Cycle check in

CoralBlue · Jan 14, 2020

Am I getting anywhere? I think I may have dosed a little too much ammonia but my nitrites seems to be slowly rising which should be a good thing. Any help on what the gameplan should be with these numbers would be greatly appreciated!

Spare time · Jan 14, 2020

Not sure if you put in bacteria or not but getting some more would lower that quicker

CoralBlue · Jan 14, 2020

Spare time said:
Not sure if you put in bacteria or not but getting some more would lower that quicker

Added biospira yesterday, hasn’t been a week yet. Still getting a feel for what the numbers are telling me.

brandon429 · Jan 14, 2020

some portions of the rocks behind the test readings appear to have growths on them, is it true that things are attached to those rocks or all they all plain white dry rocks recently added

CoralBlue · Jan 14, 2020

brandon429 said:
some portions of the rocks behind the test readings appear to have growths on them, is it true that things are attached to those rocks or all they all plain white dry rocks recently added

Wish they did, that’s recently added liferock. No growth

brandon429 · Jan 14, 2020

ok good clarification. neat new point: liferock cycles itself within 2 weeks with no help, regardless of what tests say it'll be ready in about two weeks submersion in saltwater. they've painted all that's required, even if you didn't test further it would be cycled by then.

did you use caribsea wet pack live sand

the bottle bac you added is 1 day cycle bottle bac/extra no harm.

going solely off rocks though, those bac activate in two weeks easy cycle. can't fail.

Lucky713 · Jan 14, 2020

Reefnoob1287 said:
Added biospira yesterday, hasn’t been a week yet. Still getting a feel for what the numbers are telling me.

I used Dr. Tim's and it took about a week for the ammonia to drop so I would give it a few days and then test again. According to the instructions you cannot overdose but put in at least the minimum dose. I am new as well but I have learned to take things slow. Good luck and enjoy your new tank

CoralBlue · Jan 14, 2020

brandon429 said:
ok good clarification. neat new point: liferock cycles itself within 2 weeks with no help, regardless of what tests say it'll be ready in about two weeks submersion in saltwater. they've painted all that's required, even if you didn't test further it would be cycled by then.

did you use caribsea wet pack live sand

Didn’t know that, 2 weeks would be great. Yeah used live sand and the ammonia seemed to not jump with the amounts I put in so I kind of bombed it last night...Really hoping when I check tomorrow the ammonia has dropped ;Nailbiting

brandon429 · Jan 14, 2020

it had to be bombed bc the sand and bac you already added handle ammonia, that's proof your tank is cycled actually. Your live sand was skip cycle ready too, and can carry a large bioload. no matter what your tests say its ready as of now, but waiting 2 weeks activates the rock.

brandon429 · Jan 14, 2020

check out this guy's liferock cycle

his setup is like yours nearly exactly, just different name brand bottle bac.

same ability. your testing already proves what's needed to be known about a cycle: ammonia control.

Bio-spira works great

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.

www.reef2reef.com

CoralBlue · Jan 14, 2020

Lucky713 said:
I used Dr. Tim's and it took about a week for the ammonia to drop so I would give it a few days and then test again. According to the instructions you cannot overdose but put in at least the minimum dose. I am new as well but I have learned to take things slow. Good luck and enjoy your new tank

Sounds good, yeah I’m probably going to quickly about things. Hoping the biospira kicks in to help.

CoralBlue · Jan 14, 2020

brandon429 said:
it had to be bombed bc the sand and bac you already added handle ammonia, that's proof your tank is cycled actually. Your live sand was skip cycle ready too, and can carry a large bioload. no matter what your tests say its ready as of now, but waiting 2 weeks activates the rock.

Hmm, in that case I’ll probably wait until the end of the week just to be careful and then add some livestock and let it start handling itself on it’s own for the most part.