ammonia levels not dropping during cycle

[gavinc123]

Hi all, Saturday I put in 4oz of turbostart 900 and a little bit of ammonia to help the cycle. I have been testing the water every day to monitor the levels and noticed that the ammonia levels haven't dropped since. I'm looking for some advice on what to do as i want to get my tank all done and ready for my fish to be transferred into the tank. Thanks

 

[brandon429]

All you have to do is this and nothing more

add two pinches of ground up flake food, ground into powder. Wait till this Saturday, change water, you’re done cycling, don’t test for ammonia again using non digital test kits, the cycle will be done.


as you do searches to see that non digital test kit samples can be misread, don’t think your chances are less. The bottle bac you used will be fine this Saturday, even if your kit doesn’t agree as we test this for years on end now. Simply do the big water change on Saturday and dont add fish until you pick a cogent disease prevention approach from the disease forum, read and self discover to find the one you want. The cycle will be done by the assigned date, put in the fish food now so the carbon and other nutrients speed things up. We specifically don’t need a cheap test kit to agree to know this works, so abandon using it.

 

[gavinc123]

All you have to do is this and nothing more

add two pinches of ground up flake food, ground into powder. Wait till this Saturday, change water, you’re done cycling, don’t test for ammonia again using non digital test kits, the cycle will be done.

how much water should i change? its a 40 gallon breeder

 

[brandon429]

90% is fine, it’s so you have clean low algae feed water. The ammonia won’t be bad then even if your kit says otherwise. That’s the top bottle bac and it’ll work fine by Saturday

 

[gavinc123]

90% is fine, it’s so you have clean low algae feed water. The ammonia won’t be bad then even if your kit says otherwise. That’s the top bottle bac and it’ll work fine by Saturday

ok thanks

 

[gavinc123]

90% is fine, it’s so you have clean low algae feed water. The ammonia won’t be bad then even if your kit says otherwise. That’s the top bottle bac and it’ll work fine by Saturday

also, i have a hob filter with chemipure blue, should i be running it right now? i dont have it on because i didnt want it to affect the cycle but if it would help i could turn it on to make it faster.

 

[brandon429]

It won’t matter one way or another, that’s no boost nor harm to the cycle. By now the bacteria have cast around and stuck to surfaces in the tank, the extra wait till saturday plus the feed and carbon boost and water change was just to handle any worst case scenarios

 

[gavinc123]

It won’t matter one way or another, that’s no boost nor harm to the cycle. By now the bacteria have cast around and stuck to surfaces in the tank, the extra wait till saturday plus the feed and carbon boost and water change was just to handle any worst case scenarios

so is the big water change necessary? just because i dont have much salt and would need to order some

 

[brandon429]

We do it because most people input 4x too much ammonia vs what’s needed

how much ammonia did you put in the forty gallons at the start

 

[gavinc123]

We do it because most people input 4x too much ammonia vs what’s needed

how much ammonia did you put in the forty gallons at the start

about .4 of a teaspoon (i used half a teaspoon measurement with a bit under the line for a full half teaspoon)

 

[GK3]

Hi all, Saturday I put in 4oz of turbostart 900 and a little bit of ammonia to help the cycle. I have been testing the water every day to monitor the levels and noticed that the ammonia levels haven't dropped since. I'm looking for some advice on what to do as i want to get my tank all done and ready for my fish to be transferred into the tank. Thanks

It’s likely an overdose of ammonia. With time it will change and come down, just may take longer than expected. I’ve done this before and it took a month. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just patience at this point. I don’t see any reason to run chemi blue. Just wasting media but won’t harm anything. My personal preference /experience is to wait it out and be 100% sure the tank is cycled fully. I don’t recommend a big water change to speed it up but that’s my experience. YMMV.

 

[brandon429]

Hey nice for sure thats ok really it is. No water change needed. I know it sounds crazy to disavow the test kit like we do but read this to see why:

New Cycle - Seneye vs API

Hello All, Have just started to cycle a new DD ReefPro 900. Am using Fritzzyme Fishless food and Turbo Start and am 2 days in. I have dosed twice with Fishless food on the back of the seneye readings which are as follows: But the API result seems to be showing a different story. I`ve seen a...

www.reef2reef.com

it’s not that all the non digital tests are bad, recent studies show how we interpret and run them may be the issue, but by and large there’s a long lag time in reporting safety whereas digital seneye doesn’t suffer that way. We are going here off the marked patterns and timing from seneye posts and lots of studies on Fritz bac.



the tiny bit of the teaspoon is not an overdose in forty gallons. It’s hard to disregard cheap test kits, most wont, but above you can see why we do.

