Fishless Cycle Advice

[iannarelli]

No changes in 24 hours. Ammonia is stable at ~1ppm, 0 Nitrites, 0 Nitrates.

I don't understand the initial reduction in ammonia...

I'm going into my office in Manhattan today for work so I can likely find some Turbo Start 900 at a LFS. Given that stagnant nature of my testing results, should I re-up the ammonia to 2ppm and does another 4oz of the Frytz?

 

[Cell]

I would not spend more money on more bac until you figure out the testing issues. Do you have a local store you can bring a water sample in to verify your results?

One way to mitigate false positive or background on the api ammonia test is to test current level and note that as your new baseline. Then dose a measurable amount of ammonia, wait 24 hrs and see if you are back at your new baseline.

 

[iannarelli]

Yeah, there are a few in Queens. There's also a Petco that's walking distance... would you prefer a LFS over their testing? New York Reef Aquatic and Monster Aquarium are both 40ish minutes by transit, so it might be tough to get to them today after work. Monster is more a FW spot also. Guess it won't hurt to test my RODI water and a fresh batch of saltwater with the API kit too.

Edit: Petco uses Tetra test trips, lol. So that's a waste of time. This weekend I'll try to get out to Absolutely Fish in Clifton.

 

[iannarelli]

Did some broad ammonia testing this AM:

A, Tap Water: ~0 ppm
B, Fresh RODI Water: ~0 ppm
C, Fresh Saltwater 0 - 0.25 ppm
D, Tank Water 1: 1 ppm
E, Tank Water 2: 1 ppm

 

[vcnt]

I've been setting up a 60gal cube for the past couple of weeks and finally got to fill it with water this Sunday and Monday. I am going through the fishless cycle using Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride and FrytzZyme Turbo Start 900 (4oz - good for up to 100gal). Last night, I dosed the ammonia exactly per the instructions on my bottle (4 drops per gallon). I couldn't find a consensus of how long to wait before testing the ammonia levels (I'm using API's kit) but curiosity got the best of my and I ran a test. It was off the charts (over 8ppm and almost blue). I'm not sure what could have caused this... I literally filled up the tank 15 gallons at a time and know that (DT + SUMP) - (SAND + ROCK) is roughly 58 gallons, which is 232 drops, or 11ml + 12 drops. I used dry rock and a one bag of Caribsea Ocean Direct and one bag of Caribsea AragAlive Special Grade (Dec 2026 expiration). I know those sand products both contain bacteria—could they have somehow caused the ammonia to spike?

I scoured the forums here and reddit. Opinions varied; some advised doing a massive water change because the cycle would stall out or nitrates would end up being super high, while others said to ride it out. Still others said to add extra bacteria. I tested about an hour later, and it was still the same dark greenish-blue color but opted to take the path of least resistance by adding the bacteria (as opposed to trying to make 30-45 gallons of new saltwater) and practice a little bit of patience by accepting my cycle might take longer than I had hoped.

This morning, I tested (approximately 10 hours later) and the results are much better, see below photo, to my eyes, it looks to me somewhere in between 2ppm and 1ppm.

So my questions are:

1. Is there a set amount of time you're supposed to wait after adding ammonium chloride before testing ammonia levels?
2. If my results from last night we're valid (sorry I don't have a photo), and nothing else in my tank impacted the ammonia level, how could Dr. Tim's instructions be so off?
3. Since my reading is much better today, should I assume (a) the Turbo Start is living up to its name; or (b) the tests last night were artificially high?
4. If the answer to 3 is "a," guessing it's fair to assume I will have high nitrates at the end of the cycle I read Randy's article on nitrates, and while I been planning to run a refugium as my tank matured, I'm not prepared to have it running on day 1! Should I plan to get that up and running sooner, or is there a better method for exporting nitrates with a brand-new tank?

Thanks!

My guess for the crazy reading was that the ammonia wasn't fully mixed and you scooped up and tested a high ammonia concentration water, if that makes sense. Good luck!

