Cycling new tank - could use a little input

[Payne Train]

I am cycling my new SR 80 gal mixed reef tank
I am using RODI water my my new unit from Melevs reef.
For rock, I am using Caribsea life rock .
For sand I went with 1/2 pink Fiji and 1/2 Grade A mixed throughout the tank .

I am also using Marinepure 1 1/2 media spheres, and I used a 4 oz bottle of turbo start 900 that was rated for 100 gallon.

I am not using any lights (Which kills me because I bought the Zetlight 6800 QMaven 2, and I want to use them sooooo bad lol)
I am using the cotton balls in my media rack and one sock filter. Everything I've read said those should be fine to keep.

I started my tank on 4/15/20. I was not able to run tests on my tank since my test kit delivery was delayed. So my first test was on 4/21/20 ... See below for my test results

4/21 - amm .15 NI 0 NA 0
4/22 - amm .05 NI 0 NA 0

After my test on 4/22 I Dosed Dr Tims ammonia chloride to test bacteria, I dosed for 50 gallons because I figured about 30 gallons of my tank was taken up by sand and rock.

4/23 - amm .15 NI .75 NA 0
4/25 - amm .25 NI 5.0 NA 3.0 - 5.0 range

My salinity is holding at 1.024

I am looking for some advice on my cycle - Thank you ahead of time !

(I took one pic with the lights on and then turned them off)

 

[fishguy242]

hi welcome to the reef going to love it here!!
lots of fun/info/fun/help/fun....
pics!!!..we all love pics..
plenty of answers will come

 

[SifuMemphis]

Welcome to r2r.

Looking at your cycle, it looks like you're well on your way to having your tank cycled. Give it a week or 2 and chest parameters again. Once Ammonia and Nitrite is 0, you're good to go to test Nitrate. If it's high, do a water change, and you're done!

If you want to play it safe, once ammonia and nitrite reaches 0, you can also dose some Dr. Tims Ammonia into the tank. If you're tank is cycled properly, after ammonia is dosed again, 24 hours later should drop back down to 0. This will let you know your tank has amount bacteria to convert ammonia etc etc.

 

[brandon429]

your tank is 100% cycled and you can begin. it will support a typical bioload based on several factors above, its 100% done.

main reason: Fritz has been meticulously tested by Dr Reef to be found the most active bac. it adheres to surfaces and becomes totally immune to 100% water changes in about 2 days max after adding.

you are day ten. you posted some ammonia moves up there that signify your bottle bac wasnt dead. (only ammonia control matters in updated cycling science, not nitrate and nitrite)

 

[Payne Train]

After I dosed ammonium chlor it never went back to zero amm or nitrites —- I had thought I needed to wait until I dosed 2 ammon chlor and was able to read zero 24 hours later.
Not questioning anyone, I am just asking to make sure.
Thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated !

 

[brandon429]

that is 100% the going approach agreed, legit concern.

we modify that a bit here below, though, in order to explain and justify why marine aquarium conventions all start on time! pretty neat rule breakers/400 reefs with no start variance:

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

www.reef2reef.com

*we changed the rules of ammonia to zero to calibrate for today's non seneye testers that often wont show zero reliably. when ammonia moves down, thats the new can-start signal. it makes all of today's testers for ammonia work. for example, everyone knows of the API ammonia .25 issue, thats an attaining zero issue but the tester itself can decently indicate a completed cycle.


dose ammonia up to slighly green on API, by tomorrow it'll be mostly yellow in any reef; that change is the proof not the hard zero.

 

[Payne Train]

Thanks ! I will dose here shortly and recheck tomorrow to see where we’re at.
Now another question, CUC first or my clowns

 

[brandon429]

that is totally varied tanker to tanker

*the most updated science is no fish until fallow, and then 100% of additions after fish come from other fallow systems or the whole chain of disease control breaks.


thats not required, its just the most up to date method for knowing when to add fish, though you could have added some last weekend.

the absolute most up to date order of ops:

-adds corals clean up crew, feed, manages substrates and rock by hand so they dont crud over as some form of permitted uglies. Uglies phasing is so 1998 called. we can reef clean nowadays.

-algae guided, lights and params adjusted for coral growth not algae starvation, corals fed assertively so they grow and begin to plate over surfaces, this rejects algae and it makes your corals disease resistant. feeding, and increased water change action for a few mos.

when you have added things to enjoy, cease adding anything but coral feed. go 76 days

then add only fish from known quarantine. *thereafter, you can only add nonfood items that come from a fallowed system, or the entire approach breaks with the addition of one unclean snail shell.

that is the highly clinical, annoying approach it takes to not kill fish nowadays.