 

[gavinc123]

ok awesome, yeah i can see why the test kits aren't 100 percent accurate as well. so in your opinion i should just wait until saturday reguardless and see what happens? i added the crushed up food as well.

 

[brandon429]

yes thats a nice midline between rushing and waiting days longer than tests show this bottle bac to work. plus it gives just the bare time for controls in case your bottle bac was dead, which I've never come across but agree is possible. I wouldnt think 100% of the bottle would be dead so this minor wait time + the fish food boosting Dr Reef mentions in his study is a nice balance to cease testing and change the start date to timing sequences we've been checking now for a couple years in no test cycle tanks. a full week + fritz + ammonia + feed is about 5 days longer than Dr Reefs study took to prove fritz had covered all surfaces, he used api in a special calibration way that is not like testing wastewater with it/like is done above.

 

[gavinc123]

yes thats a nice midline between rushing and waiting days longer than tests show this bottle bac to work. plus it gives just the bare time for controls in case your bottle bac was dead, which I've never come across but agree is possible. I wouldnt think 100% of the bottle would be dead so this minor wait time + the fish food boosting Dr Reef mentions in his study is a nice balance to cease testing and change the start date to timing sequences we've been checking now for a couple years in no test cycle tanks. a full week + fritz + ammonia + feed is about 5 days longer than Dr Reefs study took to prove fritz had covered all surfaces, he used api is a special calibration way that is not like testing wastewater with it/like is done above.

ok perfect sounds good

 

[gavinc123]

yes thats a nice midline between rushing and waiting days longer than tests show this bottle bac to work. plus it gives just the bare time for controls in case your bottle bac was dead, which I've never come across but agree is possible. I wouldnt think 100% of the bottle would be dead so this minor wait time + the fish food boosting Dr Reef mentions in his study is a nice balance to cease testing and change the start date to timing sequences we've been checking now for a couple years in no test cycle tanks. a full week + fritz + ammonia + feed is about 5 days longer than Dr Reefs study took to prove fritz had covered all surfaces, he used api in a special calibration way that is not like testing wastewater with it/like is done above.

hey, sorry one more question. would it be ok to add hermit crabs or snails now? could that help the process or would it be bad for the tank.

 

[brandon429]

If you believe there’s spiked free ammonia then no, that technically burns them. I certainly don’t believe any free ammonia will be a concern on Saturday. If I had to guess, even right now there isn’t any but conditions yet to be defined allow a non digital kit to indicate ammonia problems anyway. I never find fritz letting people down, if you had rocks stewing in fed Fritz water the prior patterns for it show it ready by now. You should do at least some degree of water change before the add test

 

[gavinc123]

If you believe there’s spiked free ammonia then no, that technically burns them. I certainly don’t believe any free ammonia will be a concern on Saturday. If I had to guess, even right now there isn’t any but conditions yet to be defined allow a non digital kit to indicate ammonia problems anyway. I never find fritz letting people down, if you had rocks stewing in fed Fritz water the prior patterns for it show it ready by now. You should do at least some degree of water change before the add test

Right, i have lots of rocks in the tank along with old shells i had with caribsea sand

 

[brandon429]

I would place all chips anything placed in it won't die, and if it did then that would be the first time I've seen fritz not work in a display, the very first.

source for claims: Dr Reefs bottle bac thread studying all top brands for deposition timing. fritz wins. 24-48 hours to implantation onto surfaces (and in his thread, immune to 100% water change, truly adhered) we're past that here is why I think its ok.

 

[melonheadorion]

i went through the same a couple months ago. i had a ppm of 1 for ammonia during the cycling process, then one day, it was gone. i had used the decaying shrimp in the tank, got it to 2 ppm. it eventually went down to 1, and then with the testing i did once a day, one day, 0. i also did no water change to make that happen, so if you do a water change, you will probably see a difference.