Cycle Troubles With New Product

[HardyG]

I decided this time around to try Fritz 900 for bacteria in my tank. I dumped it in around 2 weeks ago along with the recommended amount of ammonia drops. The testing now has me a bit worried. In the last 5 days my nitrite has not moved at all, but ammonia appears to be 0 and nitrates are present as well. My question is, should I add more ammonia drops, do a water change or just let it sit? I am assuming my cycle stalled somehow. Not sure how though. Thanks!

 

[brandon429]

This cycle is done, you're using the old rule set

 

[brandon429]

Nitrite no longer factors in marine tank cycling it's all about fish disease prep

Your ammonia will be controlled once animals are added, that's all you needed to factor regarding cycling. Time to read the disease forum, if you skip preps the fish won't last long we can see in daily threads there

You don't need to do any more cycling tests here, that part is complete. You're into disease prep research now, the bottle bac had you ready on day 1/ that's why it costs so much

Letting go of the old cycling rules will be hard. The old rules never mentioned the disease prep part, that and having you measure the wrong parameters with test kits that can't measure them correctly... it was a truly bad system that results in millions of fish wasted due to the disease prep omission part

New cycling science preps for disease much better, saves more fish


here are the new rules:

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

Updated Cycling Science in Action This is a testless reef tank cycling thread, the only one from any board. If you ever had trouble with reef tank cycling in the past, you won't any longer after working some jobs with us. chances are you are using/about to use a method of reef tank cycling...

www.reef2reef.com

(that's 40 pages of cycle work exactly like yours, same issues)

 

[exnisstech]

Nitrates = cycled IMO but move ahead slowly.

 

[JayM]

I'm certainly no expert, but the method I used seems to be working. Filled the tank, gave it a couple days for the temp to come up, dumped a bottle of Fritzyme 9 and added 2 clowns and a dozen or so CUC the next day. (I'd have added them immediately but my LFS was closed by the time I was ready.) A week later I added a Firefish Goby and a Lemonpeel Angel. All inhabitants are active, eating and appear healthy. Starting to get some small spots of coralline in a couple of places. Minimal diatoms, but a quick sand vac in those spots a couple of times a week seems to be helping. I'm sure I could just leave it and let nature take it's course, but it's easy enough to remove at the moment.

 

[exnisstech]

I'm certainly no expert, but the method I used seems to be working. Filled the tank, gave it a couple days for the temp to come up, dumped a bottle of Fritzyme 9 and added 2 clowns and a dozen or so CUC the next day. (I'd have added them immediately but my LFS was closed by the time I was ready.) A week later I added a Firefish Goby and a Lemonpeel Angel. All inhabitants are active, eating and appear healthy. Starting to get some small spots of coralline in a couple of places. Minimal diatoms, but a quick sand vac in those spots a couple of times a week seems to be helping. I'm sure I could just leave it and let nature take it's course, but it's easy enough to remove at the moment.

I did very similar using fritz on may latest build but added mollies that I had already acclimated. I did add a tray of rock rubble from an established tank which probably helped some. This was my first time cycling with dry rock and bottled bacteria. I was very happy with the results.

 

[JayM]

I did very similar using fritz on may latest build but added mollies that I had already acclimated. I did add a tray of rock rubble from an established tank which probably helped some. This was my first time cycling with dry rock and bottled bacteria. I was very happy with the results.

I did use some Caribsea Live Sand and some of their Life Rock. Not sure if it helped or if it's just a marketing ploy. Definitely didn't seem to hurt.

 

[HardyG]

For the main test I raised ammonia to 1ppm yesterday. From everything I read, if my tank is actually cycled it should be able to handle that amount within the 24hr time frame. Will check this evening once the 24 hours is up.

 

[HardyG]

Update! Still ammonia present from my dose up’s to 1ppm and nitrite is still a deep purple. I added a small bottle of dr tims last night in the hopes that it can help add more beneficial bacteria in case the temp was too cold for the first batch and it didn’t colonize fully (no heaters for the first 2 days).