Fishless cycle

[CopperFish]

Hi, I am cycling my tank (Red Sea 525 G2 144gal system) using Dr. Tim’s and Ammonium Chloride and I’m on day 14. Ammonia is finally down to .1 but Nitrite is well over 2 (using a Red Sea testing kit that only goes up to 1 so I am guessing by the color) and Nitrate is at slightly less than 2. My question is if I should do a water change to get the nitrate down as the guide says that once both Nitrate and Ammonia are below .2 to add more Ammonium Chloride until both are back down to .2 or below within 24 hours. Will the Nitrate start to decline now or should I do a water change? New to this and confused!

 

[brandon429]

The reason your cycle is done is because that bac is able to carry fish day one, safely, and because waiting longer can’t make your tank safer for fish

the huge amount of ammonia we are trained to add / not needed / plus testing on a non digital test kit made it seem longer than one days control but it isn’t. Anyone on seneye machine cycling knows how fast bottle bac handles load ammonia.

nitrite no longer factors in reef cycling, though it used to factor. Your ammonia drop is well within the expected period for proof of a live bottle of bac, you could have carried fish day one legit just like any fish-in cycling thread shows where the fish are just fine and not burned by ammonia.


your next step: read the stickies in the disease forum before adding fish, apply them, disease is what takes your fish a few months in it’s not a cycling risk of loss any cycle thread we can search shows. This summary for your tank is the entire summary of updated cycling science being applied to thousands of tanks.


your cycle is done, there isn’t anything left to test, prove, or verify. You are done cycling, the tank can carry fish. If you add them without disease preps now or in two more months wait, they’re likely to die from disease and nothing cycle related. Source for claims-all posts in the disease forum help threads.

 

[Cell]

Also, stop testing for nitrate until nitrite drops. You cannot accurately measure nitrate in the presence of nitrite. Once your nitrite zeroes out or is minimal, you can toss the nitrite kit and start your nitrate monitoring.

 

[CopperFish]

The reason your cycle is done is because that bac is able to carry fish day one, safely, and because waiting longer can’t make your tank safer for fish

the huge amount of ammonia we are trained to add / not needed / plus testing on a non digital test kit made it seem longer than one days control but it isn’t. Anyone on seneye machine cycling knows how fast bottle bac handles load ammonia.

nitrite no longer factors in reef cycling, though it used to factor. Your ammonia drop is well within the expected period for proof of a live bottle of bac, you could have carried fish day one legit just like any fish-in cycling thread shows where the fish are just fine and not burned by ammonia.


your next step: read the stickies in the disease forum before adding fish, apply them, disease is what takes your fish a few months in it’s not a cycling risk of loss any cycle thread we can search shows. This summary for your tank is the entire summary of updated cycling science being applied to thousands of tanks.


your cycle is done, there isn’t anything left to test, prove, or verify. You are done cycling, the tank can carry fish. If you add them without disease preps now or in two more months wait, they’re likely to die from disease and nothing cycle related. Source for claims-all posts in the disease forum help threads.

Thank you for the detailed info and I will read up in the disease forum! I keep finding conflicting info ‍

 

[CopperFish]

Also, stop testing for nitrate until nitrite drops. You cannot accurately measure nitrate in the presence of nitrite. Once your nitrite zeroes out or is minimal, you can toss the nitrite kit and start your nitrate monitoring.

Thanks, I haven’t been until today as I was just curious.

 

[brandon429]

You're getting the absolute most recent cycling science yep I agree it doesn't match anything prior

The tank you made if dry rock + bottle bac is technically disease free at the start of you haven't added wet things from a pet store. The key in disease management is how far do you want to go to restrict the import of new diseases that come along with anything wet from a pet store.

As you read in the disease forum about gradients of quarantine and fallow preps for incoming items, wet items like frags and fish and clean up crews, that's showing the various degrees of restriction people choose for disease inputs/ risk


Ironically, once you read up on fallow and quarantine you will see that some of the major themes involved in covid control aren't terribly far off concept from keeping ich out of your tank. No politics implied its truly a matter of careful aseptic separation/ known wait times/ qt/and vector input control.

 

[Lavey29]

Agree with the above. Just wait till ammonia reads 0 24 hours after dose and you have elevated nitrate number then you know for sure your system is cycling properly.