Day 10 Water Test??

Reefrookie733 · Jun 3, 2020

Can anyone tell me if this is good or bad for day 10 fish-less cycle using ammonia chloride and Dr. Tim's one and only?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jun 3, 2020

Seems fine. Nitrate may still be low or even zero. With that much nitrite, you cannot accurately measure nitrate. 1 ppm nitrite can read as 100 ppm nitrate with many kits.

Reefrookie733 · Jun 3, 2020

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Seems fine. Nitrate may still be low or even zero. With that much nitrite, you cannot accurately measure nitrate. 1 ppm nitrite can read as 100 ppm nitrate with many kits.

Thank you sir. I've heard that nitrite thing twice now. Is there an article somewhere on here that i can get educated on what that means? I'm worried if i can't read my tests at this point i wont know what bad looks like if it happens.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jun 3, 2020

Reefrookie733 said:
Thank you sir. I've heard that nitrite thing twice now. Is there an article somewhere on here that i can get educated on what that means? I'm worried if i can't read my tests at this point i wont know what bad looks like if it happens.

it just means don’t measure nitrate when nitrite is present. Nitrite isn’t any concern once cycling finishes.

brandon429 · Jun 3, 2020

And I would add this cycle looks done due to submersion timeframes on bottle directions met, the bacteria is designed to be done sooner, and those metabolites show conversion occurring so it's set.

Change water out, refill, begin

If you had all free Ammonia no conversions shown and three days in I'd doubt

kkelly007 · Jun 4, 2020

Looks very normal. Just for comparative purposes (and, of course, every tank is unique), my 105g DT just completed its cycle--and I used fiji pink live sand, Caribsea Life Rock, Aquavitro seed, and introduced fish food/pellets in a mesh bag for the first 6 days (which was probably 4 days too long) of my tank's life. The following was my cycle progression:

May 5 - added water, seed and fish food
May 14 - ammonia peaked and nitrites first detected
May 17 - nitrites reached >5.0, which is the highest on my Sera test kit
May 21 - ammonia 0.0 and remains that way
May 30 - 15% water change at the suggestion of my LFS to drop nitrates (hangover from extended fish food)
May 31 - last day nitrites were measured at 5.0
June 3 - nitrites plummeted on June 1 and 2, and measured at 0.0

So almost a full month from water to complete cycle. My nitrates are now 8, which is still a little high, but down from 85 as a consequence of me leaving the fish food in too long. One more small water change and they should be down to low single digits, plus just turned the skimmer on. My nitrites were sky high for what seemed like forever (although it really wasn't: 13 days), but they went from >5.0 to 0.0 in three days.

This is my first reef tank and I was antsy to get it through the cycle, but in reality the 30 days allowed me the time that I needed to set up a QT (which is currently cycling but I'm going to transfer a marine pure block from my main tank to instantly cycle), develop my livestock plan, really organize the power center, and generally get ready.

Good luck!

Reefrookie733 · Jun 4, 2020

kkelly007 said:
Looks very normal. Just for comparative purposes (and, of course, every tank is unique), my 105g DT just completed its cycle--and I used fiji pink live sand, Caribsea Life Rock, Aquavitro seed, and introduced fish food/pellets in a mesh bag for the first 6 days (which was probably 4 days too long) of my tank's life. The following was my cycle progression:

May 5 - added water, seed and fish food

May 14 - ammonia peaked and nitrites first detected

May 17 - nitrites reached >5.0, which is the highest on my Sera test kit

May 21 - ammonia 0.0 and remains that way

May 30 - 15% water change at the suggestion of my LFS to drop nitrates (hangover from extended fish food)

May 31 - last day nitrites were measured at 5.0

June 3 - nitrites plummeted on June 1 and 2, and measured at 0.0

So almost a full month from water to complete cycle. My nitrates are now 8, which is still a little high, but down from 85 as a consequence of me leaving the fish food in too long. One more small water change and they should be down to low single digits, plus just turned the skimmer on. My nitrites were sky high for what seemed like forever (although it really wasn't: 13 days), but they went from >5.0 to 0.0 in three days.

This is my first reef tank and I was antsy to get it through the cycle, but in reality the 30 days allowed me the time that I needed to set up a QT (which is currently cycling but I'm going to transfer a marine pure block from my main tank to instantly cycle), develop my livestock plan, really organize the power center, and generally get ready.

Good luck!

Thanks Kelley this si great info. let me know when you start putting stuff in your tank. Would like to see how that goes!!