Cycling advice

[CDNanoreef]

I have a 25 gallon aio with 20lbs of life rock and 20 lbs of CaribSea live sand. For a filter I am running sponges with ceramics rings and carbon. Tanks been up and running 5 weeks whenever I test I haven’t seen a rising in nitrates yet. Should I just be waiting longer.

 

[ProfessorAronnax]

Have you ghost fed the tank,added ammonia, or added any fish?

 

[CDNanoreef]

Ghost fed the tank couple times but not much

 

[ProfessorAronnax]

Looks like you've got some ammonia from the looks of your chart (idk we all see color differently). If that's the case you're still cycling

 

[brandon429]

its cycled. this shows why:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cycle.610430/#post-6182475

what your test kits show has nothing to do with the actual completion of the cycle, that's submersion time dependent, which you have exceeded twice over in fact.

there is a way you can make your test kits reflect that fact if you want to, its by running them a different way than above. per the microbiology of cycling thread, nitrates may or may not show due to numerous reasons- having not dosed any ammonia is a chief one but nitrate doesn't factor into the cycle anyway.

Even if you had dosed ammonia and none showed, it would not factor into the cycle for reasons covered in the thread.

You had rocks that had painted on bacteria, and feed, ready to go with water only. you can begin reefing anytime.

 

[BeejReef]

5 weeks is a good stretch of time. Congrats on your patience

 

[brandon429]

agreed that's longer than most w wait. thorough

the hallmark of those rocks is the company engineered a way to paint on the bac/pretty smart of them. those rocks looks like old live rock after just a little while in the water. bottle bac isn't the only way to vector in nitrifiers into a reef tank

shellacking works too lol

 

[CDNanoreef]

agreed that's longer than most w wait. thorough

the hallmark of those rocks is the company engineered a way to paint on the bac/pretty smart of them. those rocks looks like old live rock after just a little while in the water. bottle bac isn't the only way to vector in nitrifiers into a reef tank

shellacking works too lol

Just has me worried because I am not getting a zero reading or any nitrates. I also would have like to see a diatoms but haven’t yet.

 

[JayKim]

maybe add some nitrifying bacteria to turn ammonia into nitrite than nitrate.

 

[brandon429]

check out page one of that thread to see why we don't measure nitrates in cycling, let me know what you think about those linked examples of test misreads and causes for a no nitrate reading even when there is some

also, if you want to make your testers work its this way only:

change all water

refill w new sw 100%

take a pic of the ammonia test after the full wc this is calibrated zero color now.

use dr tims liquid cycling ammonia one drop at a time into the tank until your tester registers the first increment of color change up, not 2ppm but the first increment up, more like .5 ppm change. stop

re measure ammonia in 24 hours, its back to calibrated zero color. we would only use ammonia to measure cycling closure and using a calibrated small color change the test kit would actually work. any other method of cycling assessment assumes the test kits are accurate though we're up to like 15 examples of not accurate on page one alone

 

[ClearLife]

In my book, you should have elevated levels of nitrate after 4 weeks or the tank isn't cycled. Increase ghost feeding and add a bottle of starter bacteria, like BIO-Spira to speed things up.

 

[CDNanoreef]

In my book, you should have elevated levels of nitrate after 4 weeks or the tank isn't cycled. Increase ghost feeding and add a bottle of starter bacteria, like BIO-Spira to speed things up.

Thanks going to increase ghost feedings and hope ammonia goes up and i start to see other nitrites and nitrates

 

[FishyDP]

I don't have first hand experience with life rock, but have read that it is not extremely porous. This could be contributing to the long cycle. If I were stuck on having only life rock in my display, because it looks nice (and it does), I would want something like marinepure or matrix in my sump as a back up for biological filtration. In your case you may or may not have room for this in your aio chamber..

 

[CDNanoreef]

I don't have first hand experience with life rock, but have read that it is not extremely porous. This could be contributing to the long cycle. If I were stuck on having only life rock in my display, because it looks nice (and it does), I would want something like marinepure or matrix in my sump as a back up for biological filtration. In your case you may or may not have room for this in your aio chamber..

I was thinking about see if my LFS has some cured live rock rubble I can purchase to help

 

[CDNanoreef]

Been ghost feeding last couple days got these results today still no nitrites or nitrates bottom pic is today’s results

 

[brandon429]

awesome, that's cycle confirmed solely off the ammonia one being .25, previously higher. that plus your known submersion time/clear pic above seals the deal.

 

[CDNanoreef]

awesome, that's cycle confirmed solely off the ammonia one being .25, previously higher. that plus your known submersion time/clear pic above seals the deal.

Should I continue ghost feeding til I see nitrates. I am going to take a water sample to the closes LFS tomorrow evening and might pick up some more live rock that they sell cured setting in their tanks.

 

[brandon429]

no I wouldn't. we kicked up a thread explaining why nitrate and nitrite tests are useless for cycling. only ammonia matters, and time underwater. you've met those, so its done. you can continue to cycle for additional weeks though, it wont harm a thing. things that can affect nitrate are presence of denitrification, test drift etc. its for algae tuning only, the reason why is no other mechanism other than nitrate production exists to lower ammonia in an aquatic system with submersion history and these markers in place. its being produced, whether or not its gassed off, too low for you to read before an actual bioload and detritus is in place, ranges tank to tank. we don't use it for those reasons.

 

[CDNanoreef]

no I wouldn't. we kicked up a thread explaining why nitrate and nitrite tests are useless for cycling. only ammonia matters, and time underwater. you've met those, so its done. you can continue to cycle for additional weeks though, it wont harm a thing. things that can affect nitrate are presence of denitrification, test drift etc. its for algae tuning only, the reason why is no other mechanism other than nitrate production exists to lower ammonia in an aquatic system with submersion history and these markers in place. its being produced, whether or not its gassed off, too low for you to read before an actual bioload and detritus is in place, ranges tank to tank. we don't use it for those reasons.

Went to my local LFS an hour away. tested my water they said I got nitrates but ammonia is high probably from all ghost feeding. Got 5 more pounds of their cured lived rock hopefully couple more weeks and I’ll be good.