 

[iannarelli]

My guess for the crazy reading was that the ammonia wasn't fully mixed and you scooped up and tested a high ammonia concentration water, if that makes sense. Good luck!

I actually got to talk to THE Dr. Tim at RAP NY for like an hour. He thinks it was mostly likely the live sand + ammonia that jacked up the count. He also explained that most bottled bacterias have way more of the nitrite processing bacteria because they reproduce much slower than the ammonia processing ones (my cycle went from like 8ppm amount to 2ppm with not nitrite or nitrate for two days, and the. All of a sudden nitrates out of nowhere). That being said it's equally likely I didn't want long enough for it too mix, I was definitely a little impatient.

 

[vcnt]

I actually got to talk to THE Dr. Tim at RAP NY for like an hour. He thinks it was mostly likely the live sand + ammonia that jacked up the count. He also explained that most bottled bacterias have way more of the nitrite processing bacteria because they reproduce much slower than the ammonia processing ones (my cycle went from like 8ppm amount to 2ppm with not nitrite or nitrate for two days, and the. All of a sudden nitrates out of nowhere). That being said it's equally likely I didn't want long enough for it too mix, I was definitely a little impatient.

That makes a little more sense, but if ammonia goes down how does nitrite not go up? Where does it go?

 

[iannarelli]

He speculated that I have may have just missed the window of when it was present at a detectable level in my system. The reason the bottled bacteria is proportioned the way he described is to speed up the nitrites phase of the cycle and give them a chance to keep up with the ammonia guys. I very well could have had erroneous tests (I was using API kits for the most part).

 

[vcnt]

He speculated that I have may have just missed the window of when it was present at a detectable level in my system. The reason the bottled bacteria is proportioned the way he described is to speed up the nitrites phase of the cycle and give them a chance to keep up with the ammonia guys. I very well could have had erroneous tests (I was using API kits for the most part).

Im cycling aswell and using api, ive noticed api gives a false extreme high reading of nitrate when nitrites are presetn, i was reading 40-80 and i got my water tested with the fancy lfs tester and he read 0 nitrate

 

[iannarelli]

I wound up confirming my nitrates with my Hanna checker. I wanted to be sure. But after reading all the anecdotal data on fishless cycles that @brandon429 has compiled, I was pretty confident that two days after I had added the Frytz Turbo, I was cycled.

 

[brandon429]

can you post a pic of your tank so we can see the animals doing fine since added

 

[iannarelli]

can you post a pic of your tank so we can see the animals doing fine since added

Sure thing!

Full tank shot, everyone thriving, even the algae... (If anyone can ID and lmk what cleanup crew member is best equipped to put a dent in it I would much appreciate it):

And some individual shots:

My anemone, being a total clown and hanging upsidedown from an arch:

Mandarin and Valencia, also being, well, clowns :

Conch doing conch-things:

Frankie, my Lawnmower Blenny with super blue eyes (you can't tell in this photo), chilling in his cave:

My Royal Gramma, name TBD patrolling the back of the rockwork:

Maxima clam living its best life. The photo doesn't do it justice. This was a RAP NY impulse buy (ard to say no at $50) but I'm committed to providing whatever I need to keep it happy in a newish tank:

And finally some beginner corals I need to glue down once I get around to measuring my PAR levels:

Not pictured is my rather humble cleanup crew of 4 tine hermits and like 8 or so astrea snails and 2 turbo snails.

 

[iannarelli]

@brandon429 There are some better photos of my nem hosting my clowns that I took with my mirrorless on this post of my build thread.

 

[brandon429]

nice start! looks great and animals are healthy.

we can see from the benthic growths in the system the cycle has been complete for a while regardless of the readouts. those visual benthic growths you want to curb are also perfect secondary indicators of cycling completion as a helpful tool

now that you are into reefing and well beyond the cycle, ability to carry animals without harm, you're into invasion management and no two people will ever agree on how to guide a system into purpleness.

