How long should I wait to do a water change after adding Dr. Tim's?

[Tbg299]

Hello. I am cycling my new 65 gallon reef tank. 4 days ago I added my semi-cured live rock and 4 oz of Dr. Tim's nitrifying bacteria. I followed the instructions and removed my filter socks. My question is how long should I wait to do the first water change? I last tested my water on 6/16 and results were:
Ammonia- 1.2 ppm
Nitrites: 0.1 ppm
Nitrates- 10ppm

 

[Spare time]

Wait till ammonia and nitrite are gone. No need to do it until then. The bacteria should be attached by 48 hours.

 

[brandon429]

Semi cured = wet = you're already done if it comprises any decent portion of total rock, post tank pic

Dr Tims fully adheres to surfaces within four days, already tested by Dr Reef, proceed reefing. Cycle done

Google your test kit brand + the words 'ammonia misread', that's how reliably you can measure ammonia. Tank pics, i bet you're done already

The ammonia kit you're using is likely involved in fifty thousand or more blatant misreads. Thankfully we have other means to easily cycle.

 

[brandon429]

Anything over ten pounds of wet rock added into a reef skip cycles the reef for any bioload you could possibly begin with, if it’s in the display

fish disease, thats your hidden killer it’s not any aspect of the cycle. What’s your fish disease prep plan

semi cured could also mean rocks rec’d in shipping from one of the ocean suppliers, just the same that’s a skip cycle situation as I’m assuming you didn’t add smelly dying rock from a bad shipping scenario, it’s likely just common skip cycle already wet rock. Theres a good chance after pics of the tank that your thread here belongs in the skip cycle study collection.

 

[Tbg299]

Anything over ten pounds of wet rock added into a reef skip cycles the reef for any bioload you could possibly begin with, if it’s in the display

fish disease, thats your hidden killer it’s not any aspect of the cycle. What’s your fish disease prep plan

semi cured could also mean rocks rec’d in shipping from one of the ocean suppliers, just the same that’s a skip cycle situation as I’m assuming you didn’t add smelly dying rock from a bad shipping scenario, it’s likely just common skip cycle already wet rock. Theres a good chance after pics of the tank that your thread here belongs in the skip cycle study

The live rock I ordered was 30 lbs from Sandy Bottom Reef Company in Florida. I call it "semi-cured" because they said it is hand picked rocked from their reef that has only been curing for a week or so. It also came next day UPS moist not submerged so I assume there was some die off. As you can see in the pics I have several seaweeds, sponges, and aiptasia

 

[KrisReef]

If the aiptasia are alive the bacteria would also have easily survived the attempt by the postal services to break, lose, or crush the life inside the package while they transported it to your place.

 

[KrisReef]

Anything over ten pounds of wet rock added into a reef skip cycles the reef for any bioload you could possibly begin with, if it’s in the display

fish disease, thats your hidden killer it’s not any aspect of the cycle. What’s your fish disease prep plan

semi cured could also mean rocks rec’d in shipping from one of the ocean suppliers, just the same that’s a skip cycle situation as I’m assuming you didn’t add smelly dying rock from a bad shipping scenario, it’s likely just common skip cycle already wet rock. Theres a good chance after pics of the tank that your thread here belongs in the skip cycle study collection.

I really like how the focus of these posts has moved towards helping new folk avoid getting diseases in new tanks. Very cool direction and helpful effort towards new tank start ups, @brandon429 !

 

[brandon429]

Agreed its done and ready, and the bottle bac was a waste it had no benefit (nor harm) added to this skip cycle. The anemones are alive, the water clear and not smelly, bc it's ready.

 

[Spare time]

If the aiptasia are alive the bacteria would also have easily survived the attempt by the postal services to break, lose, or crush the life inside the package while they transported it to your place.

