Cycle Guidance

[Cscultho]

I'm almost 2-weeks into my cycle and I'm not certain what to do? I've measure ammonia, nitrite and nitrates every other day. During the cycle I've never noticed any real ammonia spike. I use the API test kit and it is always between 0ppm-0.25ppm. Nitrites have always read 0. Nitrates have steadily increased. Last night they were at 20ppm. I added a raw piece of shrimp for 24hrs which fell apart in the tank when i removed it and ive been ghost feeding the past 2 days. The only increase as i said is with nitrates. Not sure what to do? Do i keep riding the cycle for another couple weeks?

Next Steps Please??

Red Sea Reefer 250
ap700 - lights not running
skimmer running
35lbs LR
40lbs dry Tropic Eden sand
salinity 1.025
ammonia 0 - 0.25ppm
nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 20ppm
ph 8.0ppm

 

[Reef Ryder]

What size is the tank?
TBH you're not going to get readings now, you have a ways to go. Correction, you'll get readings but as of now, they don't mean much. Are you using prime? If not, what are you dosing with? And please turn the skimmer off. Your interrupting the initial cycle. I say initial cycle because your tank is always cycling. Not a fan of ghost feeding, for what? Speed up cycling? Let it be, all that does is reside your ammonia IMO then you have to do a water change which you don't want to do until after a few months after fish are in.

 

[Cscultho]

What size is the tank?
TBH you're not going to get readings now, you have a ways to go. Correction, you'll get readings but as of now, they don't mean much. Are you using prime? If not, what are you dosing with? And please turn the skimmer off. Your interrupting the initial cycle. I say initial cycle because your tank is always cycling. Not a fan of ghost feeding, for what? Speed up cycling? Let it be, all that does is reside your ammonia IMO then you have to do a water change which you don't want to do until after a few months after fish are in.

Total water volume is 65 gallons. The skimmer is running to break it in but im not skimming anything, wet or dry. I've not added anything to the tank other than a dead shrimp for 24hrs and ghost feeding for a couple of days. I guess i was hoping to see an ammonia increase to see if i could measure it and see if the LR would eliminate it.

 

[wrassyreefer]

I'm right there with you with what you on a new 20 gallon with what you are observing on parameters but I do have some diatoms that have been showing up and increasing the last 3 or 4 days.

I found this extremely helpful that someone else posted for me when I had a similar question so check it out and happy reefing!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-supreme-guide-to-setting-up-a-saltwater-reef-aquarium.138750/

 

[wrassyreefer]

I'm right there with you with what you on a new 20 gallon with what you are observing on parameters but I do have some diatoms that have been showing up and increasing the last 3 or 4 days.

I found this extremely helpful that someone else posted for me when I had a similar question so check it out and happy reefing!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-supreme-guide-to-setting-up-a-saltwater-reef-aquarium.138750/

Specifically the cycle section for your question...

 

[Tokash23]

IMO if you used live rock and added the shrimp for ammonia and you are down low with ammonia now and nitrates are up i would think that means your cycle is coming to an end. Did you add any bacteria when you started your cycle? I have also heard API test kits aren't very accurate for ammonia or maybe you are just picking up the little bit from your ghost feeding and the bacteria is doing its job and breaking it down which would cause the low readings.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

That cycle thread says in great detail, do not add ammonia and especially rotting shrimp to a tank with live rock. When you bring home live rock, it's ready, and that feels weird since no cycling thread ever says that. Cycling threads always treat rocks the same, though live vs dry rock is a completely opposite cycle action. we withhold ammonia from live rocks when moving animals can be seen, or real live coralline, it could kill and stress the communities that make live rock cost more than dry.

dry rock gets the shrimp or ammonia. if the live rock is suspected but not able to verify with live animals and coralline, then a controlled spike to 1 ppm is ok to run per the thread.

