Bio-spira works great

[shoelaceike]

I just started a new tank a little over a week ago. I started with all dry rock and new sand. I added a bottle of Bio-Spira and put fish and coral the same day. Never saw any ammonia and fish and coral seem healthy.

 

[brandon429]

That’s amazing and I can use this in some neat example threads, but first I have to ask about the pigmentation penetrating the first quarter inch of the sandbed

You developed that in one total week of running

If so, and it’s faster than normal, it’s not unheard of due to live rock inclusions and nutrients, food webs transfer along with live rock. Decent sized fish bioload and bright white surfaces can get some pigmentation fast but it’s rare

Is that real coralline live rock or painted coralline fake liferock (it’s not bad, but that tells us about helpful bacteria that may or may not be here)

The reason am interrogating lol is because we study skip cycle biology in my threads and if I’m clear on details here, especially if this is life rock vs live rock, then your instant fish and anemone are really a testament to today’s bottle bac engineering.

Even if that is a live rock + anchored anemone transfer from a lfs, great job. People flip out over skip cycle setups but they’ll buy corals from insta reefs at MACNA

This is part of the change in reefing that science brings. There are some things you can do fast in reefing, skipping the entire cycle is one. We usually don’t meet such a brave assembly in here that’s great work if this is a seven day tank

 

[shoelaceike]

Yes, I have diatoms. Got them less than a week in. The purple is fake. It is Caribsea liferock. Excellent rock btw. Cheap as well.

 

[brandon429]

That makes your skip cycle even better due to less help from starting bac. Yep I’ll link this to the microbiology of cycling thread in the new tankers forum

Really glad to see this work.

 

[brandon429]

What’s also neat is the painted nitrifers from liferock activate in two weeks time they weren’t being used or needed at the start. If that was wet pack sand vs dry when setup, it brought in skip cycle bac and then the bottle bac portion.

 

[Redfoxtang]

You might run into a mini cycle with you adding everything at once but I hope doesn’t. Some with also say that’s its to early for anemones. You might have not seen the worst yet.

 

[brandon429]

All ammonia events are within ten hours of bioload introduction in uncycled tanks, and ammonia is the only risky param. Nitrite doesn’t factor at all, and nitrate is for algae tuning. I’m one hundred percent certain it cannot cycle again. Disease protocols are the test.

Cycles are fully a tipping point, there’s no in between measure where things partially cycle. Dr Reefs bottle bac thread shows deposition on surfaces within 48 hrs, we are at seven days

Ammonia either ramps to total wipeout over nite or it remains zero for the life of the tank (or in thousandths if seneye, and if api you’re going to get .25 or .5)

We’ve been able to buy skip cycle bottle bac for five years or better, I’m amazed there aren’t more like this. I cannot recall a single time bottle bac didn’t work, across namebrands, in our large cycle example thread. Even missing food webs that best support anemones and corals are dosable items via today’s hq feed and additives. All entrants at MACNA do this variation or they move live rock and skip cycle.

 

[Mical]

Kind of "playin w/fire" adding nem that early. I agree w/RedFoxx

 

[shoelaceike]

You might run into a mini cycle with you adding everything at once but I hope doesn’t. Some with also say that’s its to early for anemones. You might have not seen the worst yet.

I've been in this hobby for a while and had much bigger complex tanks....this is my get back into the hobby tank. I'm not sure why it would be a problem to add a bta if the tank is cycled. People say that the tank needs to be more mature. I'm not quite sure why as long as the water quality is good.

 

[shoelaceike]

I had zero ammonia from day one and on. Maybe my test kit is bad lol

 

[shoelaceike]

I did use tap water but I will probably use RODI moving forward.

 

[brandon429]

When I first saw the post I quickly glanced at your join date and knew it couldn’t be first go. Tap= pushing lol I love these types of threads. That system looks great, anems will not open in bad water and you have zero ammonia since it’s not all dead. It’s impossible in reefing to have partial free ammonia given account of all added animals in the tank and verified source water, cycles are all or nothing.

Zero seneye owners report a .25 or .5 in running reefs, and half a million api users do report those exact numbers. I’m shocked your ammonia reads true zero. Matter of fact that’s the most shocking aspect of the whole post. How well you replace, source and replicate food additives will determine that anem health. Agree I’d switch out over time to precise low tds water, but then again some places have good tap it’s your call. Nitrifers are a done deal though.

 

[shoelaceike]

I have not tested nitrite or nitrate yet....maybe I'll do that and update the thread. I'll see if I can borrow one.

 

[shoelaceike]

When I first saw the post I quickly glanced at your join date and knew it couldn’t be first go. Tap= pushing lol I love these types of threads. That system looks great, anems will not open in bad water and you have zero ammonia since it’s not all dead. It’s impossible in reefing to have partial free ammonia given account of all added animals in the tank and verified source water, cycles are all or nothing.

Zero seneye owners report a .25 or .5 in running reefs, and half a million api users do report those exact numbers. I’m shocked your ammonia reads true zero. Matter of fact that’s the most shocking aspect of the whole post. How well you replace, source and replicate food additives will determine that anem health. Agree I’d switch out over time to precise low tds water, but then again some places have good tap it’s your call. Nitrifers are a done deal though.

Ya it is interesting....I remember testing ammonia in my older reef tank and getting .25 always. Now it's really zero...I definitely would like to test nitrite and nitrate. I need to make sure that the bio spira isn't just hiding the ammonia or something.

 

[SDK]

Please keep this thread updated over the next few months so we can see how it's working out. Good luck!

 

[shoelaceike]

Ammonia is on the right.

 

[brandon429]

I’ll be dang it’s a hard yellow. Clone that reagent, comparison card, room lighting, test tube marked and filled correctly and all the things making it work just right ha nice

 

[shoelaceike]

It has a very slight green tinge now as it should. I seem to have about 5-10 ppm nitrates as well. I wish I would have done this earlier so I would know how quickly nitrites went down. Good to know I'm fully cycled. My tank is 36 gallons and I used the large bottle of biospira. I dumped half with the set up and the other half the next day.

 

[shoelaceike]

Its 11 days since set up.

 

[Bob Weigant]

When I came back to the hobby I used Dr Tim’s One & Only and I did wait 48 hours and added 2 fish. Then a week later added 1 more. I did wait til the 4th week to add easy corals and then a month later started adding sps. Happy to say 3 years later tank is still doing good