 

[Payne Train]

This is my tests from this morning

 

[brandon429]

Perfect, can start


the final step left is selecting the rule book from which you will make cycle plays


98% of readers want to drum me out for good having seen that nitrite reading above heh

nitrite either matters in reefing or it doesn’t. If it matters then anything you add to that tank will die a horrible death. If it doesn’t matter, then all reef conventions ever ran the last 20 years

that’s an elitist cycling joke and it’s darn funny.

 

[Payne Train]

Thank you for the help !

 

[brandon429]

The only way to right what’s been wronged (cycling status quo/wronged) is to add some life and if it dies within 48 hours then I’ll PayPal you for it right here.


an uncycled reef cannot support life it will die fast, and Im willing to pay for bad cycling advise/ also reinforces good advice too. In all honesty if your reasonable average starting bioload dies quickly and you can see it’s a bad cycle call, I’ll PayPal it square / what u bought.

now we are reefing. Start date is accountability for claims made date. **cant wait to see your initial start pics

change about half your water out before you begin, for algae purposes not for nitrite. We are still leaving half that purple gold even if you change half.

this PayPal thing above: only offered it a couple times / not trying to pay for everyone’s brooklynella clowns lol a week after no fallow cycling

but there are some reefs and reefers I can tell are earnest about cycle umpiring so offering to pay for a bum call steps this game the heck up. Snails, crabs, a fish, some corals, will not make two days in an uncycled tank it will be a cloudy mess overnight and all dead.

the quicker you change water and add something insured by me the quicker I can begin use of this thread in about twenty stalled cycle threads. If we wait too much longer the skeptics will think we got lucky again, and again.

 

[brandon429]

4/21 - amm .15 NI 0 NA 0
4/22 - amm .05 NI 0 NA 0



4/23 - amm .15 NI .75 NA 0
4/25 - amm .25 NI 5.0 NA 3.0 - 5.0 range

____________________________________________

my money is on the line solely because of that first measure above. We need to see ammonia going down in the presence of rocks and or sand, just that measure alone not nitrate and especially nitrite...this is what we are testing if you’d like to add some enjoyable creatures to start. The second measure after adding liquid ammonia, it will be trending down each day if we are using seneye for ammonia measure although in this tank we might not have a seneye.

That expensive bottle bac has only one job to do.


turbo start is the baddest bac on the block we have seen it used hundreds of times now. If you can’t change half the water change twenty gallons that w do.

puts cash on the line for a six day cycle, check. There are lots of threads needing examples/ worth it.

 

[Payne Train]

I just started up my RODI to get my water ready for a water change later tonight.

Couple questions
After I change out roughly 20 gal of tank water, will I need to add some more Turbostart when I add a fish? The only thing that worried me about the first dose of turbo was that I wasn't able to add ammon chloride until day 8. Before day 8 the only ammonia source that I had was anything that died from the "live" sand and a few days of flake fish food.

4/15 - tank set up and turbostart added
4/21 - testing kit finally shows up
4/22 - ammonium chloride dose

If all still sounds right, I will go get a clown tomorrow and we will start this little venture. Maybe I can find a DaVinci that I've been wanting

 

[brandon429]

No bottle bac just water required. no help for the wagerer!


The fun thing we are measuring / my digiwallet risking is that ready is ready...The quickest timeframe I would have made this wager is day 3, though Dr Reefs bottle bac thread shows it will pass between 24-36 hours depending on bottle bac viability. Your first stated ammonia down was proof that round of bac was alive. thats the wager anyway and the only payer for loss is me lol. If you win, it’s a dang nice start to a reef all living well.

I trust the fish food portion only as enough feed, in addition to natural environmental inputs and contaminations. Dr Reef used fish feed in his work is why I’d trust it.

 

[brandon429]

Payne also check this out, totally applicable to your thread

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bio-spira-works-great.668674/


an entire reef on day one, bottle bac carried, using lesser bottle bac than fritz. Your tank is like him waiting six days to start, same outcome. He skipped the entire cycle, zero days to bioload management. It works too, those animals aren’t burned they’d all die if burned in the slightest.

what bottle bac does is amazing.

 

[Payne Train]

That was a good article, thanks for sharing.

Couple more questions - Can I turn my lights on now lol?
Can/should I add my chemipure, GFO, or carbon at this point?
And I will feed the minimum amount of food for the first few days.

Any other thoughts or anything that I have missed ?

 

[brandon429]

Those items won’t affect your cycle they’re all ok to run or not as a matter of preference no problem.

 

[Payne Train]

Just turned the lights on ! So I’ll post a couple pics non cycle related.

I need to clean up inside my stand !

 

[brandon429]

It’s just solid perfection. Solid reefing

you did something that stands out. Vs a massive rock stack


you made two bommies. And if you needed to lift one side out for access one day, you can. Now you’re into algae planning for sure, past cycling.