Fishelss Cycle Questions

[BeaverLakeAndy]

I was in the same situation a few months ago & added a bottle of bio spira. The nitrites went to zero in a day or two.

Could be coincidence but that definitely worked for me. Also 4ppm is a lot. Everything I read suggested 2ppm (could be totally mistaken tho)

Well hell, I just reread Dr. Tim's fishless cycle guide, it certainly does say 2 ppm on day one. I misread that for sure. I dosed to 4 ppm. No wonder my nitrites were off the chart and it took so long for the ammonia to come down! Holy hell.

 

[phatduckk]

Well hell, I just reread Dr. Tim's fishless cycle guide, it certainly does say 2 ppm on day one. I misread that for sure. I dosed to 4 ppm. No wonder my nitrites were off the chart and it took so long for the ammonia to come down! Holy hell.

he he. It’s fine. There’s no livestock. No harm no foul

 

[BeaverLakeAndy]

Just thought of something

if you begin with pre quarantined fish, $, and put them in a dry start system which is indeed disease free, you can’t stock corals or anything else it will break the disease protocol chain of ops

it needs to be huge massive water change, add corals and clean up crew, practice feeding and water changing while you build up a non boring tank, then you fallow eighty days and then add fish.

I was thinking about this last night, and then again this morning. Running an 80 day fallow period only seems to make sense if you are able to fully stock the aquarium with coral and inverts all at once. It would seem that any time a new piece of coral is added you'd need to reset the fallow period.

So in that case I am not sure this is relevant for a new tank that will not immediately have a couple thousand dollars in coral to fully stock it. Am I thinking about this correctly?

 

[brandon429]

We would only build them up slowly agreed, too risky to dump the corals all in. Not due to to ammonia but the time they need in feeding and guiding so the system builds up food webs

Isn’t marine fish care quite the headache


freshwater = buy fat fish, put them in a natural material scape tank, feed well change water fish lives

skip the medical isolation protocol for marine fish, lose half within first year this is why I only keep Pico reefs w no fish/ they’re such a hassle

to process a large reef tank correctly I could envision taking a whole year of careful stocking, feeding, fattening of corals. Adding cuc as needs arise, working on balances, then when it’s ready the fallow begins and next year is fish. Sounds like major hassle but fish disease forum shows how necessary it is, ugh

 

[lilgrounchuck]

You might want to read this thread that discusses this situation. Brandon was a great help to me: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cycling-readings.660889/

Also, if you want to speed this up, get a bottle of Bio-Spira.

I did a dry start, added ammonia to 2ppm, dumped in biospira and it dropped to zero in about 10 hours. I’m fully convinced from my experience, plus accounts from other folks on here, that you cans dry start a tank, add biospira, then toss in a few fish right away without any harm whatsoever.

 

[S.Pepper]

I did a dry start, added ammonia to 2ppm, dumped in biospira and it dropped to zero in about 10 hours. I’m fully convinced from my experience, plus accounts from other folks on here, that you cans dry start a tank, add biospira, then toss in a few fish right away without any harm whatsoever.

I personally haven't done it, but there are others that have with success. gl

 

[lilgrounchuck]

I personally haven't done it, but there are others that have with success. gl

I started the tank a year ago. I waited about a week after adding the bio and fed ammonia daily. Added two fire fish and things have just taken off from there. I’m sold on that stuff. In fully convinced you could add inhabitants right away with it.

 

[BeaverLakeAndy]

he he. It’s fine. There’s no livestock. No harm no foul

I am actually wrong a second time here. I read the bottle of ammonium chloride this morning again, my initial dosage amount was actually to 2 ppm. The bottle says 4 drops per gallon to reach a concentration of 2 ppm. I have about 113 gallons of water volume after displacement and initially dosed 450 drops, which comes out to 3.98 drops per gallon.

So it still took the Aquavitro Seed roughly 10 days to process 2 ppm of ammonia.

I know @brandon429 recommended skipping another dose of ammonia, but after realizing I did initially only dose to 2ppm and it took that long to process I wanted to make sure there's enough active bio-filtration happening to efficiently process the nitrogen cycle, so I decided to dose ammonia to 2 ppm one more time this morning.

 

[tankstudy]

I am actually wrong a second time here. I read the bottle of ammonium chloride this morning again, my initial dosage amount was actually to 2 ppm. The bottle says 4 drops per gallon to reach a concentration of 2 ppm. I have about 113 gallons of water volume after displacement and initially dosed 450 drops, which comes out to 3.98 drops per gallon.

So it still took the Aquavitro Seed roughly 10 days to process 2 ppm of ammonia.

I know @brandon429 recommended skipping another dose of ammonia, but after realizing I did initially only dose to 2ppm and it took that long to process I wanted to make sure there's enough active bio-filtration happening to efficiently process the nitrogen cycle, so I decided to dose ammonia to 2 ppm one more time this morning.

