Crazy high nitrates during cycle? Help!!

[Landenb20]

Hey I just got my first saltwater tank, 3g Pico reef and plan on having minimal bio-load (so parameters stay as stable as possible). But I’m 9 days into cycling and nitrates are tested at 80ppm!! Nitrates and ammonia stay at zero but I have no clue why my nitrates are so high. I have 4 hitchhiked stomatella snails from live rock. Can someone tell me what’s going on and if I should do a water change or keep topping off for about a month and test after the month? Please help!!!

 

[dmy535]

Did you ever have an traces of ammonia? Or did you just get the nitrates right away?

you mention live rock, so did you get the rock from an established tank or was it dry when you put it in?

 

[brandon429]

This rock shows up already cycled (live rock has animals on it, we don’t add anything we just set the rock n the pico and begin reefing) and doesn’t take any products or wait time to continue being cycled. Your cycle was done nine days ago, and nitrate has no bearing here. Some of the best reefs on the site run 100 ppm.

 

[brandon429]

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

www.reef2reef.com

reading that thread will clear up your cycle.


your are now reefing, not cycling, so make your water change preference based on your plans for normal day to day reefing. Your rocks didn’t lose bacteria coming home from the pet store, that’s why it skipped cycle. See the thread, it will save you from getting ripped off on bacterial products.

there is no delay in skip cycling, skipped means skipped.

if your tests read .5 ammonia and 1 ppm nitrite you’d still be cycled, most tests can’t read normal conversions correctly, there is not anything to be done other than handle this like a six month old reef. Post pics of your rock we need them for a new skip cycle thread

 

[ReeferWarrant]

@brandon429 I dont think he mentioned that the rocks were "live" or from an established tank

Edit: haha it did mention live rock... Its too early for me sorry!

@Landenb20 I think the safe assumption is it was dry rock as there's nothing in the tank to get the cycle going. I'm sure you could go without adding them, it just increases the time of the cycle. Best bet would be to introduce beneficial bacteria into the tank. Theres a ton of "turbo starts" out there to choose from.

 

[brandon429]

Snails, stomatella

dont ride in on dry rock. Pics will be the final say.


hitchhiked stomatella snails from live rock


be sure and click the thread example it’s dedicated to this type of cycle

dry rock can’t produce any nitrate.

 

[DiefsReef]

I have 4 hitchhiked stomatella snails from live rock.

I agree with @brandon429 This is a skip cycle setup and ready to go

 

[brandon429]

It would sound a crazy claim but they make huge reef conventions when a pet store moves over live rock, clean sand, and a tank + fifty grand in delicate corals.

if we don’t know the tricks they use, we buy the bottle bac no matter what,

exposed!!

 

[ReeferWarrant]

@brandon429 thanks for the article!! Interesting read

 

[brandon429]

it sounds like we like to force everyone to have the fastest cycle possible but really what we want is clear action limits known for a given type of rock or substrate

we want the cycle authors to write about it, so that everyone knows the divisions and action sets or to label the claims as false, they need to write something it seems, rather large trend is appearing.

we don’t want to be pinned down to making purchases and relying on approximating test kits to reef, or they’ll have us paying them/they/the man indefinitely lol

these potential live rock transfers are directly on the plane of function that moving our reefs to new homes occupies, or doing in-house tank moves and swaps and upgrades. The reason we like those rare live rock carry overs is because we get to do things right off the bat that are legal moves in reefing and it gives us resolve that when the tank is running and we need to intercept an invasion, or do an upgrade, we can have total confidence the cycling bacteria will never be in deficit

 

[Landenb20]

Did you ever have an traces of ammonia? Or did you just get the nitrates right away?

you mention live rock, so did you get the rock from an established tank or was it dry when you put it in?

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

www.reef2reef.com

reading that thread will clear up your cycle.


your are now reefing, not cycling, so make your water change preference based on your plans for normal day to day reefing. Your rocks didn’t lose bacteria coming home from the pet store, that’s why it skipped cycle. See the thread, it will save you from getting ripped off on bacterial products.

there is no delay in skip cycling, skipped means skipped.

if your tests read .5 ammonia and 1 ppm nitrite you’d still be cycled, most tests can’t read normal conversions correctly, there is not anything to be done other than handle this like a six month old reef. Post pics of your rock we need them for a new skip cycle thread

This rock shows up already cycled (live rock has animals on it, we don’t add anything we just set the rock n the pico and begin reefing) and doesn’t take any products or wait time to continue being cycled. Your cycle was done nine days ago, and nitrate has no bearing here. Some of the best reefs on the site run 100 ppm.

Thank you for the advice! So high nitrates Arent as bad as everyone makes it seem like it’s okay to have higher than recommended? Also I plan on starting the tank with two zooanthids if that’s okay? I plan on dosing iodine and feeding reef roids to them.

 

[brandon429]

Can you post a pic of the rocks

yes it can run any bioload you have planned if the rock was brought home truly live, it means no delay. The worst thing they say can be done in reefing is permissible here lol not for the sake of anarchy, but because waiting another year isn’t going to add more bac to live rocks. Your ability to feed well based on posts you see that are successful and change water before it degrades determines success, not the cycle or bacteria present.

 

[Landenb20]

Can you post a pic of the rocks

yes it can run any bioload you have planned if the rock was brought home truly live, it means no delay. The worst thing they say can be done in reefing is permissible here lol not for the sake of anarchy, but because waiting another year isn’t going to add more bac to live rocks. Your ability to feed well based on posts you see that are successful and change water before it degrades determines success, not the cycle or bacteria present.

Here’s a picture of the tank so far and one of the stomatella snails I got a good view of.

 

[brandon429]

see the little dots of swirled spirorbid worms

those are interesting proofers in this way:

nobody paints those on. painted rocks are smooth on the outside, yet 100% purple, that's spiky feeling. those open fanworms/crowns when they're out are ultra precision ammonia monitors. they will never, ever open in the presence of burning ammonia.

that rock looks exactly like this below, which is a 300# vat of pure live rock cured that I started my picos with:

 

[brandon429]

 

[brandon429]

We can now add your reef to our collection of skip cycles

 

[Landenb20]

see the little dots of swirled spirorbid worms

those are interesting proofers in this way:

nobody paints those on. painted rocks are smooth on the outside, yet 100% purple, that's spiky feeling. those open fanworms/crowns when they're out are ultra precision ammonia monitors. they will never, ever open in the presence of burning ammonia.

that rock looks exactly like this below, which is a 300# vat of pure live rock cured that I started my picos with:

Yeah I got the rock from a local fish store and it was sold from a tank with some clownfish and a few frags

 

[Garf]

The question here is where did all that nitrate come from. Did you add lots of ammonia? Cycled rock, as it appears you have, cannot produce nitrate from thin air. What test kit are you using? Maybe it’s knackered. What water did you use to make the salt water? RODI is the choice of most folks.

 

[brandon429]

see how reliable that is


we did testless visual based cycling and we made a prediction and it stuck without variation. that's sick man he he
b

ammonia test kits? we don't need no stinkin'

 

[Landenb20]

The question here is where did all that nitrate come from. Did you add lots of ammonia? Cycled rock, as it appears you have, cannot produce nitrate from thin air. What test kit are you using? Maybe it’s knackered. What water did you use to make the salt water? RODI is the choice of most folks.

I have added no ammonia and ammonia is tested at 0ppm. I do have about 4 stomatella snails but they’re not even producing hardly any ammonia. I’m using API saltwater master test kit. I don’t have an RODI purifier so I’m using tap but conditioning before mixing salt. And my tap water has a 2ppm to 4ppm range of nitrates.