Cycling question

[Siguun]

A bit about me: New to having an aquarium and done as much research as I possibly can understand. Now own a Biocube 29g and beginning the cycling process. (Takes a long time I am in no hurry just want to get it done right.)

Situation: Went to LFS and purchased live rock and sand. Girlfriend owns a 20g Fowler tank (2 months old). Was told by LFS when doing the partial water change to GF tank to dump that water into my tank to help the cycling process along. (Approximately 7 gallons.)

Problem: Now yesterday (24 hours into the cycling process) I decided to test the waters with a kit 0 ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 10 ppm Nitrate... now I understand there is no way that a tank can cycle in 24 hrs and the readings I am getting is probably the water from my gf tank.

Question: How am I suppose to know that my tank has started the cycling process?? Am I still suppose to be looking for the spike of ammonia and nitrite? If so about how often should I test the waters for these levels?

Sorry for the long thread just wanted to give as much info as I could. Let me know if any other info is needed. Thanks again.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Welcome to R2R!!

#welcometor2r

Have you been dosing ammonia or ghost feeding the tank? The nitrates are most likely from the water from your girlfriends tank, but without an ammonia source your bacterial colony cannot establish itself. You can either pick up a bottle of dr. Tim's or feed fish food to the tank or get a raw shrimp from the grocery store.
Give this thread a read through, lots of good info in there for you
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cycling-an-aquarium.306554/

 

[Brew12]

I decided to test the waters with a kit 0 ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 10 ppm Nitrate... now I understand there is no way that a tank can cycle in 24 hrs and the readings I am getting is probably the water from my gf tank.

Actually, a tank can cycle in 24 hours or less. I'm not saying that yours is, but it is very possible.

Went to LFS and purchased live rock and sand.

Most of the nitrifying bacteria live on the rock. One of the main reasons to purchase live rock is that it should have all of the bacteria needed. You can either add food or pure ammonia to verify it is ready for fish, but it likely is if your live rock was of a good quality. If you see nitrates rising without ammonia or nitrite, your tank is likely good right now.

And welcome to Reef2Reef!

 

[brandon429]

you may have a tank that doesn't need to cycle, live rock brings all bacteria and don't need to be re added

post pics

agreed on 24 hours for things to settle, micro die offs if applicable.

You should not subject live animals to free ammonia, since bacteria don't need help and your rock is clearly live due to benthic association (hitchhiker animals like stars). The reason you may have ammonia and still be cycled is due to feeding fish without consumers of food present, you are going about this backwards if you spike ammonia in the presence of the costly animals that make live rock cost more than dry rock.

When fully cycled reef tanks have a goby die or a clown die in the tank for example when on vacation, a seneye monitor will register an ammonia spike for example

Per the statement bac don't need help, it means they don't have to be stress verified either... they literally move among tanks without issue, which is why future water changes won't kill your tank.

If the rock is live, do a big water change, reef slow begin. Live rock has color and animals in and on it that dry rock from a shelf won't have. Can't wait to see pics

For someone to sell you white rock that brings in starfish is quite rare, so far my vote is total skip cycle stop dosing ammonia. If the rock is indeed bare per pics, no color no benthic growths except a lone star, then proceed with ammonia work to see if ammonia drops after a spike

Live animal presence signifies bacterial presence when combined with other bioindicators like coralline on the rocks. Live animal presence sets your ammonia boundaries if you want to cycle precisely correct for your type of tank.

 

[Siguun]

Hey guys thanks for the responses and welcomes. I will definitely post some pics when I get home. I didn't realise that it was possible to cycle in 24 with live rock and sand. I did put in some fish food last night before bed to see if I could get an ammonia spike so I'll test the waters when I get home.

 

[bombero11]

Dose ammonia to 2ppm, if it goes back to 0 in 24 hours your tank is cycled
That’s if you have 0 livestock

 

[Siguun]

I have no live stock I put in my self but over the last 24 hrs I have been seeing these white star fish appear on the glass and 1 snail come from what I assume is hitch hikers

 

[Brew12]

I have no live stock I put in my self but over the last 24 hrs I have been seeing these white star fish appear on the glass and 1 snail come from what I assume is hitch hikers

Those are asterina starfish, and are normally not harmful to anything. They can be a little annoying and some people try to eradicate them if they get too many of them.

Since you added a good bit of food, give it time to break down. Keep testing the next 2 or 3 days looking for either ammonia or increasing nitrates. Adding another big pinch of food wouldn't hurt, either.

 

[Siguun]

Sounds good I'll keep an eye on water levels and add food daily and see where that goes. Thanks again.

Okay edit to this so I dont do anything unnecessary. I'll take pics and measure water levels and go from there.

 

[Fudsey]

Welcome to R2R ! ! !

 

[Siguun]

As promised here are pics.

 

[Mavric]

I’m going to piggyback in this thread because I am currently experiencing the same thing. I setup my tank with live rock and live sand. I’ve been adding Aquavitro Seed for the past 3 days and now my nitrites and ammonia are 0ppm while my nitrates are 5ppm. I want to think my tank is cycled but at the same time I’m being super careful by thinking the cycle hasn’t even kicked off yet. I’m going to add some food tonight and test again tomorrow like the thread suggests.

