API Saltwater Test kit

vetteguy53081 · Aug 30, 2022

Mity Sergio said:
I've used all of bacter 7 along with the fluval cycle. Still have about half the bottle of seachem stability left. Should I stop adding all of this bacteria? I figured it would help break down the ammonia but I've seen no changes yet.

Yes. May be the reason ammonia is zero'd out

Mity Sergio · Aug 30, 2022

Okay sounds good I appreciate your help I will just let the tank sit and continue to test every day. Hopefully the ammonia will start to go down from the current 4.0ppm!

BlueDamselReef · Aug 30, 2022

Seems that there was ammonia overload. Do not ghost feed anymore, and if you can find where the food went (settled on sand or accumulated in filter) then remove all the decaying food you can. Continue to test (API is fine, it may not give exact numbers but tells you just fine where you're at in the cycle, if you're using the test properly). Seems like you just need to give the Nitrites time to break down all the ammonia in the system.

I just cycled my tank. Took about 2 weeks and I used the API Test Kit and the table shrimp method (put a table shrimp in the tank for 3 days, removed, and watched it work its magic) and here's what my test results/cycle looked like...

BlueDamselReef · Aug 30, 2022

BlueDamselReef said:
Seems that there was ammonia overload. Do not ghost feed anymore, and if you can find where the food went (settled on sand or accumulated in filter) then remove all the decaying food you can. Continue to test (API is fine, it may not give exact numbers but tells you just fine where you're at in the cycle, if you're using the test properly). Seems like you just need to give the Nitrites time to break down all the ammonia in the system.

I just cycled my tank. Took about 2 weeks and I used the API Test Kit and the table shrimp method (put a table shrimp in the tank for 3 days, removed, and watched it work its magic) and here's what my test results/cycle looked like...

On Day 13 when I saw Nitrites were back to zero, I did a 50% water change, cleaned filter sponge, siphoned sand, etc. And that's why you see Day 14 Nitrates got cut down by about half.

BlueDamselReef · Aug 30, 2022

Mity Sergio said:
This is my current setup I’m having the cycling issues with

Here's mine 3 weeks in, after putting in fish when cycle was complete. I think we have the same stand!

BlueDamselReef · Aug 30, 2022

Also, not sure if you just turned on lights for the photo, but keep lights off during the cycle process.

Mity Sergio · Aug 30, 2022

BlueDamselReef said:
Here's mine 3 weeks in, after putting in fish when cycle was complete. I think we have the same stand!

Nice Setup I wish I was there

Mity Sergio · Aug 30, 2022

I appreciate your help! Next time I will try that method for sure!

BlueDamselReef · Aug 30, 2022

Mity Sergio said:
I appreciate your help! Next time I will try that method for sure!

Been in the hobby for 7 years and have always used table shrimp method. Some say it takes too long and yadayada, but it's so simple and has always worked for me. No measuring or dosing bottled stuff, just let the shrimp decompose for 3 days, remove, and let nature take care of the rest.

Hang in there and be patient. And hopefully your parameters will start to stabilize soon!

PeterEde · Aug 30, 2022

I used 1 bottle of stability and a quantity of live rock and my tank was cycled in 3 weeks.

Mity Sergio · Aug 31, 2022

BlueDamselReef said:
Been in the hobby for 7 years and have always used table shrimp method. Some say it takes too long and yadayada, but it's so simple and has always worked for me. No measuring or dosing bottled stuff, just let the shrimp decompose for 3 days, remove, and let nature take care of the rest.

Hang in there and be patient. And hopefully your parameters will start to stabilize soon!

Thank yah so much it means a lot!

reef_1 · Aug 31, 2022

Mity Sergio said:
I have been testing daily for ammonia but it seems to stick around 4.0 ppm along with the most nitrites I’ve seen reach 0.25 ppm but that’s all the change I’ve seen within 3 weeks which I feel is very off

Imo bottled bacteria cycle shouldn't stall for 3 weeks.

Are you dosing ammonia or do you have a dead shrimp in the tank?

Do you have any nitrates? Not nitrites, but nitrates?

Did you dechlorinate your water?

I used fluval cycle before and in the end I cycled that tank with another product + added fish food, in a similar situation as you. Since then I am using fritz.

You need more than a bottle of bacteria and pure ammonia to cycle the tank, read this experiment below, it pretty much tells you everything about how you need to cycle with bottled bacteria and what to do when cycle is stuck:

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Call me old school, back in the day we placed a deli shrimp in a tank to kick start the cycle. When tank reached 1.5-2 ppm ammonia we pulled it out and waited sometimes weeks to months for bacteria to colonize and drop ammonia and nitrites down to 0 to make tank safe for livestock. With recent...

www.reef2reef.com

The only thing that I would add is that even fritz can stall in a later stage, it actually says in the manual that it needs phosphate source for the nitrite -> nitrate conversion.

Mity Sergio · Aug 31, 2022

reef_1 said:
Imo bottled bacteria cycle shouldn't stall for 3 weeks.

Are you dosing ammonia or do you have a dead shrimp in the tank?

Do you have any nitrates? Not nitrites, but nitrates?

Did you dechlorinate your water?

