cycle parameters remains the same for 6 days.

[MrWellington]

Using Dr. Tim's One and Only on a 120G with dry rock & 100 lbs dry sand.

Everyday, for 6 days, Ammonia is ~2ppm, Nitrite 0. Is this normal? Follpwing the directions, I would have thought ammonia would drop after 48 hours, and nitrite increase. Yet.... nothing. No filtration. Just Gyres circulating the water in the tank.

Temp 78, SG 1.024, PH 7.9

 

[Reefahholic]

@Dan P

 

[Garf]

Using Dr. Tim's One and Only on a 120G with dry rock & 100 lbs dry sand.

Everyday, for 6 days, Ammonia is ~2ppm, Nitrite 0. Is this normal? Follpwing the directions, I would have thought ammonia would drop after 48 hours, and nitrite increase. Yet.... nothing. No filtration. Just Gyres circulating the water in the tank.

Temp 78, SG 1.024, PH 7.9

There are quite a few reports of delayed cycles with Dr Tim’s, no idea why though. If you’re sick of waiting you are probably better off buying one of the live bacteria products. If you are willing to wait, you are probably going to be ok by just adding a good pinch of fish food. I see you’ve got a good setup, so I’m assuming the water was made up with chloramine free RODI?

 

[seabear]

I'd be more interested in the nitrate level, than the nitrite level. Nitrate will tell you if ammonia is being processed or not. If nitrate is increasing, ammonia will decrease soon enough.

It's difficult to say what's "normal." There could have been dead/dried organics on the rock, which are still breaking down. The bacteria culture might have gotten hot during shipping, which could have negatively affected it. There are a number of variables.

What was your ammonia source?

 

[MrWellington]

Nitrates are zero. Same ol same ol results today. Yes, its RODI water with instant ocean.

No problem waiting... but I wouldn't want to add to the ammonia level as it's already a little over ~2ppm. Adding more may just stall the cycle even longer. Also have MicroBactr "dryrock starter kit" -- which I forgot I bought. It claims 5-7 days, but more specifically, the instructions specifically state not to use with any other products. So I'm a little hesitant.

 

[seabear]

So if I had to guess, I'd say that it was damaged in shipping. Here is an excerpt from their Q&A:
Does One & Only ALWAYS have to be refrigerated?

No. One & Only should never be frozen, nor should it be kept at temperatures above 95°F. Normal room temperature will not harm the bacteria in One & Only. Perhaps it is easier to think about it this way: One & Only is not like an ice cream cone. Once ice cream is exposed to room temperatures it starts to melt, and if it completely melts you have a mess and no longer ice cream. One & Only is not like this. One & Only will last for 6 months at room temperatures (65 to 85°F). At colder temperatures (around 50°F) One & Only will last one year.

How should One & Only be treated in relation to temperature?

The best way to handle One & Only is to treat it the same way you would treat your fish. You wouldn’t keep the bag of fish you just bought at the fish store in direct sunlight in your car for hours while you continued shopping nor would you let that bag of fish freeze — the same goes for One & Only. Keep One & Only in moderate temperatures and it will be perfectly fine when you get it home and are ready to use it.
______________

So it seems that high temperatures are more harmful to the product than cooler temperatures. It mentions temperatures above 95°F. It would certainly be conceivable for it to have been exposed to temperatures above 95°F for several hours in transport during the summer months.

The nitrogen cycle doesn't really stall. In this case, it never started. The bacteria was likely damaged in shipping and you ended up dosing dead bacteria. I feel that at this point, it would be best if you dosed another nitrifying bacteria product.

 

[MrWellington]

Being that it's day 9 -- with zero changes, I went ahead and started the MicroBacter XLM protocol.

Crossing fingers...

 

[brandon429]

how to turn this into a testless cycle guaranteed ready by 8/12/23

take one large pinch of fish food, grind it up into powder, add it into the mix and wait till Saturday it's cycled. the non digital test kits you're referencing are known misreading kits for the masses: that doesn't make them accurate now. go testless and study fish disease controls/fallow and quarantine until then, the cycle is as good as done by Saturday.

 

[seabear]

take one large pinch of fish food, grind it up into powder, add it into the mix and wait till Saturday it's cycled.

The OP has already added ammonia. What's the purpose of adding this additional ammonia source (fish food)?

the non digital test kits you're referencing are known misreading kits for the masses

I feel that this statement is a bit misleading. Sure there is some user error with hobby grade test kits, but they are pretty simple to use. People have historically questioned certain results because they "feel" that test results should have reported undetectable levels (instead of reporting 0.25 ppm of total ammonia). Low levels of ammonia aren't particularly unusual, especially in a newer tank. But this doesn't mean that the ammonia level is unsafe, or that something is wrong with the cycle, or that the test kit is wrong.

People have argued that no visible signs of distress are observable when ammonia test results come back positive (so the results must be wrong). This is especially true when people use a kit which tests for total ammonia (versus free ammonia). However, 0.25 ppm of total ammonia is safe at typical reef pH levels and no signs of distress should be expected.

go testless and study fish disease controls/fallow and quarantine until then, the cycle is as good as done by Saturday.

You have to quit testing for this to work, because without adding a viable nitrifying bacteria culture, ammonia will likely still be present on Saturday. But if you add a good, viable nitrifying bacteria culture (like FritzZyme TurboStart 900), ammonia levels should be coming down and your tank will likely be cycled by Saturday.