You can push it up to 3 ppm ammonia if your concerned about enough bio filtration. If I'm planning to stock heavily, I'll push the initial ammonia up to a point I feel my bioload is pretty solid. Just keep in mind that ~8 ppm ammonia is the inhibition point.

 

[BeaverLakeAndy]

Here's an update on my fishless cycle. I want to start off by thanking @brandon429 for DMing with me and for the helpful posts in this thread and all over this forum. I'm just going to outline the whole cycle again.

• Day 1: Ammonium chloride dosed to 2 ppm, nitrites zero
• Day 3: no change, no additional ammonia
• Day 5: somehow ammonia seemed to increase from the dosed amount, it was showing 4 ppm - nitrites 2 ppm
• Day 7: Ammonia: 2-3 ppm - Nitrites: 3-4 ppm
• Day 10: ammonia was at zero, nitrites off the charts
• Days 11-13: no ammonia doses, nitrites off the charts. Dosed two bottles of Bio-Spira
• Day 14: ammonia at zero - nitrites at 1 ppm
• Day 15: ammonia and nitrites at zero - dosed ammonium chloride to 2 ppm
• Day 17: ammonia at zero - nitrites at 5+ - Reached out to @brandon429 via DM to discuss the nitrites and his content regarding nitrites not factoring into marine cycles and being less harmful to marine fish - after much discussion he assured me the tank was cycle. I did a 25% water change and let the tank turnover for about 2 hours. Tested the params and had zero ammonia and still 5+ nitrites. Taking his advice I headed the LFS and bought three Mono Fish, two Royal Grammas, and two cleaner shrimp. A total of about 6-7 inches of fish and the two shrimp. I acclimated them, and in the tank they went. I turned the tank lights on at this point too. Hydra 32s running at 50% acclimation for 30 days.
• Day 19 - today: I have five thriving fish and two shrimp. They are eating healthy, swimming, and appear to be enjoying life. Ammonia is at zero and nitrites are at zero.

* I believe my days are correct above, but there could be a day or two variance.

I dosed Aquavitro Seed on days 1-8 at the recommended dosage on the bottle. I slightly over dosed the Bio-Spira, my tank size called for 1.5 bottles, but I just went with two. I am a believer in Brandon's methodology regarding nitrites and the cycle as well as Bio-Spira.

 

[brandon429]

So glad it’s all tuned up

hey for final tie in, can you post a pic of the ammonia nitrate nitrite tests ran today, with the color card behind em

 

[BeaverLakeAndy]

So glad it’s all tuned up

hey for final tie in, can you post a pic of the ammonia nitrate nitrite tests ran today, with the color card behind em

I'll have to retest them, I dumped them out this morning. I'll test them again and post pics today though.

 

[jstephens24]

I will be going this route too when my tank is finally here. Will be starting with caribsea life rock and dry sand and dose 3 bottles of bio spira. Will then get fish ordered

 

[brandon429]

If you did that, you’d be able to show up at a macna convention with that assembly and set it all up and meet the start time. It’s the new wave. We feel weird breaking the long-standing rules but we do not feel wierd about buying a thousand dollar coral out of a skip cycle display at a reef convention. I love human logic


have a fish disease protocol in place, powerful feed etc, sometimes fresh seafood prepared feed etc. proving a successful cycle is easy, if the stuff doesn’t die in two days the tank is cycled. It’s the ongoing crypto months that’ll zing ya ~

 

[BeaverLakeAndy]

So glad it’s all tuned up

hey for final tie in, can you post a pic of the ammonia nitrate nitrite tests ran today, with the color card behind em

Here's pics of new tests. Nitrate looks somewhere between 20 and 50. Ammonia and nitrite are definitely zero.

 

[brandon429]

hey thats sharp, zero / agreed nicely done charting here

 

[brandon429]

Hey how are they looking today was curious

 

[BeaverLakeAndy]

Hey how are they looking today was curious

As happy as can be. Still eating great, swimming all over, and enjoying life. The Royal Grammas are starting to come out of the rocks some too. The two shrimp are all over the place and so fun to watch. I plan to check water parameters tomorrow, which will be 72 hours since last checking it.

 

[BeaverLakeAndy]

@brandon429 Also, I'm putting your method to the test. I have a Torch, Pulsing Xenia, Purple Long Tentacle Anemone, and five Scarlet Reef Hermit Crabs arriving tomorrow. I know I've read so much saying wait, wait wait, but at this point I'm a believer in your documentation, and am hoping to prove it out even further. I kept a successful reef tank over a decade ago, but I went months cycling without bottled bacteria. Times have really changed, and the reef keeping hobby has advanced so much. I'm confidant at this point in your research and documentation.

 

[BeaverLakeAndy]

Also have three combo packs of 5280 Copepods and OceanMagik Phytoplankton from Algae Barn ordered as well as some Reef Roids from Polyplab on the way.