6 days in and still no Ammonia

Hemlawk · Mar 2, 2017

I plan on using a shrimp and bio-spira. That seems to work for lots of people

buckroe07 · Mar 2, 2017

I'd put the shrimp or what ever food in the filter sock or where there is high flow. That way the shrimp or what ever food item deteriorates faster and causes the cycle faster.

buckroe07 · Mar 2, 2017

I use Dr tims bacteria also.

Bosko777 · Mar 2, 2017

[emoji106]

FishLover01 · Mar 2, 2017

I would start the cycle with regular household ammonia. Just make sure when you shake the bottle, it doesn't foam. Pure ammonia only!!! Keep putting in teaspoons of ammonia until you get around 4ppm, no higher. After that, let the tank do its thing and you should have a nitrite reading in about 3-4 weeks. Even with ammonia, it's about a 5-6 week process to fully cycle the tank.

lazlodawg · Mar 2, 2017

Using liquid ammonia to cycle a tank is the best! I used Blue Ribbon brand ammonia from Ace Hardware. It was REALLY cheap, like 3 bucks for a gallon and is a solution of 3.5% ammonia. It was very easy to use the ammonia calculator at https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/AmmoniaCycling.php to figure out what ppm to target to start the cycle. I started with a target of 2 ppm. Once that was down to just about zero, I dosed enough ammonia to get it to 4 ppm. Once that was zero, I repeated my ammonia dosing to 4ppm until the bacteria population was high enough to go from 4 ppm to zero in 24 hours. Presto - cycled tank.

macnets · Mar 2, 2017

I also recommend dr tims bacteria and ammonia. 4 drops per gallon to get an exact reading of 2ppm.

Bosko777 · Mar 3, 2017

Ammonia still at 0 this morning. After reading brandon429's article I'm feeling I might not go through a cycle. The reason being, I start with live rock and sand. I still have open ears out here in Texas.

Brew12 · Mar 3, 2017

Bosko777 said:
Ammonia still at 0 this morning. After reading brandon429's article I'm feeling I might not go through a cycle. The reason being, I start with live rock and sand. I still have open ears out here in Texas.

Nitrate is going to be your key indicator. If you start building nitrate but don't see ammonia you will know you can "skip cycle".

Cory Kaiser · Mar 3, 2017

look into ammonium Chloride for salt water start up, I used it exactly as the instructions stated and it worked perfect. NO living creatures until the full cycle completes. Its tough to wait it out but rushing will cause you a lot of heartache down the road. I did a 32 Bio-cube this last go round, dont have my notes in front of me but i believe it was around day 24 for full cycle and day 30 for the algae bloom, everyone's time will differ some obviously but i was very happy with the result, now i have a happy tank with a strong bio load.

brandon429 · Mar 3, 2017

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tampa-bay-saltwater-live-rock.245819/

There is an analog to our current thread

that is the business of selling and shipping skip cycle rock across the country. add no ammonia there...in fact, we take anti-ammonia measures there compared to dry rock cycling, which gets the ammonia.

Verifying anything with ammonia or nitrate testing is harmless and good fun. we just like to be able to make predictions about what needs to cycle and what doesn't so in the end we can predict what our tanks will do and act within strong but safe boundaries

their line of business is a helpful model to see how opposite the application of ammonia can be based on the type of substrate one cycles. to even begin a cycle, we have to discern between two opposing sets of rocks, to know which one gets the juice

FishLover01 · Mar 3, 2017

lazlodawg said:
Using liquid ammonia to cycle a tank is the best! I used Blue Ribbon brand ammonia from Ace Hardware. It was REALLY cheap, like 3 bucks for a gallon and is a solution of 3.5% ammonia. It was very easy to use the ammonia calculator at https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/AmmoniaCycling.php to figure out what ppm to target to start the cycle. I started with a target of 2 ppm. Once that was down to just about zero, I dosed enough ammonia to get it to 4 ppm. Once that was zero, I repeated my ammonia dosing to 4ppm until the bacteria population was high enough to go from 4 ppm to zero in 24 hours. Presto - cycled tank.

Finally, somebody that knows how to cycle a tank-lol. I cycle similar to you but I start with 4ppm. Bottom line is it doesn't matter how you do it as long as ammonia goes to 0ppm after having a nitrite reading which should also eventually go to 0ppm and a nitrate reading with acceptable ranges anywhere from 5-20ppm. I like the way you.cycle though.

Haim · Mar 5, 2017

Bosko777 said:
Thx for the advice. I am a little scared to do the straight ammonia. So I guess I will try some fish food first. Thx

The way is to use abaut 20-50 gram raw sea fish and after 3-6 days when the ammonia is high take it out from the water.

lazlodawg · Mar 7, 2017

FishLover01 said:
Finally, somebody that knows how to cycle a tank-lol. I cycle similar to you but I start with 4ppm. Bottom line is it doesn't matter how you do it as long as ammonia goes to 0ppm after having a nitrite reading which should also eventually go to 0ppm and a nitrate reading with acceptable ranges anywhere from 5-20ppm. I like the way you.cycle though.

Thanks, FL1! I started my tank with live rock and didn't want the ammonia to go so high that it killed off some of the life on the rock. Unfortunately, the "life" of my live rock was mostly aiptasia and bryopsis. I'll not use live rock on my next tank, just dry rock from a quarry. I'll seed it with bottled bacteria and cycle using ammonia like before, but I'll be able to increase the bacteria population by raising the ammonia levels higher until it drops to zero in a day. I'm not sure what a good target would be when using just base rock. Maybe 5-7 ppm? How high should someone go with just base rock do you guys think? I figure at that point the tank would be able to handle any amount of livestock I wanted.

Bosko777 · Mar 7, 2017

Well these guys seem to be right about the live Rock. I woke this morning with hundreds or copods on the glass. Thank goddess I didn't kill them with high ammonia. This Reel Reef Rock seems to pretty awesome.

Bosko777 · Mar 7, 2017

I'm on day 12, I have not added anything to the tank yet.

Ashish Patel · Mar 7, 2017

Add 1 raw shrimp. Once u see ammonia spike remove it and let nature run its course. Also add some nitriying bacteria such as instant ocean brand. Real reef is clean

FishLover01 · Mar 7, 2017

lazlodawg said:
Thanks, FL1! I started my tank with live rock and didn't want the ammonia to go so high that it killed off some of the life on the rock. Unfortunately, the "life" of my live rock was mostly aiptasia and bryopsis. I'll not use live rock on my next tank, just dry rock from a quarry. I'll seed it with bottled bacteria and cycle using ammonia like before, but I'll be able to increase the bacteria population by raising the ammonia levels higher until it drops to zero in a day. I'm not sure what a good target would be when using just base rock. Maybe 5-7 ppm? How high should someone go with just base rock do you guys think? I figure at that point the tank would be able to handle any amount of livestock I wanted.

I wouldn't go any higher than 4ppm ammonia. To do so could destroy any good bacteria. That's not a fact, it's my thoughts and gut feeling.

Brew12 · Mar 7, 2017

FishLover01 said:
I wouldn't go any higher than 4ppm ammonia. To do so could destroy any good bacteria. That's not a fact, it's my thoughts and gut feeling.

You are close. Bacteria growth can start slowing at 5ppm and can actually start being killed off at 10ppm.