Is my cycle staled? 6 weeks deep into fishless cycle.

[KrisReef]

Love how fast cycling posts turn into science arguments lol.

The people who keep saltwater tanks tend to be argumentative and it seems that many of us like to stir up the substrate when posting information.

This can be a great place to engage in diss-concussion, if you hang tough and read and assimilate information it can be very effective means to teach and spread good reef keeping knowledge and practices.

I don’t want to bother people with knowledge, let’s just share and be nice and get along Like Rodney King taking a drive across the LA Freeway system. Peace & Reef2Reef on.

 

[Soren]

Love how fast cycling posts turn into science arguments lol.

I think the reason why is that the science is what is happening in every case and the disagreements or issues arise from our lack of shared understanding.

Even though the average person does not absolutely need to know the scientific research, it still is best (in my opinion) to try to understand what is actually going on rather than just relying on doing what you are told without knowing why.

 

[GatorGreg]

Love how fast cycling posts turn into science arguments lol.

Every time dude. It’s literally the most simple part of reef keeping. If you can’t get this. There’s absolutely no way they’re going to be able to navigate the problems they’re going to encounter in the next 2 to 10 months. Uneducated reefer, dry rock, dry sand, small tank, bottle bacteria.

this reefer will be back in about diatoms wondering how to get rid of them.

Then a month later will be back with a nasty Dino infestation wondering how to fix that.
Then they will disappear from the forum and wasted money setting up the tank.

Been there done that and got the T shirt.

it should go to congress and be written into law that NO NEW REEFER is to start a new saltwater aquarium with dry rock, dry sand and dr. Tim’s. Lol

 

[marcosnano]

Every time dude. It’s literally the most simple part of reef keeping. If you can’t get this. There’s absolutely no way they’re going to be able to navigate the problems they’re going to encounter in the next 2 to 10 months. Uneducated reefer, dry rock, dry sand, small tank, bottle bacteria.

this reefer will be back in about diatoms wondering how to get rid of them.

Then a month later will be back with a nasty Dino infestation wondering how to fix that.
Then they will disappear from the forum and wasted money setting up the tank.

Been there done that and got the T shirt.

it should go to congress and be written into law that NO NEW REEFER is to start a new saltwater aquarium with dry rock, dry sand and dr. Tim’s. Lol

I'm here to learn. That's why I opened the thread and ask questions.

Step by step learning.

This is what forums are for.

I bet 90% of reef keeper don't know nitrites are non toxic for marine fish. if you google it most of the sources will claim otherwise. That's what I have larned today.

 

[Cell]

Every time dude. It’s literally the most simple part of reef keeping. If you can’t get this. There’s absolutely no way they’re going to be able to navigate the problems they’re going to encounter in the next 2 to 10 months. Uneducated reefer, dry rock, dry sand, small tank, bottle bacteria.

this reefer will be back in about diatoms wondering how to get rid of them.

Then a month later will be back with a nasty Dino infestation wondering how to fix that.
Then they will disappear from the forum and wasted money setting up the tank.

Been there done that and got the T shirt.

It should be simple. But there is a lot of outdated or just plain wrong info out there still being disseminated. There are also multiple ways to do it, which can be confusing to a new reefer looking for the "right" way.

 

[Aaron75]

I've been trying to discuss this with someone on another platform and they're stuck on the fact that they have nitrites. I know nitrites are harmless, and they won't cause death, but, a cycle is ammonia->nitrite->Nitrate. It's irrelevant info but what is the "scientific" explanation on why nitrites are present 6 weeks later?

 

[brandon429]

really good info agreed.

in the end pretty much everyone just wants safety for the animals they invest in, we have to agree on start dates in order to provide that and getting the majority to agree on ethical start dates is the hard part, the evolution of practice

I can no longer think retail sales entities / anyone who makes or sells bottled bacteria / want us to evolve much at all. but we're going to, for sure.

 

[Dave1993]

The fish you added probs died of disease

 

[brandon429]

@Aaron75

who says his test kits are correct


one of the biggest most pressing problems in cycling is cycle umpires accept literally any stated approximation as total fact, unverified.

*what brand is the nitrite test kit here


if that's the brand involved with 95% of reefing not believing it's sister ammonia test kit reading, then the nitrite doesn't become correct all of a sudden due to lack of counter testing options.

we use subjective means to validate people's stated levels as cycle umpires

if it's hanna digital low range nitrite, I'm interested to factor it just so we can fact check cycling charts (resolved by day 25)

if it's not hanna digital low range, throw out the kit and never run it again on a reef tank display/not joking/causes hesitation vs resolve.

 

[brandon429]

in direct answer to your post I would only accept nitrite wouldn't be resolved on a high quality digital meter if someone input a tremendous initial amount of ammonia, as some do indeed.

if the test kit is not digital it's simply not trustworthy.

given any normal inclusion of ammonia and today's bottle bac, nitrite resolved by day 25 or 30 max is the documented standard in all cycle references in print and online. only reef aquarists with their api setups take liberty of undoing all the hard work used to create cycle charts that don't vary site to site, source to source.

