Did I ruin my cycle?

Jordan berry · Jul 21, 2015

I have a 90 gallon tank cycling atm. With 32lbs of live rock and 60 lbs of caribsea life rock. I threw a couple shrimp in there 3 days ago and my amonia is around 2.0 now. If I remove the shrimp will my rock grow the nitrifying bacteria? Is that high of ammonia bad for the bacteria that would have been alive? My nitrite has been at .25 for the last 3 days with no change. Also if I remove the shrimp and add tss will that help things or make it worse?

Rattooth · Jul 21, 2015

The live rock has needed bacteria. High ammonia is first step . Things are going as expected.
Next ammonia will go to zero , and nitrite will spike up .
Then when nitrite goes to zero , tank has cycled and you can add fish.
(I would remove shrimp. Surprised they are OK with high ammonia.)

richard.oberholzer.923 · Jul 21, 2015

What kind of filtration are you using?

Jordan berry · Jul 21, 2015

The shrimp is table shrimp used to spike the ammonia. I read a lot of ppl do that but didn't understand that's for cycling w/o live rock. I have a curve 7 protein skimmer that is running over with the lid off not doing anything but hoping to break in and a filter sock in a 35 gallon sump. I used crushed coral sand which won't help with cycle.

Jordan berry · Jul 21, 2015

Anyone else have any recomendations? I removed the shrimp.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 21, 2015

Leaving in a shrimp would be my plan. The ammonia does not hurt the bacteria that consume it.

What is TSS?

Jordan berry · Jul 21, 2015

Tetra safe start. It's supposed to add the bacteria to the tank.

kbourque · Jul 21, 2015

Yes I would leave the shrimp in when the bacteria take off and you have 0 ammonia with the shrimp in you know for sure they are there doing their job. Also when your nitrite reaches 0 wait another week and test again just to be sure the cycle is over. And after that some people do a 20-50% water change to get rid of nitrate. One thing I learned is don't test for nitrate while the cycle is going on cus the ammonia and nitrite will give false readings of nitrate so wait till the cycle is done to test for nitrate.

Jordan berry · Jul 21, 2015

Awesome thanks guys. Should I add the safe start or just wait for the bacteria to grow on it's own.

kbourque · Jul 21, 2015

Jordan berry said:
Awesome thanks guys. Should I add the safe start or just wait for the bacteria to grow on it's own.

You can add it if you want it helps kick start the amount of bacteria in the tank.

Virtualbasil · Jul 21, 2015

I think your gonna be ok !

brandon429 · Jul 21, 2015

The chance that your tank is already fully cycled, a full complement of nitrifying bacteria awaiting normal ammonia levels to function just as they will in 27 mos

is approximately 80%.

if you post tank pics, then we will know even better. the pics are the key

when you say live rock, do you mean bone white live rock with no color, no growth, no coralline that was in a fish store holding vat marked as live, or do you mean purple coralline real live rock with worms and pods. i gave such a high pct towards being pre cycled just going off the "live"descriptor

rarely will lfs outright mislead, typically their live rock ranges in coloration between premium and base rock for ex, but time submerged can still easily exceed the minimum required to make a set of rocks fully able to nitrify but still lack the benthic growth that provides purple, knurly coloration.

My vote is you can choose, same ends, different time scale.

If you are dealing with what pics will show as a cycled base setup, then the shrimp is holding you back from reefing, the higher animals dont want 2.0

My answer is, you didnt stall your cycle probably, its overwhelmed by some excess rot that will easily self correct in 24-48 hrs when shrimp is removed or wchange is done, then the tank can likely handle non rot bioload depending on the submersion time for the rocks, whether during that time they were in the presence of typical bioloading etc. but moving systems didnt change the cycle at all.

Jordan berry · Jul 21, 2015

My "live rock" is a couple month old hooked up in the sump of my lfs coral display tank. Very little coraline no growth. I just took out the shrimp. From yesterday to today I thought the ammonia would sky rocket but ammonia stayed the same between a 1 and 2 on the color scale. The nitrites went from .25 to between a 1 and 2 on the color scale.

brandon429 · Jul 21, 2015

the chance your tank is fully cycled has now exceeded 90%

look how quick this is going, prepare to remove shrimp and change out that stinky water

the biology doesnt allow for -any-coralline to grow and there not be nitrifying bacteria, possibly denitrifiers, and nutrients and submersion time proof and all the things nitrifiers and associates need. where goes coralline, so does a full cycle. and, not much rock is needed to run quite a bioload, although not maybe some rot lol.

its also ok to overprovide for them, if you dont have aged live rock thats a great idea and a good quality test kit to know when enough is enough, i am partial to not using api for tank cycling only because slight readings vary too much, imo.

moving established rocks among systems is never antibacterial, adding medication or antibiotics sure is. if you were to move a tank, change out 100% of the water, input the live rocks into 1.019 water much lower than your typical reef water, the bacteria would still be alive, but some worms sure might not lol.

anytime someone is using shrimp cycling with live rock its almost universally unneeded and not harmful to the bacteria. shrimp cycling is the for the bone white stuff

both listed as live, but one set doesn't have a questionable submersion time

vs

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 22, 2015

Jordan berry said:
Tetra safe start. It's supposed to add the bacteria to the tank.

OK. I don't know if it is useful or not, but I doubt it hurt anything.

Jordan berry · Jul 23, 2015

Right now my readings are .25 ammonia, .5 nitrites and nitrates between a 10 and 20. Tomorrow when my ammonia hits 0 if my nitrites don't drop to 0 should I wait to add a fish or cuc or will that kill off the amonia cleaning bacteria?

brandon429 · Jul 23, 2015

Nothing will kill off the ammonia cleaning bacteria shy of adding medication. If you can post pics of the rock you can get a near certain answer but if not, what's happening is your tank is cycled, but still has excess waste that a balanced tank won't have, and as soon as it overcomes the excess the water will test normal. You can either speed that up with water changes, or let it continue to self digest.

Imo
You have nitrite reducing bacteria fully ready, but have overcome them by add the waste in bulk. You aren't waiting for nitrite bacteria to grow, you are waiting for the blast of waste to leave.

Jordan berry · Jul 24, 2015

Sounds good. Maybe I'll do a little water change tomorrow and add a fish and a small cuc. Honestly you are probably right. I was worried because it never showed nitrates but today my wife found out I was testing wrong and her first time it read at 20. Also the water getting clouded from the ammonia breaking bacteria I'm guessing happened on day 1 and 2 since than water clarity has been perfect. Everyone said because I only used 32 lbs of live rock and 60 lbs of the fake purple stuff it would take longer but mine seems to be going quick. Should I do a 50% water change or just 10 to 20%?

brandon429 · Jul 24, 2015

Either percentage is fine. Things are headed towards o ammonia o trite and some trate regardless, the pct water changed affects how quickly it gets there due to waste overage

Even if none changed it will still get there. Whats neat about a blended cycle where you have rocks with certain bacteria and rocks with none, the painted rocks, is that the good ones feed their bacteria to the new rocks without requiring free ammonia.

Time is all thats required, and, to begin using the tank you simply plan the bioload around the amount of known good to go rock. Fish are what exceed bioload maximums, so go slow on adding them for a while to give the fake rocks chance to catch up as in two more months.

During that time it doesn't mean the tank has to be empty, just using maybe simple corals and a clean up crew since they never exceed what several pounds of true live rock can oxidize.