 

[brandon429]

if he follows the rule stated, I can add this to my 40 page testless cycling thread, this isn't new it's a continuance and we didn't luck into 40 pages of completed cycles.

it was for carbon. I don't even believe his current cycle is stalled, if this was a seneye cycle we'd see differently. but worst case scenario even adding nothing other than the fish food which brings in phosphates and carbon (ammonia alone does not provide) that would get him base ammonia control (cycling charts have ten day ammonia control lines for a reason: none vary) and if these bacteria were slow for any reason, that carbon + 10 days would fix them right up. just like any cycle in reefing, the actual cycle/ammonia control isn't a concern. it's fish disease. we need to change direction for the OP away from cycling since I just mentioned an exact compliance date and into their reading of the fish disease forum, so they don't input unquarantined stocks and kill all their stuff on delay.


the cycle is merely an afterthought; we're solidly into disease preps now that a terminable cycle date has been stated. note: all reef conventions use terminable vs open-ended cycle dates, it's why none of the vendors are out in the parking lot awaiting api's permission to set up their completed demo tanks.

only buyers use open-ended waits for cycling, that's how they're trained. Sellers command their cycles, and have things ready on a given Friday's start date. we're using that mode here. he's already got a base layer of cycling bac that the test kits can't see; this is providing what a worst-case scenario that doesn't even apply here would need.


the environment of a home inputs trace carbon and phosphate anyway, it's why bottle bac + ammonia cycles still work. this advice here would turbo boost those two nutrients. I in no way believe his current cycle is stalled, I like this extra step because it shores up things people don't tell us in cycling, such as "I input 3x the recommended dose of ammonia" or things like that. Or, the classic: I've used Prime and didnt state that in the lead up descrip

fish food and ten days is the great cycling equalizer.

 

[brandon429]

Ive tracked down and studied 50+ seneye cycles across the web for 5 yrs now to garner important patterns we can't ever, ever ever get from a group of API cycles. result: not once, not ever, have I seen a 6 day delayed seneye cycle. it's always non digital ammonia kits indicating this.

 

[Cell]

The OP has already added ammonia. What's the purpose of adding this additional ammonia source (fish food)?


I feel that this statement is a bit misleading. Sure there is some user error with hobby grade test kits, but they are pretty simple to use. People have historically questioned certain results because they "feel" that test results should have reported undetectable levels (instead of reporting 0.25 ppm of total ammonia). Low levels of ammonia aren't particularly unusual, especially in a newer tank. But this doesn't mean that the ammonia level is unsafe, or that something is wrong with the cycle, or that the test kit is wrong.

People have argued that no visible signs of distress are observable when ammonia test results come back positive (so the results must be wrong). This is especially true when people use a kit which tests for total ammonia (versus free ammonia). However, 0.25 ppm of total ammonia is safe at typical reef pH levels and no signs of distress should be expected.


You have to quit testing for this to work, because without adding a viable nitrifying bacteria culture, ammonia will likely still be present on Saturday. But if you add a good, viable nitrifying bacteria culture (like FritzZyme TurboStart 900), ammonia levels should be coming down and your tank will likely be cycled by Saturday.

After 6 days, if parameters have not changed at all, we need a way to test the cycle is moving along. Spiking in ammonia and observing a change makes sense this point.

 

[Dan_P]

Using Dr. Tim's One and Only on a 120G with dry rock & 100 lbs dry sand.

Everyday, for 6 days, Ammonia is ~2ppm, Nitrite 0. Is this normal? Follpwing the directions, I would have thought ammonia would drop after 48 hours, and nitrite increase. Yet.... nothing. No filtration. Just Gyres circulating the water in the tank.

Temp 78, SG 1.024, PH 7.9

Reports of little or no activity of Dr. Tim‘s are not uncommon. @taricha has also shown Dr. Tim:s to be a slow starter. Bio Spira and Fritz Turbo Start seem to be more reliable, giving fast ammonia consumption rates.

 

[seabear]

we need a way to test the cycle is moving along. Spiking in ammonia and observing a change makes sense this point.

That'd be fair if we were questioning the test results. However, the recommendation was to stop testing; so the addition of food was simply to add nutrients and organics.

we didn't luck into 40 pages of completed cycles.

That's because it's not luck, it's science. The nitrogen cycle will become established no matter what we do. Although dosing a viable nitrifying bacteria culture can help seed a tank which didn't start with live rock (speeding up the process). That's how most of the vendors prep convention tanks.

Ive tracked down and studied 50+ seneye cycles across the web for 5 yrs now to garner important patterns we can't ever, ever ever get from a group of API cycles. result: not once, not ever, have I seen a 6 day delayed seneye cycle. it's always non digital ammonia kits indicating this.

API ammonia test kit reagents are actually fairly decent. Although Seneye provides good information, as it tests much more frequently than we would normally do with liquid reagents. But I'm not sure that a Seneye Monitor would show dramatically different results (after calculating NH3 from the total ammonia and pH levels).

 

[MrWellington]

Interesting, two separate test kits give two squarely different results on day 12. Each kit tested twice within 30 minutes with little to no variance.

API:
NH3: 2
NO2: 0
NO3: ~1

Redsea:
NH3: 1.2
NO2: 0.2
NO3: 2

I did take Brandon's advice and ghost fed powdered food. Worth a shot.
On the other hand, both QT tanks running great. happy fish.

 

[seabear]

Keep in mind that they are testing total ammonia (NH3 + NH4) and not just free ammonia (NH3). Free ammonia (NH3) would roughly be about 0.06ppm according to your posted parameters.

The rise in nitrate indicates that the necessary bacterial populations exist and are now starting to process ammonia.

 

[MrWellington]

Keep in mind that they are testing total ammonia (NH3 + NH4) and not just free ammonia (NH3). Free ammonia (NH3) would roughly be about 0.06ppm according to your posted parameters.

The rise in nitrate indicates that the necessary bacterial populations exist and are now starting to process ammonia.

Curious: How do you calculate NH3 based on the numbers?

 

[seabear]

Curious: How do you calculate NH3 based on the numbers?

Free Ammonia Calculator