I need help with my aquarium.

[xxjokerxx0415]

So I just finished setting up my saltwater tank at my job. I am the fish guy there I am very knowledgeable in fresh water but I’d say I’m still a greenie in salt water. I know we have RO water at my job because I know our aquarium system front and back. I really didn’t have access to the auto refill for our sump, so I grabbed water out our fresh water aquarium. Threw it into my salt water tank and added salt. I have not a signal concern with our fresh water since I take care of the tank and always looking for diseases and spikes in our water chemistry.

So let’s back track a little bit here so we can fully understand the depth of my question, which I will be asking soon. So I had the tank set up in my room for a while, a fish only tank. Then broke it down and it was empty with wet sand outside for about a week to a week and a half in the state Florida in palm beach county. So you guys already know it rained a few times. Leaves got into the tank. All that good stuff. Great right . Don’t worry spent my entire life cleaning the leaves out of the sand and the tank inside and out while trying not to lose any sand. My question to the extremely knowledgeable and experienced people out there is even with everything mentioned above, is there a slight chance that my bacteria could’ve held strong within the sand bed and any live rock even though the live rock was dried out then wet from the rain and then dried again?

The reason I ask is because I tested my tank yesterday. And oh is through the roof nitrite is through the roof nitrate is through the roof but there is no sign of ammonia.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

"empty with wet sand for a week and it rained a few times". To me it means you would probably still have bacteria alive deep in the rock, but the surface area and just below the surface area I would expect the bacteria died off.

So, I'm no expert and I'm not even that smart, but my guess is that the bacteria deep in the rock was enough to process the die off on the surface of the rock, this is what you see in your results, and it makes sense to me. Its very interesting...... but lets see what others have to say.

 

[brandon429]

you should load test it now that you have a baseline zero ammonia above

order or buy dr tim's cycling ammonia since it's a known ratio of drops per gallon on the instructions to get to 1 ppm ammonia in that tank

add it

take a second reading about 5 mins after adding the test load ammonia and post that pic so it will be slightly greener than the top one, if the kit is working. some of them don't at low levels we will know by it's green hue after adding a known amount for that volume system. subtract a little for rock and sand displacement, estimate is fine. add no more than 1 ppm dose, do not go to 2 ppm.

then post a third api ammonia reading in 24 hours, for a set of three gradient pics to see. nitrite and nitrate don't factor any longer in marine cycles, it's only the ammonia we care about. using freshwater made up as saltwater isn't harmful to anything, its an algae booster for the marine tank as the tradeoff to using zero total dissolved solids reef tank water which why reefs use that. they become algae wrecks in a couple months if it's not used in nearly all cases.

 

[xxjokerxx0415]

Thank you guys so much for your response. Can I get any good thoughts or information about the bacteria in the sand? Would that be dead or alive?

 

[brandon429]

nobody knows unless you test the sand that way above, separately. bacteria in sand dont matter in reefing though, it's your rock bacteria that matters. this test sequence above tests everything in the tank all at once no way to separate the two surfaces if they're assessed in the same water table. when in doubt between living vs dead bacteria that were recently part of cycled material, go with live as the better bet. they can withstand salt/non salt water changes and some degree of drying and still be alive/available for quick rebound compared to truly dead surfaces. we are learning about the resiliency of bacteria in uncommon settings if you do this test just as stated.

 

[The_Paradox]

Bacteria in general is hard to kill. I have no doubt you still have colonies.

 

[xxjokerxx0415]

Guys you are amazing as always, @brandon429 you are very informative. I am 100% sure there is bacteria considering the fact that when I added the ammonia it was gone the next day and nitrite has come down tremendously in the last few days of this post. Thank you so much for everything guys!