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

[marcosnano]

Anyways guys thank you for encourage me to intruduce fish to my tank, I will do it tomorrow and I will slowly drip by drip aclimate it first in a bowl.

After a week if the fish is doing fine I will take another fish, a clown this time.

In same time I will start slowly with corals.

 

[Soren]

I added some ammonia last night, these are results this morning. More nitrites and more nitrates.

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

...except in this case the dosing of ammonia absolutely corroborates the test findings of nitrites and nitrates afterward, regardless of whether or not the "exact numbers" are correct.

I'm confident in stating that any marine system (new, established, or long-established) that is dosed to fishless-cycle levels with ammonia will show measurable nitrite and nitrate some time after. This amount of ammonia is likely to overload any bacterial population (at least short-term) enough to reach measurable nitrite levels for a period until it is processed.
Nitrates are also a near-guarantee to be measurable after ammonia dosing, since the input rate easily will outdo the take-up rate of a system for a time, even if there were a lot of anaerobic areas or algae/nitrate-consumers in the system.

 

[mijan]

What do you have for water movement? I don't see a wavemaker on there.

This seems to have slipped through the cracks. You need to get a pump in your tank for circulation and surface agitation, otherwise your fish could suffocate

 

[brandon429]

-slowly drip by drip aclimate it first in a bowl.-

that is harmful though/not to nit pick but its opposite of any info in the disease forum

verify how to acclimate here:

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

marco

surely you had water movement in this tank

it hasn't been just sitting, right?

not that it would stop your cycle, but am highly interested in where you're getting setup references if that hidden whammy applies

lol if there has been no pump on, unique among all reef cycles ever posted, then I give Aaron a tip of the hat and agree there's nitrite in that wastewater no joke. I was counting on motion + # of days underwater this entire time. surely there's been a bubbler, or powerhead

 

[marcosnano]

Further, I'd temp acclimate: (float the bag with the lights off) then put the fish in a bucket or bowl with the store water. add half a cup or less of tank water to the bucket every five or 10 minutes. do this till the water has doubled. throw out half the water and do it till doubled again. at that point, you should be good to add the fish. try to keep the store water out of your tank.

OK I'm gonna use this method then.

 

[marcosnano]

marco

surely you had water movement in this tank

it hasn't been just sitting, right?

not that it would stop your cycle, but am highly interested in where you're getting setup references if that hidden whammy applies

lol if there has been no pump on, unique among all reef cycles ever posted, then I give Aaron a trophy and agree there's nitrite in that wastewater no joke. I was counting on motion + # of days underwater this entire time. surely there's been a bubbler, or powerhead

Yes, there is a canister filter with pump for 100 gallons per hour. My tank is 12g. It has pretty strong flow. It is on all the time.

 

[Soren]

Anyways guys thank you for encourage me to intruduce fish to my tank, I will do it tomorrow and I will slowly drip by drip aclimate it first in a bowl.

After a week if the fish is doing fine I will take another fish, a clown this time.

In same time I will start slowly with corals.

I would recommend finding a good source of acclimation methods according to your fish source and sticking to it. There are different ways to acclimate that can be equally successful.

As I understand, the primary factors of acclimation are to account for temperature and salinity differences. Shifting too fast with either of these parameters can be hazardous as a shock to the fish.
For example: floating the bag in the tank is done to equilibrate temperature between tank and bag water; drip-acclimation is done for the purpose of slowly shifting from low-salinity bag water to full-salinity tank water.

This seems to have slipped through the cracks. You need to get a pump in your tank for circulation and surface agitation, otherwise your fish could suffocate

I agree on considering a wavemaker for water movement at lower depths, but at least in this case there appears to be significant surface movement and agitation for oxygen exchange due to the return, evidenced in the earlier picture:
Post 7

 

[brandon429]

I knew you would not still cycle us!! nice

 

[GatorGreg]

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.

