Advice for cycle new tank

Samwilliam · Oct 10, 2023

I used fritz turbostart 900 for my 75-gallon saltwater tank. I had dry rock with live sand around 40 pounds and I used ammonia Dr. Tim’s in a bottle to cycle the tank. It has been set up and running for almost 10 days, I did water changes twice to lower ammonia and nitrites, here are my levels:
my nitrites are at 3.0 ppm,
nitrates at 40 ppm,
and ammonia at 0 ppm.
Should I add more ammonia to feed the bacteria or add anything else to lower the nitrate and nitrite?

brandon429 · Oct 10, 2023

No that’s good it’s all done. That’s two day bacteria given ten days, cycle is good and done.

Samwilliam · Oct 10, 2023

brandon429 said:
No that’s good it’s all done. That’s two day bacteria given ten days, cycle is good and done.

I was very frustrated, afraid that I had done something wrong

brandon429 · Oct 10, 2023

The change in rule is that we don’t care what nitrite reads, the old system used to care but it’s chemically neutral in reefing so the new rules exclude it’s measure and simply focus on ammonia and how many days the tank has been running

the real issue is fish disease preps not the cycle, the bottle bac makers have that part covered. Disease preps run independent to the chosen cycling method and are very tedious, many new posts on disease losses can be seen and sourced from just this week alone to show the price of skipping fallow and quarantine preps

jda · Oct 10, 2023

Nitrite interferes with nitrate test kits. Don't worry about nitrate for another month or two, if even then.

Nitrite is not toxic to marine fish at your levels. It can be at higher levels but there is little chance that you get there. Nitrite can be toxic to inverts. It has always been this way. You can likely never test for it again and be OK.

If ammonia is low, then you are good to slowly and smartly progress with some fish. Your tank likely can handle a small amount of fish waste, but the cycle is not done-done as in cycled. It is just past the first part where you can handle some ammonia and some nitrite. The tanks is not done getting a breath of stability through the cycle where it can handle a large influx or a dynamic event. Your tank will not be through developing for many more months, but you can progress along with it. Thinking that you are done with anything and rushing can be problematic.