I will post a link of someone who did what you're wanting to attain

Build Thread - My SPS Waterbox Peninsula Mini 15

Hi all. Long time member (I think I joined right around when R2R started or took off years ago) but got out of the hobby for about 6 years and now I am back! I don't see many build threads for the PM 15 (mostly the 25) so thought I'd share my journey here. This post will be a bit behind...

www.reef2reef.com

we worked that as a testless cycle to skip the cycle concern mode.

 

[brandon429]

helpful heads up:

go into the nuisance algae forum and read the big dinos thread, that for you has a 90% chance of showing up in a few weeks depending on how you choose to manage that algae. You're reading the thread to discern patterns on how people wound up with unbeatable dinos, starting with dry rock systems and bright lighting + new algae.

You will see a pattern: address phosphates to lessen the algae, then dinos sets in. recommend: don't do what 800 pages of people did that were in your current status. do opposite.

the opposite outcome for the giant dinos thread for your tank is lifting out the rocks, carefully scraping off the algae, use some peroxide to clean it off outside the tank if you want, set back clean rocks. reduce your light power, that's sps level above with nothing to use it, shining on bright white reflective rocks. manually fixing algae doesn't bring on dinos, trying to fix it nonmanually does, we can see in this gigantic huge unmanageable invasion thread:

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

I don't know what percentage of folks had luck battling dinos with any of the methods in the old Dino thread but it's obviously a very low percentage, so I'd like refresh folks on the natural alternatives and lay out three areas of info: some of the factors that contribute to a dino outbreak...

www.reef2reef.com

begin now preparing in study to do opposite of what the masses do if you want a no-dinos tank. if you leave the algae on the rocks and act via the water to try and help, that puts you in line with 100% of respondents there above.

do opposite of them is my recommend, because once you get dinos, you can see for eight hundred pages nobody is able to fix them for you correctly. it'll take 5-18 mos of tradeoff invasions before you get to reef if you follow the masses with dry rock invasion management.

 

[iannarelli]

nice start! looks great and animals are healthy.

we can see from the benthic growths in the system the cycle has been complete for a while regardless of the readouts. those visual benthic growths you want to curb are also perfect secondary indicators of cycling completion as a helpful tool

now that you are into reefing and well beyond the cycle, ability to carry animals without harm, you're into invasion management and no two people will ever agree on how to guide a system into purpleness.

I will post a link of someone who did what you're wanting to attain

Build Thread - My SPS Waterbox Peninsula Mini 15

Hi all. Long time member (I think I joined right around when R2R started or took off years ago) but got out of the hobby for about 6 years and now I am back! I don't see many build threads for the PM 15 (mostly the 25) so thought I'd share my journey here. This post will be a bit behind...

www.reef2reef.com

we worked that as a testless cycle to skip the cycle concern mode.

Thanks. I will definitely check out that link.

Haha, purpleness. Ever since Grimace threw out the first pitch for the Mets, I've had a newfound love of all things purple. I'm even thinking of getting a Purple Short Spine Pincushion Urchin, which most sites list as a pseudoboletia maculata or just pseudoboletia sp. and naming it Grimace! I think it's misidentified though, and is really is a Passion salmacis urchin (Salmacis virgulata) based on this. Perhaps @ISpeakForTheSeas could confirm. Anyway, I digress.

None of the LFS that I've gone to in the NY/NJ area have had good-looking live rock for sale. I figured that was one way I could perhaps seed some coralline in my tank since I started with dry rock and Caribesea sand. The snail shells all have it, but so far, nothing has spread. Maybe I can ask one of the stores for some scrapings. I've also been considering ordering a treasure chest from @LiverockRocks to put in my sump, perhaps the 5 lbs of premium, but the price isn't so attractive after the box fee and shipping is added. Ultimately I recognize it will take time regardless of what I do to try and speed it up.

