Dr Tims One and Only scrambled my chem!

[Fdalamo]

So, I had pretty good chem, Ph levels were right..Am was nil and nitrates/nitrites were just short of nil. I thought of adding One and Only for reef as a supplement, to boost the bacteria. A day later, levels of Am spiked and deadly levels of nitrites are present.

I've done a 90% change and reduced all except nitrites..which still is dangerously high.

Is my cycle going to start all over?

 

[mayday610]

If you are still cycling, i would have just left it alone. The spike is due to a lack of bacteria build up. By doing a water change you just took their food back from them, slowing down the cycling process, if not turning it back because of the huge water change. A water change that big is not a healthy thing to do under any circumstance. All my opinion

 

[BigAl07]

I always tell people to "shrimp it and forget it". By that I mean when you are ready to kick off the tank cycle add a clean raw deli shrimp to the system (this feeds the bacteria and encourages rapid colonization due to plentiful food supply) and sit back and watch. Maintain water circulation and temp and let everything else just "Stew".

What do you mean by "dangerously high" in regards to your Nitrites?

Do you have any live stock in the tank?

The only time I would suggest such a large water change is if you had some kind of "Contamination". You can do a SAFE large water change but you have to make sure the basic water params match up.

 

[beaslbob]

I can't say anything about any product to hurry up the nitrogen cycle.

I just think the key would be thriving green plant life like macro and other algaes in marine tanks or true aquatic plants in FW systems.

The plants will control the ammonia and allow the aerobic bacteria to build up slowly preventing the ammonia spikes.

Then when the ammonia is consumed by bacteria, the plant life will start consuming nitrates for nitrogen.

So to me there is no need for any cycle reducing additives of any kind.

but that's just my .02