Not necessarily true. Aiptasia seems hardier imo

 

[Spare time]

No need to complicate this. Wait till ammonia is gone and nitrite is gone (particularly nitrite as it's the last to go). It's a simple question with a simple answer

 

[brandon429]

you can tell by pics, coralline, living animals and clear water it’s a done cycle and the examples like it are found here


among the obvious false test reading search returns, how do we know when to believe a stated free ammonia reading? What’s the supporting context we can use to proof the test? (Smelly rocks is a good one)

Did this rock smell like doom

 

[brandon429]

Tbg

post a pic of your actual ammonia reading vial

let’s run TAN conversion on it, per its instructions and see how bad things look

pre TAN (thats how the reports always are, omitting this step) they always seem bad

 

[Tbg299]

Update: Just tested my water levels again yesterday

Ammonia increased from 1.2 to 2.0
Nitrites increased from 0.1 to 0.5
Nitrates are at 10 ppm

I also woke up to a reddish-brown cyano (I think) growth all across my sandbed and some rock today.

 

[Tbg299]

Tbg

post a pic of your actual ammonia reading vial

let’s run TAN conversion on it, per its instructions and see how bad things look

pre TAN (thats how the reports always are, omitting this step) they always seem bad

I will post a pic when I get home when I do another ammonia test this evening. I'm using the Red Sea Marine ammonia test kit which from what I read has an error reading of 0.2.

 

[brandon429]

your kits are misreading, that growth signifies cycled per another huge thread I could link but wont like matter here


as long as we want to trace this out, your tank is running normally and literally only the kits are causing alarm. that's how it always goes. the most dangerous compound in reefing is always symptom free in the pics, but total devastation on non seneye and the cyclers re buy bacteria over, and over, and over.


lift up any rock and smell it, doesnt smell like rot and rot is what it'd take to overcome the massive active pre cycled surface area there. if your tank wasnt cycled, and if the ammonia was truly going up, it'd compound into a total uncontrolled mess since last nite.


but even three days from now predicted: test kit alarm, and zero tank issues via pic. water is laser clear, remains each day. no rock smells as if its totally rotten they smell like the ocean when inspected.

 

[Tbg299]

your kits are misreading, that growth signifies cycled per another huge thread I could link but wont like matter here


as long as we want to trace this out, your tank is running normally and literally only the kits are causing alarm. that's how it always goes. the most dangerous compound in reefing is always symptom free in the pics, but total devastation on non seneye and the cyclers re buy bacteria over, and over, and over.


lift up any rock and smell it, doesnt smell like rot and rot is what it'd take to overcome the massive active pre cycled surface area there. if your tank wasnt cycled, and if the ammonia was truly going up, it'd compound into a total uncontrolled mess since last nite.


but even three days from now predicted: test kit alarm, and zero tank issues via pic. water is laser clear, remains each day. no rock smells as if its totally rotten they smell like the ocean when inspected.

Pic of my ammonia reading tonight. Definitely decreased a lot from 24 hrs ago. It looks to be 0.8 - 1.2 ppm. Yesterday it was the teal color ( 2+ ppm)

 

[brandon429]

What’s your take on the numbers after applying tan conversion, from the instructions

i vote that as .8 total

and .08 nh3


see how we are moving down, but it’s subjective. Others might say it’s 1.2/.12

thats where digital meters come into play as stalemate breakers.

thats a very nice detailed pic

I would never ever expect hard yellow zero on any reef. Any decent kit should show some ammonia, as we produce it by the second. The key is what range do you want to accept as safe, wait longer if you want to base it on the kit. Your reef is going to work and look and smell as it does now, it’s ok to wait longer if you like. Your posted levels match hundreds of full running reefs with fish online, simply search out “reef tank red sea ammonia misread” and you’ll see the returns.

 

[epetrillo]

I started my cycle on the 20th took 4 days for ammonia to drop to approximately 2.0 (my red sea test only goes up to 2.0). Took another 3 days to drop to 0. It's been another 2 days and my nitrites are still above 1.0. If it would be better to get some more ammonia and test to see how long to get to 0 I will.

 

[brandon429]

You are done, you paid extra to be done by adding bottle bac, only ammonia movement counts we dont need to know nitrite anymore. Change some water for new and begin as you will, add no more ammonia

 

[epetrillo]

Thanks I appreciate everyone's help.