 

[brandon429]

Post a pic, interested to see if you have obvious group b rock determined by its coloration, pods and easily seen inclusions. if any of those are present, the way you should finish your cycle is by buying a bunch of zoanthids and putting them under reef lighting, with feeding and good water changes, along with a small clean up crew lately.

 

[Reef Ryder]

IMO if you used live rock and added the shrimp for ammonia and you are down low with ammonia now and nitrates are up i would think that means your cycle is coming to an end. Did you add any bacteria when you started your cycle? I have also heard API test kits aren't very accurate for ammonia or maybe you are just picking up the little bit from your ghost feeding and the bacteria is doing its job and breaking it down which would cause the low readings.

+1 you must add bacteria, I'd use biosphere. Unless I missed something, you added water and salt and are ghost feeding while running a skimmer? I don't know where you're getting that from and I don't want to say you're wrong just incase but I have been doing this for a little bit and I live and breathe R2R and I never heard of what you're doing.
LR has to be cured before you put it in your tank and LR helps with filtration yes and may cause an increase in parameters but it's not going to cause the spike you think it is.
Did you put RO and add salt, tap water and add salt or did you buy 65 gallons of salt water?

 

[Cscultho]

+1 you must add bacteria, I'd use biosphere. Unless I missed something, you added water and salt and are ghost feeding while running a skimmer? I don't know where you're getting that from and I don't want to say you're wrong just incase but I have been doing this for a little bit and I live and breathe R2R and I never heard of what you're doing.
LR has to be cured before you put it in your tank and LR helps with filtration yes and may cause an increase in parameters but it's not going to cause the spike you think it is.
Did you put RO and add salt, tap water and add salt or did you buy 65 gallons of salt water?

I make my own 5-stage RO/DI water and use Red Sea Salt. Some of my LR rock have coraline algae as well. I cannot remember where i read this but it was suggest to help a cycle along you can use a piece of shrimp to see how the tank and bacterial react and convert to a Nitrate.

 

[brandon429]

would you guess that the rock would be totally free of pods and worms, considering there's coralline on the rocks. have you seen any pods or little starfish etc, the typical lr stuff

 

[Brew12]

+1 you must add bacteria, I'd use biosphere.

Since he used live rock he should not need to add any other bacteria source.

LR has to be cured before you put it in your tank and LR helps with filtration yes and may cause an increase in parameters but it's not going to cause the spike you think it is.

Live rock "may" not need to be cured before going into a tank. If all depends on how it is transported and what life is on it. If it is shipped damp in news paper than yes, it should be cured. If it is shipped submerged and doesn't have a large number of sponges on it, then it does not need to be cured. If you get live rock from a local system and keep it submerged it is the best possible method and you would be taking steps backward by curing it.

 

[Cscultho]

would you guess that the rock would be totally free of pods and worms, considering there's coralline on the rocks. have you seen any pods or little starfish etc, the typical lr stuff

I have not seen any of the creatures you have listed but then again i have not looked very hard. What i did see was a skelton shell of the pod floating around my water column.

 

[brandon429]

based on all factors given so far, again add zoanthids here after a large water change to remove rotting organics that cause algae under good lighting then shine bright good light on the corals and give the tank good feeding. lets call that a cycle action to quell the masses heh

try to post pics. we can tell off pics where you are in a cycle better than any set of test vials could ever present. its ok to dose ammonia to live rock in spite of the six pages of work.

I like to make the joke that in a civilized society nobody is dosing live rock with ammonia, because we're reared up a generation of visual biologists who do not want to burn small organisms with ammonia, given that all bacteria are already present on live rock moved among tanks.

 

[Reef Ryder]

Like I said I never heard of this, I have 40+ more live rock then he does and I made sure to add bacteria, in fact I constantly add bacteria....

I'm assuming he bought his LR from a LFS you're assuming he ordered it.. I guess we should both stop assuming....

Cscultho where did you get your rock? What are you doing to control your pH... RO has no to little pH.