*it's ammonia and nitrite I find pretty accurate from the charts, not nitrate. so that's ironic I'm building up cycling charts only to claim the nitrate line may not always qualify lol/good luck choosing who to believe in our ever changing cycle world. there are some cycles or system balances that may denitrify, so a zero or low nitrate reading has no bearing on any cycles I barge into.

there must be 500 reefs here active today who dose nitrate to handle a zero perceived reading, and are all 100% cycled reefs. nitrate has no bearing on reef tank cycling due to its variability and nitrite has no bearing on a reef tank cycle chemically and it's presence cannot stall ammonia control, as bottle bac sellers tried to sell us on

 

[Soren]

Every time dude. It’s literally the most simple part of reef keeping. If you can’t get this. There’s absolutely no way they’re going to be able to navigate the problems they’re going to encounter in the next 2 to 10 months. Uneducated reefer, dry rock, dry sand, small tank, bottle bacteria.

this reefer will be back in about diatoms wondering how to get rid of them.

Then a month later will be back with a nasty Dino infestation wondering how to fix that.
Then they will disappear from the forum and wasted money setting up the tank.

Been there done that and got the T shirt.

it should go to congress and be written into law that NO NEW REEFER is to start a new saltwater aquarium with dry rock, dry sand and dr. Tim’s. Lol

I'd say that "arguing about the science" is the way we have a better resource by which new members can be educated. There needs to be a simple way for new members to educate themselves without an inundation of multiple methods and information backed only by opinion/anecdote. We all start with no knowledge on the subject.

I also share the sentiment that I wish more people would delve into the information and do their own research to become educated. This seems to me to be what @marcosnano is trying to do and just had a misunderstanding of the nitrogen cycle from a chemistry perspective.

There is a valid method with the dry rock, dry sand, and Dr. Tim's, but this method (IMHO) requires skills beyond a beginner level to properly achieve without the issues you mentioned becoming massive problems. It would be nice if more beginners had better access to good live rock without being scared off by the higher initial cost. There are a lot of hidden costs through issues/remedies/losses that come with the "cheaper" dry start...

 

[brandon429]

well said.

 

[Soren]

I've been trying to discuss this with someone on another platform and they're stuck on the fact that they have nitrites. I know nitrites are harmless, and they won't cause death, but, a cycle is ammonia->nitrite->Nitrate. It's irrelevant info but what is the "scientific" explanation on why nitrites are present 6 weeks later?

In the case of this thread, the presence of nitrites is directly due to the dosing of additional ammonia to levels of nitrogen-cycle detection with test kits. Maybe I need to reread the thread...

 

[Mschmidt]

I'm here to learn. That's why I opened the thread and ask questions.

Step by step learning.

This is what forums are for.

I bet 90% of reef keeper don't know nitrites are non toxic for marine fish. if you google it most of the sources will claim otherwise. That's what I have larned today.

Thank you for taking this in stride. I think we all agreed that your fish didn't die from your cycle. then we, and I had no small hand in this got distracted.

After reading the article (thanks for linking it) I learned two things. If not more.
1) No2 is way less dangerous than I thought in a saltwater tank because of the abundance of chloride. "Marine species are less susceptible to nitrite toxicity because chloride (at 19,350 ppm in seawater) outcompetes nitrite for the same uptake mechanisms."
2) It's way more dangerous than I thought in freshwater (I probably still won't pay much attention to it in future fw tanks though). as an intermediate step in the cycle, and most of my tanks being planted it doesn't hang around long.

I am sorry for my contribution to "toxic forum syndrome" and will try to use my new knowledge for good, not evil.

 

[brandon429]

we can't answer Aaron's question or know what bacteria are doing until we verify the test kit

if there isn't any actual nitrite then that factors heavily in the answer. stating there is some doesn't make it true

I can't possibly count the number of web posts that claim ammonia problems when there isn't any; there's no reason for nitrite testing to be any less messy on non digital kits.

 

[marcosnano]

Test kits as you can see is API test kit and it shows some ammonnia, around 1ppm nitrites and 40ppm (?) nitrates.

Other test kit I used is Tetra test kit (also cheap one) and it shows no ammonia, stress levels of nitrites and OK levels nitrates.

 

[brandon429]

api test kits are 99.99% of all nitrite posts in reefing

most people know to doubt their ammonia reading

but see how we accept their nitrite reading solely because there's no other cheap meter and all kinds of ideas about what bacteria are doing are attributed to that belief

Aaron's question cannot be answered for this particular post, and for 99.99% of posts about nitrite in reefing. api stating something literally does not make the reading true. the kits are subject to countless adulterants and procedural variation we never get to know (such as render wait time before recording outcome, varies for each kit, most people take a reading and post it)

I have a thread where a man's api ammonia reading was literally black in the ammonia vial, like ink - and they were discussing why his filter system stopped in a reef tank fully stocked, running perfectly normal with fish and corals. it's the wildest outlier I've seen but still several readers managed to entertain the notion the water bacteria had died.

 

[Cell]

I always thought the bacteria that breaks down nitrite are much slower to populate/establish than the bacteria that breaks down ammonia. This is why nitrite takes longer longer to start processing.

 

[brandon429]

@Mschmidt you haven't done anything toxic it's all good post material here. good thread.

 

[brandon429]

Cell, charts seem to agree: ammonia by day ten, nitrite by end of month.