 

[Siguun]

So I just did a test of my water and my ammonia and nitrite are still 0, while my nitrate has now become 20 ppm. From this assumption I guess the tank is cycled but is nitrate suppose to go up that high that fast in 24 hours? From what I have been reading it seemed like to keep coral I should be keeping below 5 ppm of nitrate? Also since I have a biocube 29g I have read that I should dispose of the bio balls because they are Nitrate Factories. Any comments on this would be appreciated. Thanks again.

 

[brandon429]

That’s true live rock agreed, all set. My own nitrate runs 10-20 at times it’s not a huge deal but algae like nitrate so keep up water changes weekly

From here on out it’s personal tuning as to how you keep nitrate (I don’t test for anything, just change water weekly so practices vary) you can start by doing a full water change to export the feed that was put in

 

[Brew12]

That’s true live rock agreed, all set.

+1, you are set to add fish.

My own nitrate runs 10-20 at times it’s not a huge deal

Also agree. Many of the top SPS "masters" run nitrates at this level.

 

[brandon429]

I had a friend test my water for phosphate for the first time ever, and it registered above the acceptable level two times over. I did absolutely nothing in response other than a quizzical huh.... No algae for me either way. It was killed out long ago, params within reason don't matter to me and any nano not packed with fish that changes a fair portion of water weekly meets the same easy care options. if his salifert said I was 4x over, still wouldn't change course the results are what Im looking for.

Being algae free has nothing at all to do with nutrients slightly elevated Siguun
how you directly kill it controls whether it takes over your tank or not. free to get creative. I used to burn it out with a grilling jet torch lighter (lifted rocks out of tank)

the number one trick a nano reefer can do to be algae free and not have to tinker with parameter chasing, ideal N and P, is to keep a sandbed that isn't cloudy. just about every sandbed we'll see in a nano clouds if you reach in and grab some and drop it, clouds enough to kill the tank in some settings. not mine, drop half of it down if required, cloud is light enough just to broadcast feed a bit nothing severe.

doing occasional deep cleans where you take this nano apart, clean the sand, spot kill algae off rocks, is the secret ahead of time for how you can get it out to 15 yrs old repeating the same old regimen. corals will cover all surfaces by 10.

if this nano above has a sandbed with that cloudy factor, we should clean it for a much fresher start before you start stocking corals. how much does your sandbed cloud if you move a stick around in it with the pumps on

*the number one reason your cycling approach determines your algae care and outcome Siguun is because how we view bacteria sets our care boundaries.

you just moved your entire system blocks away and didn't upset it, so, when you develop a dirty sandbed over time as all nanos do, even without fish, you are free to repeat the cleaning/moving procedure and make the tank instantly clean. the rocks and bac w move back into the cleaned tank just fine, as will all corals and fish, this is the core method of the pico reef aquarist and it is a truly rock solid nano reefing technique for getting super old reefs.

your first few months and year(s) should be cleaning oriented. don't get hands off, a little lazy, until it ages a bit and is packed and running well. any nano reef you read about on the entire internet that was invaded with any organism simply did opposite of whats listed above.

 

[hotashes]

I had a friend test my water for phosphate for the first time ever, and it registered above the acceptable level two times over. I did absolutely nothing in response other than a quizzical huh.... No algae for me either way. It was killed out long ago, params within reason don't matter to me and any nano not packed with fish that changes a fair portion of water weekly meets the same easy care options. if his salifert said I was 4x over, still wouldn't change course the results are what Im looking for.

Being algae free has nothing at all to do with nutrients slightly elevated Siguun
how you directly kill it controls whether it takes over your tank or not. free to get creative. I used to burn it out with a grilling jet torch lighter (lifted rocks out of tank)

the number one trick a nano reefer can do to be algae free and not have to tinker with parameter chasing, ideal N and P, is to keep a sandbed that isn't cloudy. just about every sandbed we'll see in a nano clouds if you reach in and grab some and drop it, clouds enough to kill the tank in some settings. not mine, drop half of it down if required, cloud is light enough just to broadcast feed a bit nothing severe.

doing occasional deep cleans where you take this nano apart, clean the sand, spot kill algae off rocks, is the secret ahead of time for how you can get it out to 15 yrs old repeating the same old regimen. corals will cover all surfaces by 10.

if this nano above has a sandbed with that cloudy factor, we should clean it for a much fresher start before you start stocking corals. how much does your sandbed cloud if you move a stick around in it with the pumps on

*the number one reason your cycling approach determines your algae care and outcome Siguun is because how we view bacteria sets our care boundaries. It was not made apparent that this was skip cycle setup, even at the lfs, because most assume bacteria die upon transfer over to a new tank

since they don't, you are free to take this tank apart and clean it to the bone, and reassemble it, skip cycle. hundreds of times. thousands of times. it never ends, the bac are set until you medicate them out. most training for nano reefers comes from large tanker techniques that purposefully store up waste, to avoid system upsets.

you just moved your entire system blocks away and didn't upset it, so, when you develop a dirty sandbed over time as all nanos do, even without fish, you are free to repeat the cleaning/moving procedure and make the tank instantly clean. the rocks and bac w move back into the cleaned tank just fine, as will all corals and fish, this is the core method of the pico reef aquarist and it is a truly rock solid nano reefing technique for getting super old reefs.

I just skipped cycled me tank and all is looking good as should be, corals extended, 1" maxima clam opened up showing mantle etc. (Clams at 1" are not meant to do well in closed loop systems, let alone in a tank that is rip cleaned).

From this

+1 days husbandry

To this

A.

 

[brandon429]

that Duncan frag alone is the size of my whole reef, im jealz of those who can keep fish