In all honesty, I wasn't too worried about keeping the fish alive after my cycle (I've kept a pretty heavily stocked Amazon biotope tank for a while now, and koi even longer), it was all the other cool stuff. I think this quote I stumbled across by @ElementReefer is super eloquent and beautiful and captures the difference between the two and challenges of keeping a successful reef:

From what I’ve learned after 1.5 years, here is my impression, a blatant generalization but it guides my overall philosophy:

Freshwater is a box with water, fish, and plants. Yay!

Saltwater is the foundation of all life on Earth. As your tank matures, you will see a procession of many types of life competing for space on every surface, and especially for light.

You never really get rid of any of them. They simply get displaced by other life, depending on how you guide the system over time. Learn about each new thing that pops up, and how to put pressure on it if you don’t want it, or how to cultivate it if you do. This is one of the fun things about the hobby. Or if you’re not into this sort of dance, it might not be for you.

 

[brandon429]

this is why I like testless updated cycling science. we get an exact date to stop cycling, and begin in reefing choices. the old way has you debating cycle readiness three months into already reefing, getting behind on disease preps and invasion preps. hoping to reverse that trending we can see in help threads~

 

[iannarelli]

helpful heads up:

go into the nuisance algae forum and read the big dinos thread, that for you has a 90% chance of showing up in a few weeks depending on how you choose to manage that algae. You're reading the thread to discern patterns on how people wound up with unbeatable dinos, starting with dry rock systems and bright lighting + new algae.

You will see a pattern: address phosphates to lessen the algae, then dinos sets in. recommend: don't do what 800 pages of people did that were in your current status. do opposite.

the opposite outcome for the giant dinos thread for your tank is lifting out the rocks, carefully scraping off the algae, use some peroxide to clean it off outside the tank if you want, set back clean rocks. reduce your light power, that's sps level above with nothing to use it, shining on bright white reflective rocks. manually fixing algae doesn't bring on dinos, trying to fix it nonmanually does, we can see in this gigantic huge unmanageable invasion thread:

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

I don't know what percentage of folks had luck battling dinos with any of the methods in the old Dino thread but it's obviously a very low percentage, so I'd like refresh folks on the natural alternatives and lay out three areas of info: some of the factors that contribute to a dino outbreak...

www.reef2reef.com

begin now preparing in study to do opposite of what the masses do if you want a no-dinos tank. if you leave the algae on the rocks and act via the water to try and help, that puts you in line with 100% of respondents there above.

do opposite of them is my recommend, because once you get dinos, you can see for eight hundred pages nobody is able to fix them for you correctly. it'll take 5-18 mos of tradeoff invasions before you get to reef if you follow the masses with dry rock invasion management.

Homework for tonight, thanks!

 

[iannarelli]

helpful heads up:

go into the nuisance algae forum and read the big dinos thread, that for you has a 90% chance of showing up in a few weeks depending on how you choose to manage that algae. You're reading the thread to discern patterns on how people wound up with unbeatable dinos, starting with dry rock systems and bright lighting + new algae.

You will see a pattern: address phosphates to lessen the algae, then dinos sets in. recommend: don't do what 800 pages of people did that were in your current status. do opposite.

the opposite outcome for the giant dinos thread for your tank is lifting out the rocks, carefully scraping off the algae, use some peroxide to clean it off outside the tank if you want, set back clean rocks. reduce your light power, that's sps level above with nothing to use it, shining on bright white reflective rocks. manually fixing algae doesn't bring on dinos, trying to fix it nonmanually does, we can see in this gigantic huge unmanageable invasion thread:

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

I don't know what percentage of folks had luck battling dinos with any of the methods in the old Dino thread but it's obviously a very low percentage, so I'd like refresh folks on the natural alternatives and lay out three areas of info: some of the factors that contribute to a dino outbreak...

www.reef2reef.com

begin now preparing in study to do opposite of what the masses do if you want a no-dinos tank. if you leave the algae on the rocks and act via the water to try and help, that puts you in line with 100% of respondents there above.

do opposite of them is my recommend, because once you get dinos, you can see for eight hundred pages nobody is able to fix them for you correctly. it'll take 5-18 mos of tradeoff invasions before you get to reef if you follow the masses with dry rock invasion management.