 

[brandon429]

to add bacteria to live rock is a redundant action, its not harmful. its ok to add bac or not add bac to live rock with benthic indicators per the posted thread, but if we didn't add any, that's ok since live rock never loses bacteria when moved tank to tank.

the action of moving live rock among tanks -increases- bacteria, not decreases the levels. the reason why is buried in the six pages lol.

adding bac to live rock bought at a pet store is the same thing as going up to my 11 yr old reef, and dosing it with bottle bac. the event will be neutral to the overall tank workings.




if rock is live, its simply already cycled. that's the #1 hardest thing for any new reefer to grasp. its far better to be adding live bacteria to live rock than ammonia if we are unsure of any aspect of the rock transfer. the reason I haven't ever used bottle bac on live rock transfers is just because of the redundancy, the coralline means the rocks have -full- bac loading.



*adding bacteria because dry sand was used here is fully ok as a motivation to add extra bac. I noticed it was mentioned in the context of live rock use above.

 

[brandon429]

the #1 reason its important to call this cycle in this thread is because the tank is being pumped with organics right before the production lighting starts. by knowing this was a skip cycle setup from the start date, the algae preparations would have gone 100% opposite.

This is one of a few reasons why how we cycle is tied to the algae that eventually gets us, or not. the way we cycle a tank is directly tied to how that tank will see algae battles for its lifespan. its not that we can't change our approach during the lifespan of the tank, its that 85% of aquarists will never change the early views they gain about the limitations of tank bacteria, and that assumption is what limits our care options for the tank as the months go by. The way people view bacteria initially tends to hold forever, but even in the initial readings we can see factors that indicate cycle completion as we discuss in the thread what .25/0/any level of nitrate means when coralline is present to any degree on live rocks. post pics if poss of the rocks

 

[Cscultho]

Like I said I never heard of this, I have 40+ more live rock then he does and I made sure to add bacteria, in fact I constantly add bacteria....

I'm assuming he bought his LR from a LFS you're assuming he ordered it.. I guess we should both stop assuming....

Cscultho where did you get your rock? What are you doing to control your pH... RO has no to little pH.

I purchased the LR from a LFS. I have no control measures in place for pH at this time. The level pH i currently have is from my Red Sea Salt.

 

[Cscultho]

the #1 reason its important to call this cycle in this thread is because the tank is being pumped with organics right before the production lighting starts. by knowing this was a skip cycle setup from the start date, the algae preparations would have gone 100% opposite.

This is one of a few reasons why how we cycle is tied to the algae that eventually gets us, or not. the way we cycle a tank is directly tied to how that tank will see algae battles for its lifespan. its not that we can't change our approach during the lifespan of the tank, its that 85% of aquarists will never change the early views they gain about the limitations of tank bacteria, and that assumption is what limits our care options for the tank as the months go by. The way people view bacteria initially tends to hold forever, but even in the initial readings we can see factors that indicate cycle completion as we discuss in the thread what .25/0/any level of nitrate means when coralline is present to any degree on live rocks. post pics if poss of the rocks

Very detailed explanation! thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. I will take pictures of the LR when i return home.

With all that being said, would it be appropriate to add a damsel to the tank for a couple weeks before i make my first expensive purchase of fish? Clowns....

 

[brandon429]

regarding the cycle, yes that is acceptable. But regarding the future of ich and fish disease in your tank that's a no-go

this is a fantastic discussion of cycling now because we are paring cycling down to just what bacteria need to process a typical bioload in our tanks...cycling isn't about algae, or about how we quarantine fish.

I don't personally work with marine fish because my reefs are too small, but after reading the countless posts on ich and seeing how my friend John M Cole on this site was so careful with his fish QT (and never had mass outbreaks either) I must recommend that all fish are 72 day QT's before any introduction, and that our tanks only take in fish meeting that qualification. Behavioral and QT issues aside, the damsel is an ok starting bioload for a skip cycle tank