daily to confirm reading of my seneye , for me if both fluctuate to a similar point its hard to say its a bad reading.

I have to investigate where is that NH3 source is from ...

 

[Propane]

Awesome kitchen tank!

 

[brandon429]

The 48 hour soak in tank water must be a custom prep people worked out here

try a new slide that way next time you change slides

the ammonia isn’t rising nightly

what ammonia does is always predictable

it’s the most predictable compound in all of reefing to the degree we don’t even need to test for it although that seneye you bought, when tuned, can be used to make fantastic views into cycling science that no other test kit can do

Request for seneye owners to use their calibrated meters to conduct bucket reef experiments and change reefing.

these meters can be used by hundreds of people to generate new cycling science rules at a massive rate. let chatgpt pick up the results and you'll evolve reef tank cycling science tenfold. you have the meters you can already see using seneye on your home reef nh3 control isn't a concern re aim...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[yougo]

the ammonia isn’t rising nightly

what ammonia does is always predictable

it’s the most predictable compound in all of reefing to the degree we don’t even need to test for it although that seneye you bought, when tuned, can be used to make fantastic views into cycling science that no other test kit can do

As it never raised without addition before in my fishless cycle in freshwater.

I cant believe , after the past 14 days of reading , and after having the curve of a cycle that ive experienced with paper and api test on freshwater , that suddenly , because i have not soaked it 2 weeks ago , that my seneye suddently start false reading . With 2 spike of ammonia 2 days in a row , with stable reading and slow rise and decrease of ammonia.

Isnt it is supposed to be used to see if anything goes wrong ?

I mean , whats the goal of defending it and the science behind it if you claim the reading of it is false ? Mostly if its confirmed with a regeant test ?

Here everything that went in my tanks so far :

40 lbs caribsea fiji pink live sand
40 lbs caribsea hawaian black live sand
60 lbs dry rocks marco largo key
2 dose of 2.5 grams of pure NhCl day 2 and day 12
14 dose of 20ml microbacter7
14 dose of 20ml of microbacterclean

Unwanted spike of ammonia showed up at day 17 and 18 (yesterday and today)

Socks have been cleaned every 3 day or so ,

I did added 100 ml of white vinegar today and it dropped my PH to 8.6 . May add a bit more tommorow to reach a better ph closer to 8.4

 

[brandon429]

Repost results after the 48 hour soak prep, then we revisit whether it spiked at night without any cause. You can’t benchmark a brand new seneye on a cycling tank with no slide soak step although yours is darn close to accurate even having skipped the step.

you’re using a device that people on here have been tuning and finding adjustments on for about six years, I’m relaying these unknown tweaks to you. Here’s a thread on seneye misreads

yours isn’t tuned yet, see Ingchris posts on software trimming

A thread tracking the incidence of seneye nh3 misreads

My Seneye isn’t reading pH or ammonia correct and they are sending a new unit. My question is with a bad unit is the par meter wrong also?

www.reef2reef.com

Yours is untrimmed so far, but still very good. Don’t let the minor spikes make you doubt the cycle, your cycle is done and your nh3 is running in the thousandths ppm not the hundredths. Cease using the Red Sea, api, or any other non digital ammonia kit for any basis at all here they’re totally unreliable. People get massive spikes as misreads on those kits by merely moving rocks around inside a cycled tank.

 

[brandon429]

the rule from updated cycling science is firm, and verified by trimmed seneyes on cycled tanks

*when you get the initial drop of ammonia, after or before day ten of the lead up wait after adding feed and bottled bacteria, ammonia goes into the thousandths ppm in a reef tank and doesn’t rise up


that’s been known fifty years, before seneye, and for proof consider Google or find in any old biology book or fisheries book where the ammonia line from a cycling chart rises back up, after it drops, by day ten

Here’s thirty different charts

see what ammonia does

 

[brandon429]

I can see you’re just shy of ten days after adding bacteria, but you’re beyond ten days after water and feed=ammonia and you had cycling bacteria in the tank after you filled it with water. You’d have to use boiled water to have no cycling bacteria, natural contamination provided a small boost right on day one of the fill. Bottle bac provides a boost, that’s a lot of surface area in the system for them to grab onto, and you’ve already registered the drop we see above.


the best thing you could do for your cycle is add one small ground up pinch of flake food (carbon) and feed the bacteria carbon they can’t get from just ammonia.

you’re now in the fish disease planning stage, no more concern over cycling. If you add a fish here soon without preps, your tank is instantly infected with disease. you have a choice for fallow and quarantine coming up, to apply them or skip it


your cycle is as good as done. your seneye can be used for the cycling proofs I posted prior once your tank is stocked a little bit, the slides have been 48 hour prep soaked, and it’s reading .001-.005 ppm nh3.


your ammonia will never be unpredictable in this tank ever again, it can’t rise unpredictably unless dead fish are left in the tank to rot, rocks or sand doesn’t hold ammonia to be released. Only a rotting fish carcass, protein denaturation, will release it.

 

[brandon429]

hey what's the update here. nice to see comparisons between seneye and the common kits

where is your nh3 now on seneye