Dr Tim’s cycle - 1 week in, super confused

[byront]

So I’m a week into a Dr Tim’s fishless cycle. My original test kits were crap so grabbed as different set.

However my result after a week are not what I expected. I’ve only dosed ammonia now right at the start with the nitrifying bacteria. And still my results read like it’s not really done much.

7 days in, results read like between 2-4ppm ammonia, between 1-2ppm nitrite, and I assume basically 0ppm nitrate.

Water temp is 25deg C, and 1.025 salinity.

I’m stumped

 

[brandon429]

To fix: Add in one ground up pinch of fish food any brand, ground up into powder into the reef

Wait ten more days, do a big water change, you're done and no more testing is needed. Source for the claim: my forty page work thread fixing Dr Tim cycles using testless cycling science. That above is the condensed version. The fish food provides carbon that ammonia doesn't provide

The ten days comes from the ammonia line of any cycling chart, not counting your already done week wait. You don't need tests to cycle when using updated cycling science. You can sub in carbon, ammonia, bottle bac and ten days vs the testing.

 

[byront]

When you say big water change - how much water do I swap out? Like 30-40%?

 

[BartMan]

I would add another bottle of bacteria. Ammonia over 2ppm can destroy the bacteria.

 

[brandon429]

If you did 0 water change it wouldnt harm a single animal added, the reason for the swap/ any degree you want, the more the better, is just to remove algae fuel additives and start with clean water.


we basically end up feeding daily the fish added anyway / that water change just saves me having to inquire about every possible extra additive unstated.

I have my cycle friends do the big water change because of unspoken variables such as them adding way more ammonia than stated sometimes, at other times they’ve dumped in unneeded items like prime or three extra bottles of bacteria so the water change is simply an equalizing start. The effect of the water change is to reset the water column for clean, non dosed water, and the bacteria we stuck in place during the wait period are adhered to the rocks and can’t be removed until you do antibacterial moves to the rock. The first tenet of being cycled is that no degree of water changes can peel off the bacteria on the rocks, we make use of that rule anytime past day ten of the blended wait. Even if your bottle was bone dead, ten days wait on fish food alone would start your base ammonia control, cycling charts aren’t built with bottle bac additives in place they’re for feed only cycles. Dosing the bac speeds up the cycles faster than norm, it’s why waiting till day ten is so safe. We’ve fed plus added bac that works in 2-3 days in nearly all cases.

ten days doesn’t mean everyone’s ammonia will drop to zero by then, some people dose way too many additives in their varied approaches

the trick about ten days is whatever they’ve arranged as a cycling soup was laying down bacteria the whole time, and by day ten, you can swap out all that wastewater with clean water and the bac left behind will be enough to carry all common starter bioloads. Waiting the indefinite amount of time required to clear all the loading to zero is the old way, it’s not needed.