I made it through the first post about the Waterbox Mini 15, but I'll admit I have only really bounced around the post about dinos. I intend to read it more thoroughly and thoughtfully, but I wanted to ask you to clarify something. Your advice is to do the opposite of what the masses do. Post #1 on that thread provides a bunch of tips on how to prevent or control/beat an exiting outbreak.

Is that a TL;DR of all the lessons learned from the 627 pages of posts of people who wound up with unmanageable invasions because they were doing it wrong (and thus good advice about what to do) or is that post also bad advice? For example, they say to not run 0 P o N, use GAC, suggest a UV sterilizer is helpful, and overall suggest striving for stability. Is that good advice or should I be doing the opposite? LOL.

Thanks!

 

[brandon429]

One thing that impacts that thread is the reported accuracy of numbers stated

Notice how in 99% of jobs listed there, any parameter measurement is accepted as accurate by all respondents? If you say your nitrate is zero, they'll agree every time and aim to fix that. That's nearly every job shown.

Check the pages, when someone posts their nitrate or po4 levels, the umpires make the advice based on the numbers posted. Rarely are the levels verified or challenged.

But what if we take time to search out test kit accuracy comparison posts across the web for nitrate or po4 across kit brands and types = 100pm~ variance in reported nitrates from the same sample, depending on the kit. How accurate are hobby test kits in the hands of the masses?


I hate to recommend test- based dinos control to anyone on the web until a simple search on test kit accuracy audits shows much tighter ranges.

If the chemists here were running the tests and reporting the levels and were only using pool strips I'd believe them. Chemists and the well- practiced don't have trouble verifying their levels in threads, but that's not the masses.




reef2reef has ten+ pages of search returns on test kit audits, and the grand summary of those threads for me is that everyone is horseshoeing in this game and dealing in guesstimates if they're not chemists


And that for me explains why the 90% majority outcome of that huge thread is dinos tanks becoming GHA tanks and cyano tanks, but almost never simply fixed tanks. Invasion species outcompete one another agreed but the tanks by and large don't look good even after 6 months of work, I feel that trending is fairly shown in a scan of pics from that giant dinos thread

we're adding fertilizer to peoples tanks who reported 0 nitrates but that was just on red sea colorimetric kit (for example) but ran on another kit the fact they were actually at 100 ppm before we drove it to 190ppm easily explains the gha forest situation





Manual gardening as stated, lifting out your rocks and cleaning them off, then setting back clean in the tank is harmless and fast and can't cause dinos and has nothing to do with numbers debates. It's using manual reef dentistry to force opposite results until someone writes an 800 page thread where 90% of the jobs on file are simple fixes

We don't have one of those yet, so we all do the best we can

When your rocks are full of coralline and corals, the system will be more mature and better rejecting of dinos

Work the rocks manually until you don't have to.

Quarantine matters big time also





Observing your new coral batches in a separate holding system for months before they go into your tank is what pros do, the non masses. You can check for invasive dinos this way, aiptasias etc. It's what zoos do

Nobody who manages 1 million dollar zoo reef systems inputs new animals into the tank, that's what the masses on reef forums do

Reading up on quarantine building is an opposite something that benefits this planned battle and you'll see it's criticality in fish disease management



***qt hypocrite alert

I myself do not qt. and for the times bad things got into my tank, I directly ripped out those bad things in 1 minute, I left only the good things in place all these years. so yes I'm skipping quarantine, but I triple dog dare six strands of GHA to show up in my reef. it's too scared to do so lol

when a bad aiptasia anemone hitched in because I didn't quarantine, instead if injecting it, or boiling the area like the masses do, I cut the rock portion the anemone was on clean off the rest of the rock and thew it out. hard to have an aiptasia problem with an attitude like that

in a small tank, you can attitude it into compliance against any invasion I'm 100% sure of that its the large tankers/the inaccessible that need all the extra luck.