Cannot jump start cycle

[LgTas]

I just read your point about nitrite being inconsequential... I'll skip the nitrite test. I come from an aquascaping background so it's drilled into me that nitrites are the devil.

BTW - I also ordered a seneye last week. It should be arriving soon.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Stop with the bottled junk and throw in a raw shrimp... why make things difficult...

 

[LgTas]

Stop with the bottled junk and throw in a raw shrimp... why make things difficult...

because the bottled junk has proved it's worth to me on numerous occasions, albeit most being in freshwater aquariums.

 

[brandon429]

Bottled bac is legit agreed, Dr Reef has a ninety page uber detailed thread and they all work by the dates on the labels given fair shipping temps and holding.


I rant on people over buying it after the cycle, to address a stuck reading but they do indeed deliver initial nitrifying strains of bacteria


nitrite is indeed a harsh killer in freshwater Randy has said in posts, we just lucked into the chloride offsetting from saltwater apparently and for our thread, it’s one less test read to wrestle into place. We picked a neutral one to kick out, peeling back the layers that amount to bacterial mistrust.

I cannot fathom how the timing from a basic cycling chart wouldn’t apply to your arrangement

especially with the bottle bac and some certain feed from rock organics after a few days rehydration, and the pellet feed, and the waftings from the air - another constant source

 

[tehmadreefer]

because the bottled junk has proved it's worth to me on numerous occasions, albeit most being in freshwater aquariums.

Exactly freshwater, but ya keep throwing your money down the drain literally and have nothing but continued complications in the saltwater game from chasing problems from magic oin a bottle lol

you have a lot to learn

 

[LgTas]

Exactly freshwater, but ya keep throwing your money down the drain literally and have nothing but continued complications in the saltwater game from chasing problems from magic oin a bottle lol

you have a lot to learn

Mate, I've had my 15 gallon reef running for a year with no issues. Thanks for your input but having read Brandon's threads which contain facts and evidence based statements, i'd be more inclined to follow his advice.

 

[LgTas]

Ok so to close off this thread incase someone finds it in the future:

I did a 30% water change and added live rock to my sump this morning. API has been showing 4 ppm since Thursday. I've just tested this evening and..... 4 ppm. Now I've had two porcelain crabs (they're invasive here) and three periwinkles that I grabbed out the ocean and added them to my sump 48 hours ago. They are still very much alive and clearly feeding. My understanding is that at 4 ppm they would've been dead on day one.

So I'll probably leave it another week to be safe but it appears I'm one of the many getting false high readings from the API ammonia kit.

 

[brandon429]

They’re just so sensitive as a tester that any combo of metabolites causes misreads. Also keen: that water at true 2 ppm much less 4 would smell bad, used kitty litter. but it smells ocean-y as an additional backup for accuracy. Or they’d be dead agreed

 

[LgTas]

They’re just so sensitive as a tester that any combo of metabolites causes misreads. Also keen: that water at true 2 ppm much less 4 would smell bad, used kitty litter. but it smells ocean-y as an additional backup for accuracy. Or they’d be dead agreed

I have a cat who used to live in an apartment so I'm very familiar with old kitty litter smell and my aquarium certainly doesn't smell like that. Thanks for the guidance on this

 

[brandon429]

If we transposed medical testing for reef tank nh3 testing a session at the dr. would go down this way:

thank you for coming in. Wanted to let you know the tests shows zero kidney function the last eight weeks for you.

But I feel fine?

That doesn’t matter, our titration test says you are at 2 ppm nh3 and that’s where you are at. we were careful to shake the reagents correctly and only fill to the five ml mark on the tube. We are scheduling major surgery for next week. clearly you are mighty tough so there’s no rush


this is literally how every reef cycle goes down, on forums.


at reef conventions where everyone is ready by Friday, no stalls, they’re using a different set of rules for procedure- a set of rules they trust to run an instant reef with thirty thousand in bounce corals and sps frags.


our hobby has bent the rules about what bacteria do and the symptom set for what ammonia poisoning looks like


about 1% agree with the new rules and 99% will not release the old rules forums are trained by. There is a large gap between what sellers use to cycle at the convention vs what buyers at the convention use

 

[ThemytB]

Please test a fresh batch of saltwater, I bet you it tests about 4ppm ammonia with the api kit, I did not make my last post up. It is a known/common issue with api ammonia tests. I found the same thing when I was cycling my tank. Also if you do some searching on r2r you will find more examples.

 

[LgTas]

Please test a fresh batch of saltwater, I bet you it tests about 4ppm ammonia with the api kit, I did not make my last post up. It is a known/common issue with api ammonia tests. I found the same thing when I was cycling my tank. Also if you do some searching on r2r you will find more examples.

It's still testing 4 ppm... my seneye arrived today so once setup I'll do a illustrative comparison.

 

[brandon429]

Heads up from our seneye misread thread



my fav checker has to have calibrations ran, plus slide soaks. After preps then it’s the best tester we have for ammonia, so far

Helps to know how to tune the device:

A thread tracking the incidence of seneye nh3 misreads

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/using-seneye-reef-readings-to-cycle-tank.773299/ there are two more, I want to log these in one thread so we can begin patterning. I’ll go find the others in no way does that reef above have tenths ppm nh3 but thats not been proven, yet.

www.reef2reef.com

fun recurring theme: at no time does a tester disagreeing with visual proofs and olfaction sniffing and living animals and water clarity ever turn out right. In one of those jobs, we called the tester off kilter, he emails seneye the noted conflicts, they agree.

when tuned and if a good meter it‘ll show the tightest measures we can get in the hobby so far.

we don’t use testers to benchmark free ammonia in the reef hobby, we use known working conditions we can see and smell plus decades - old timing charts to benchmark the tester, neato.

