This is not my first tank but cycling a bit different. Dry rocks,dry sand. Starting week 3 submerged. I used a piece of shrimp and let it decay about 5 days. Ammonia came up pretty high. Nitrites spiked, ammonia came down but at the same time nitrates are rising and continue to go up. I know no reason to test until 30 days. I did the dilution test on nitrites and still 5plus. Nitrates 160. I used smartstart. Stay the course?
Dry rocks cycle
- Thread starter bjc451
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Nooooooooob1
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All sounds pretty normal to me. Keep your patience up. I'm in the same process. Been submerged for 3 days with a piece of shrimp.
One thing I will say is that I heard you're suppose to replace your dead shrimp every 3 days or so to keep the ammonia up to feed the bacteria.
One thing I will say is that I heard you're suppose to replace your dead shrimp every 3 days or so to keep the ammonia up to feed the bacteria.
I did add another small piece a couple days ago and only spiked it to it to either .50-1.0 and now 24 hours after removing the little piece is back at zero. I turned on the lights and skimmer middle of 2nd week. I have massive flow 2mp 40 almost all the way cranked through various modes. Was thinking maybe turn them down to let the bacteria get deep in the rocks
BeejReef
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Dr. Tim just did a great video at last year's macna on the topic. It's on the BRS Youtube.
Your numbers look textbook. Watch the vid yourself and draw your own conclusions.
What I took away was that the Nitrite bac grow slower and that you should resist the urge to redose ammonia until nitrite goes down. Too high of nitrites retards the ammonia eaters.
Your numbers look textbook. Watch the vid yourself and draw your own conclusions.
What I took away was that the Nitrite bac grow slower and that you should resist the urge to redose ammonia until nitrite goes down. Too high of nitrites retards the ammonia eaters.
mcdrichj
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You can test as frequently as you would like to watch the cycle! Your nitrates will continue to go up until you do a water change to remove them. As far as flow is concerned it would be hard to say what 2 MP40s would do without knowing the size of your tank. I would set the powerheads how you think its going to be when your tanks is running. For cycling I would leave the lights off so you dont start growing algae you can turn off the skimmer as well. When I cycle a tank I usually use pure ammonia instead of shrimp then I know exactly what I put in. However you need to be vary careful of your source of the ammonia to insure it is pure!!!!
mcdrichj
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That would be a considerable amount of flow for those turned up to full I think they are rated to 4,500 GPH each. I would pick the setting where you are going to run your tank about 70% should give you about 100x turnover.
Nooooooooob1
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Crazy, I'm watching that video right now! He really knows his stuff.
I still have my sand from last time it was set-up. Everything had died on top of it and i scooped it out and put it in a bucket. Do you think bacteria is still alive or is it not worth the ramifications.
BeejReef
2500 Club Member
Agreed I think it can be reused, we're getting occasional updates from our sand rinsing group and nothing stands out regarding used sand. How they choose to care for standard reef outbreaks matters more
Well there is no reason to add that old sand. The nitrites went to zero overnight. I guess those few changes of lowering salinity, raising the temp and a slight dilution of nitrites getting it below 5ppm really helped. Now I need to see how high my nitrates are.
