Dry cycle with mature reef kit...

[donomite]

Reefer 170, little phishies dry rock stax only. Yes, this was my bright idea. This is my first cycle with no live rock or substrate whatsoever. Bare bottom, only stax. On 22 day of red sea mature kit. My ammonia is still around 1.5ppm, no nitrites, no nitrates. I spoke with the red sea folks, who are absolutely wonderful btw. Their answer was the same I will probably get here, but that is to be patient and stick to part of kit that makes sense. I am out of nitro bac and bac start. I have zero visible algae yet. Never got to the CUC obviously because of ammonia and lack of cycle. Im hopeful that my cycle will kick off. Im being told locally to not add and live rock to help expedite the ammonia to nitrite transition. My question with your experience ...should I add a bit of live rock to introduce some bacteria? OR is there something I can add to kickoff ammonia to nitrite to nitrate that mimic live rock bacteria? Or should I just wait and continue to test everyday until I say ammonia drop, or a hint of nitrite and or nitrate?

PSA - I have done a lot of reading , not sure why I did a dry cycle, but this forum has been very helpful to my newbie questions so far. I hope I am not too out of sorts on asking for a recommendation. I didnt see a whole lot of folks going all dry with this starter kit so hopefully this can help establish a timeline for future noobs starting with the same conditions.

 

[donomite]

Reefer 170, little phishies dry rock stax only. Yes, this was my bright idea. This is my first cycle with no live rock or substrate whatsoever. Bare bottom, only stax. On 22 day of red sea mature kit. My ammonia is still around 1.5ppm, no nitrites, no nitrates. I spoke with the red sea folks, who are absolutely wonderful btw. Their answer was the same I will probably get here, but that is to be patient and stick to part of kit that makes sense. I am out of nitro bac and bac start. I have zero visible algae yet. Never got to the CUC obviously because of ammonia and lack of cycle. Im hopeful that my cycle will kick off. Im being told locally to not add and live rock to help expedite the ammonia to nitrite transition. My question with your experience ...should I add a bit of live rock to introduce some bacteria? OR is there something I can add to kickoff ammonia to nitrite to nitrate that mimic live rock bacteria? Or should I just wait and continue to test everyday until I say ammonia drop, or a hint of nitrite and or nitrate?

PSA - I have done a lot of reading , not sure why I did a dry cycle, but this forum has been very helpful to my newbie questions so far. I hope I am not too out of sorts on asking for a recommendation. I didnt see a whole lot of folks going all dry with this starter kit so hopefully this can help establish a timeline for future noobs starting with the same conditions.

 

[EmdeReef]

There’s absolutely no problem adding live rock. At 22 days you should be seeing some nitrates even without using any bacteria additives. I wonder if perhaps the nitrate test kit may be off. You could also try a bottle of biospira and see if that does the trick.

 

[Jekyl]

Was there a reason for not starting with rock? Substrate I can see if you want a BB tank. If planning to add rock I'd do it sooner than later. Better to get the bacteria growing asap. Depending on your own preference you could get a mix of wet and dry base rock. If you're going to add wet I'd recommend getting from a few different LFS. I added substrate and rock from a few different ones in my area. I got various snails, worms and a blooming pod population from just a few pounds. Nothing bad came from it in my case. Plus helped seed for coraline.

 

[donomite]

I’ll grab a couple pounds of live and a new nitrate test kit. I’ll try Salifert and wait until my ammonia goes down and see what new test says. I’ll ghost feed a couple of time and see if ammonia drops as it should once a tanks is properly cycled. I’m just hoping to see something that tells me it’s actually cycling. Next time I would certainly use some live substrate vs straight dry rock.

 

[donomite]

Bought a Red Sea nitrate and nitrite kit. Did not buy any live rock. You guys rock and we’re dead on. Test kit was toast. Nitrites .5 nitrates around 35ish. Going to replace all old test kits first of all. Some nopox per the kit and a water change. Once ammonia is zero and nitrates are low enough , I’ll add cuc. The attached picture was from this evening. The api picture above showing zero nitrates was from last night. I think the api tat may have just surpassed its expiration date.

Cheers.