Ammonia is not rising..help

[MoparManiac]

Started my 20 gallon tank about a week and a half ago with 10 lbs of live rock, 10 lbs of dry rock, and 20 lbs of sand. So far ammonia levels have been at a consistent .25 ppm. I've tried two test kits..should i do anything to add ammonia?

 

[MoparManiac]

Anyone?

 

[whatchamacallit]

Throw a dead shrimp in to start the cycle

 

[DiverGirl82]

I used household ammonia to start my cycle. There's videos on YouTube on how to do it. If you decide to go that route just make sure the ammonia doesn't foam up at the top when you shake the bottle. If it does then there's an additive in it that's bad for the tank.

 

[fish doctor]

Put any type of fish food in about 1/2 a teaspoon once
Keep skimmer off till tank cycles

 

[SAKTEK]

I have some extra ammonia that you can have. I used it to cycle my tank, I got it from dr. Tims booth at RAP! I live in Downey.

 

[MoparManiac]

Decided to throw a cocktail shrimp in there. Thanks guys!

 

[Reefrookie220]

I never did the shrimp, looks nasty and smells nastier. You can go to most hardware stores and dose janitorial grade ammonia to 2ppm once it can process that much in 12hrs your good.

Also microbacter7 is a product I highly recommend.

 

[Harold Green]

Be careful dosing ammonia while you have live rock in the tank. Too much ammonia may kill any life on the rock if it has any growing on it. Read up on ammonia dosing to learn how to do it properly. You can add any type of food that will break down into ammonia( shrimp, fish, even flake fish food). You can also allow the live rock to slowly seed the rest of the tank by adding a hermit or two and only a very small amount of food for them. Regardless of method the important thing is to allow enough time for proper cycling and to monitor the water for ammonia and nitrates before adding fish or corals. You can do it rapidly with large doses of ammonia or you can do it slowly without any noticeable rise in ammonia or nitrates. Each will work and that's why you'll get lots of different methods recommended to cycle a tank.

 

[MoparManiac]

I figured the shrimp in there for a couple days would do it

 

[brandon429]

+Harold.

Exposing the live rock portion to the ammonia is counterproductive but not destructive to live rock, it will oxidize large amounts. But we adapt animals on that pricey surface to no free ammonia (corals, crabs, feather dusters, stars, sponges, pods all the live rock items we pay for and good coralline. Mostly live rock is base rock sat in water for months and not diverse, not inclusive of lots of life just two spots of coralline if lucky)

Free ammonia is for dry substrate cycling. We pay extra for live rock so we don't expose it to free ammonia

Accurate cycling would say leave the dry rock in there to catch up add no ammonia. Plan the max bioload for the tank around the known live portion, the dry substrate just sits there.


Actually your type of tank is ideal for a fourth kind of cycling description update to this thread, will call it the blended cycle. It will fit exactly in line with the opposing treatments detailed in the post here

http://reef2reef.com/threads/new-ta...d-cocktail-shrimp-live-rock-no-shrimp.214618/


Adding bottle booster bacteria is completely ok and probably will speed up the dry rock cycle portion. The reason no ammonia needs to be added is because the live rock portion is a respiring collective

Respiration=ammonia down the chain in the exact micro amounts it takes for live rock to be self sustenant for a very long time

The dry rock portion simply takes on coralline and benthic castings from the live portion over time whether you speed it up or not. Blended cycling is a worthy division within common reef tank cycling approaches nice example here.

 

[brandon429]

The greatest question so far in this thread is where did the .25 come from

Was the live rock brought home hanging outside the car in the passing air

Huge and giant divisions begin in tank cycling if .25 equals no free ammonia due to low level reading test kit inability, or if true free ammonia is present. Consider this


post tank pics of live rock let's see if porous enough to house mantis hidden, or several large worms. Most live rock posted is base rock non porous and coralline spotted no place to hide. For the live rock to be leaking constant low level, it means a huge internal leak of dying organisms associated with highly diverse live rock is overcoming what the bacteria on the surface can process, which is a lot.



*persistent low level readings of true, free ammonia in reef aquaria signify large ammonia leaks, not small ones going on the microbiological basis that you haven't killed off your filter bed if all of the sudden an animal dies or an organic store decays*

That's important to consider in dealing with true low level .25 ammonia reef tanks or any tank. If a matured aquarium leaks .25 for days, among scores of aquaria who routinely pass digestion test verification of up to 5-7 ppm in 24 hours, then an easily easily seen source of ammonia exists need pics

 

[MoparManiac]

The spots on the back of the tank are just air bubbles from the screen on back

 

[brandon429]

Thats good detail pic, it calls the test accuracy in question but doesn't mean the test can't help one day to run digestion tests or other larger scale indications than .25

that is more class A rock from the thread based on surface growth indicators. That kind of cycling allows the keeper total control over hitchhikers as a benefit. No bryopsis is getting in there unless imported for example.

It is ok per the thread to raise ammonia in this tank, there is not an abundance of living material, it will seed in time as frags and various aged substrates are added.

 

[MoparManiac]

Awesome, thank you for all the help Brandon!

 

[Harold Green]

The industry really needs to come up with a better description for live rock. We have fresh rock that has most of the organisms on the surface still alive. We have cured live rock which can be fresh rock that has been allowed to cure in the dark for weeks allowing most surface organisms to die off. We have live rock that's basically dead rock thats been cured for weeks in a vat with something containing a small amount of bacteria to seed the rock. Then we have dry rock. The first three examples are all live rock but the appearance and cycling will vary by the type. It's common for lfs to have large amounts of dry rock that they place in their system and allow to cycle, then selling it as live rock.

 

[inetjnky]

And you have rock that is painted purple to simulate coraline and they call it live reef rock at my lfs but has no critters in or on it but is housed in a large tank of moving saltwater...

 

[jd371]

I never did the shrimp, looks nasty and smells nastier. You can go to most hardware stores and dose janitorial grade ammonia to 2ppm once it can process that much in 12hrs your good.

This is what I did. You're just basically waiting for the shrimp to do the same thing. Why wait and have to deal with the smell and gross gelatinous shrimp that has to be taken out.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Bit of a confusing thread. If you used live rock and live sand then there should be little to no ammonia and paeans should read as good. Assuming the rock is cured and actually live.
Bagged live sand contains lab grown bacteria and would eat ammonia. Like dosing stability etc.
so was there actually a problem to begin with.
No the bacteria and tank aren't mature enough for fish and coral probably but still. Kinda sounds like you lucked out and don't have to deal with a long start up.

 

[Harold Green]

And you have rock that is painted purple to simulate coraline and they call it live reef rock at my lfs but has no critters in or on it but is housed in a large tank of moving saltwater...

I haven't seen the painted rock in my area yet. Unless you plan a fish only tank you won't be able to see much of the original rockwork for very long in a healthy marine tank. I've had tanks that after two years you couldn't actually see any of the rockwork. What I like is being able to start with rock that already has sponges, clams, etc. growing on it to fill in while new corals are beginning to grow.