 

[LgTas]

Thanks @brandon429. I'll definitely calibrate as suggested.

I forgot to mention that I caught some white glove shrimp (sold in Aus as clean up crew but are very common) and added them. No mortality yet and all seem to be feeding.

 

[GuppyHJD]

I am following this thread and have read about many inaccurate ammonia testing with the API tests. I am wondering are the Nitrite and Nitrate tests equally random?

 

[Oregon Grown Reef]

@brandon429 I believe in what you say, but please, please take some time when writing your posts to try to make them understandable. I'm not sure if English is your spoken language or not, but it's hard to tell what you're saying. Use sentences, proper punctuation, phrasing. I whole-heartedly agree that there are old reefers and over sensitive reefers on here who think that putting a fish in a new tank with bottled LIVE bacteria is unethical, but that's just not true. The study you refer to time and time again is enough evidence for me, but I've also seen it in my own tanks. I used to spend a ton of money on fritz (arguably one of the best live bacteria on the market), but you can't beat bio-Spira for the price. My lfs is in the stone age and says you can't have a cycled tank with live bacteria, irregardless of how many times I've started up a QT tank same day with it. They also use API and ammonia alert for their results. Dr. Tim has also said the same thing. People say bacteria need oxygen and can't be bottled, but they DON'T HAVE LUNGS. If you have a stalled cycle, your ammonia is either higher than you think and the bacteria have died, or you have false readings from a cheap, inaccurate test. I don't have a seneye, but I don't need to for my application since others have done the testing. Look at Jake Adams on the YouTube channel Reef Builders. He has a seneye and not a couple days later, the ammonia readings were perfect when setting up his all in one tank.

 

[Oregon Grown Reef]

I am following this thread and have read about many inaccurate ammonia testing with the API tests. I am wondering are the Nitrite and Nitrate tests equally random?

Nitrate is extremely difficult to determine. There isn't a hobby level test kit that can determine what your true nitrates are at. Nitrite is a joke and tests shouldn't even be sold anymore. What's the point of testing for nitrites when the end result of nitrates is all that matters?

 

[brandon429]

LgTas

all the creatures in your immediate vicinity sure are tough to be thriving in poison water~~

you and I have had no trouble communicating this whole thread we couldn’t be more on par. Guppy: heck yea they’re ballparking. It is easy to find simple nitrate comparison threads on a given water sample and they range fifty points - all these tests are pin the tail on the donkey.
nitrite isn’t even factored, don’t own the kit. (Of course some may disagree, not a problem)

Oregon:
Anyone who puts paragraph spaces occasionally in critique posts is getting an A for syntax in my gradebook.

 

[SaltISlife]

Api and fluval bacteria bottles litterally have no bacteria in them. Its like clear water. Ive tried them. They are worthless.

The only good bacteria in a bottle is fritszyme 9. Use tripple the recomended amount and itll jump start the tank in days.

Ive started 4 reef tanks in 2 days using tripple dosage of fritszyme 9. I put white dry dead rock from amazon in.. dry sand.. filled the tank up.. dumped a handfull of food in the tank. I used half a gallon of fritszyme9 and in 2 days my ammonia went from 6ppm to 0. And nitrates were 20ppm. I put and corals in right away.. never lost anything doing this

Did the same for a 30g reef. A 27g reef and a 135g reef. In fact i jist finisjed 7 days of antibiotics in my 135g. Had 1.0 ammonia in the tank. I put in 3 bottles of fritszyme 9 and the next day ammonia went to 0.

Anyone who says the bottles are junk is completetly spewing ignorant comments. Some of them are junk but not all of them. Ignoring the fact that some of these companies actually do have good BB in them and it can actually quick start a tank is like you saying the earth is flat in 2021.


Also i havent tested nitrites in years in my own tanks. but i have seen tons of people come to a local store i worked at with nitrites in their water.

They had .25 ammonia and 1.0 nitrites and 10ppm of nitrates for example. Ive seen nitrites in dozens of tanks that had nitrates and no ammonia as well. Again this is more of an ignorant comment by someone whos been in the hobby to long and seems to know it all.


To people who havent seen an api test kit read 0.. i mean maybe you guys need color enhancing glasses. Some people are color blind and dont know it. Ive seen 0 hundreds of times. For api kits you need good white light. The sun is the best. You hold the phial 1 inch away from the white background. This is how you read it properly.

Holding the tube against the chart creates shadow.. darkneing the color.. and so does holding it against yellow interior lights in our houses.

 

[brandon429]

Lg

you can tell by our ‘no stuck cycles‘ thread that waiting on wastewater compliance is the old school and the new school is changing out water on or about day fifteen (all bottle bac brands done by then, especially with your compound input sources for bacteria) and beginning.

once you hit day fifteen if you want to drain and replace with new seawater, this whole process is done and not one time did testing sway us, or cause us to immediately forego what a cycling chart shows.

there will be no reason your current happy animals and new ones added will switch to being unhappy. Your entire cycle has been handled in the way we’d handle it if you had a timeframe to meet, such as being ready for a reef convention. The old school will have you wait till April if that’s what the tests say, but by then the convention has already packed up a left for a new town of ready tanks.


all we needed for your cycle was a couple weeks wait and the snippets we can see and not smell along the way have been nice mile markers for the journey. Nice cycle

hey can u post an updated picture of the tank in cycle
b