I used fluval cycle before and in the end I cycled that tank with another product + added fish food, in a similar situation as you. Since then I am using fritz.

You need more than a bottle of bacteria and pure ammonia to cycle the tank, read this experiment below, it pretty much tells you everything about how you need to cycle with bottled bacteria and what to do when cycle is stuck:

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Call me old school, back in the day we placed a deli shrimp in a tank to kick start the cycle. When tank reached 1.5-2 ppm ammonia we pulled it out and waited sometimes weeks to months for bacteria to colonize and drop ammonia and nitrites down to 0 to make tank safe for livestock. With recent...

www.reef2reef.com

The only thing that I would add is that even fritz can stall in a later stage, it actually says in the manual that it needs phosphate source for the nitrite -> nitrate conversion.

I haven’t added any ammonia manually due to it being high do you think at this stage I should buy fritz and see if that helps with the cycle? I’ll test my nitrates now!

Mity Sergio · Aug 31, 2022

reef_1 said:
Imo bottled bacteria cycle shouldn't stall for 3 weeks.

Are you dosing ammonia or do you have a dead shrimp in the tank?

Do you have any nitrates? Not nitrites, but nitrates?

Did you dechlorinate your water?

I used fluval cycle before and in the end I cycled that tank with another product + added fish food, in a similar situation as you. Since then I am using fritz.

You need more than a bottle of bacteria and pure ammonia to cycle the tank, read this experiment below, it pretty much tells you everything about how you need to cycle with bottled bacteria and what to do when cycle is stuck:

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Call me old school, back in the day we placed a deli shrimp in a tank to kick start the cycle. When tank reached 1.5-2 ppm ammonia we pulled it out and waited sometimes weeks to months for bacteria to colonize and drop ammonia and nitrites down to 0 to make tank safe for livestock. With recent...

www.reef2reef.com

The only thing that I would add is that even fritz can stall in a later stage, it actually says in the manual that it needs phosphate source for the nitrite -> nitrate conversion.

Also I bought all water both RO and salt water from my LFS I have used prime for a dechlorinator. today I decided to buy a real piece of wet live rock to see if that helps as well but I’ll reply with my test from today

Mity Sergio · Aug 31, 2022

reef_1 said:
Imo bottled bacteria cycle shouldn't stall for 3 weeks.

Are you dosing ammonia or do you have a dead shrimp in the tank?

Do you have any nitrates? Not nitrites, but nitrates?

Did you dechlorinate your water?

I used fluval cycle before and in the end I cycled that tank with another product + added fish food, in a similar situation as you. Since then I am using fritz.

You need more than a bottle of bacteria and pure ammonia to cycle the tank, read this experiment below, it pretty much tells you everything about how you need to cycle with bottled bacteria and what to do when cycle is stuck:

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Call me old school, back in the day we placed a deli shrimp in a tank to kick start the cycle. When tank reached 1.5-2 ppm ammonia we pulled it out and waited sometimes weeks to months for bacteria to colonize and drop ammonia and nitrites down to 0 to make tank safe for livestock. With recent...

www.reef2reef.com

The only thing that I would add is that even fritz can stall in a later stage, it actually says in the manual that it needs phosphate source for the nitrite -> nitrate conversion.

That is the test I just preformed the tallest piece of rock is the wet live rock I added today I also started this tank 8/5/2022

reef_1 · Sep 1, 2022

I would stop throwing money to the problem for now, you seem to have nitrite and nitrates, so something is happening.

There are two things I would do:
1) Measure nitrate daily and see of its going up or not. If its going up cycling is happening. If its not it stalled and then you need to take action.

2) You have very high levels of ammonia. It is still unclear to me where your ammonia is coming from? To me it looks higher than 8.

It would be good to figure out the ammonia source, the ammonia level and maybe bring it down to 2-4 ppm, so you can actually see it changing on the API test.

Mity Sergio · Sep 1, 2022

reef_1 said:
I would stop throwing money to the problem for now, you seem to have nitrite and nitrates, so something is happening.

There are two things I would do:
1) Measure nitrate daily and see of its going up or not. If its going up cycling is happening. If its not it stalled and then you need to take action.

2) You have very high levels of ammonia. It is still unclear to me where your ammonia is coming from? To me it looks higher than 8.

It would be good to figure out the ammonia source, the ammonia level and maybe bring it down to 2-4 ppm, so you can actually see it changing on the API test.

Will do! Any ideas on brining down ammonia or just water changes? I have no clue what the ammonia source could be since there’s nothing yet in the tanks besides live sand and rock! But thank you for all of your help you have been a great help!

Mity Sergio · Sep 1, 2022

reef_1 said:
I would stop throwing money to the problem for now, you seem to have nitrite and nitrates, so something is happening.

There are two things I would do:
1) Measure nitrate daily and see of its going up or not. If its going up cycling is happening. If its not it stalled and then you need to take action.

2) You have very high levels of ammonia. It is still unclear to me where your ammonia is coming from? To me it looks higher than 8.

It would be good to figure out the ammonia source, the ammonia level and maybe bring it down to 2-4 ppm, so you can actually see it changing on the API test.