I mean……. There’s a search feature. It never fails there’s tons of the same posts everyday with the same arguments happening in every one. It’s just the definition of insanity to me.

 

[brandon429]

if he runs the search feature he finds that cycles stall, nitrite matters, bottle bac use still doesn't protect fish from initial burn, api is always believed and it's ok to skip disease preps as long as you wait 30-60 days for ammonia control.

I think using the search function is bad for cyclers, ironically. everything cycle umpires have told us is wrong, our search features are corrupt lol. all of the internet is corrupt on reef cycling, he could use google and get the same misdirection.

all based on believing api in an arbitrary manner...

I figure to undo this mess, we'll need about five more years for seneye or similar digital meters to catch on and drop in price and be 50-60% of stated cycle levels, then ten more years of posted new findings off those meters to undo the last 25 years of posted incorrect findings.


Sir, you may use the search feature to discern your cycle status in 2038.

 

[Cell]

Imagine science without debate...

 

[marcosnano]

Imagine science without debate...

Happened not so long time ago in world of medicine but let's not go there lol

 

[Soren]

Happened not so long time ago in world of medicine but let's not go there lol

The science and "the science" can be vastly different things.
I prefer to stick with the scientific method of making hypothesis, setting up experiment to test hypothesis while trying to eliminate bias, and recording results independent of my opinions and comparing to similar experiments...

...that's all I'll say so I don't make too much effort to go there, as you requested we don't.

 

[brandon429]

I prefer to make predictions for 1000 reef tanks then collect the results in work threads for outcome checking.

if they pass, the science that made the predictions was o.k.

 

[brandon429]

Here's a working example

Dr Tims Fishless Cycle question help please

I’m on day 6 of DrTims (fishless cycle) and have the following test results this morning. Ammonia: 4.0 Nitrite 2.0 PH 8.3 Nitrate 25 My question is should I add more ammonia drops? There seems to be conflicting information from Dr Tims. The printed material with the chart states to add ammonia...

www.reef2reef.com

I just redirected him away from test based cycling and into testless cycling. He accepts.

The common refrain is: that's bunk, you can't do that. No published material exists to support your claim (jeered from the sidelines)

I'm claiming there is about to be some published material regarding that experiment...and it'll be peer reviewed.

Let's see if his stuff lives or dies in testless cycle #3466

Anecdote will one day bring testless cycling to replace test based cycling = the bet

Based on results of course.

 

[Soren]

I prefer to make predictions for 1000 reef tanks then collect the results in work threads for outcome checking.

if they pass, the science that made the predictions was o.k.

Maybe it seems to work sometimes, but that is the definition of an uncontrolled experiment (too many variables unaccounted for, especially from a distance only viewing through an online forum).
This is not what I consider to be a valid use of the scientific method.

 

[Soren]

Here's a working example

Dr Tims Fishless Cycle question help please

I’m on day 6 of DrTims (fishless cycle) and have the following test results this morning. Ammonia: 4.0 Nitrite 2.0 PH 8.3 Nitrate 25 My question is should I add more ammonia drops? There seems to be conflicting information from Dr Tims. The printed material with the chart states to add ammonia...

www.reef2reef.com

I just redirected him away from test based cycling and into testless cycling. He accepts.

The common refrain is: that's bunk, you can't do that. No published material exists to support your claim (jeered from the sidelines)

I'm claiming there is about to be some published material regarding that experiment...and it'll be peer reviewed.

Let's see if his stuff lives or dies in testless cycle #3466

Anecdote is about to bring testless cycling to replace test based cycling = the bet

Based on results of course.

A simple counter with this example:
I have not seen anyone arguing on this forum that test-less cycles will not work. The natural occurrences will happen regardless of whether or not we observe or understand them. The point is that cycling without testing keeps you in the dark about whether or not it is effective or at what stage you are in the process. Testing sheds light onto what is actually happening.

I will never support advising beginners to cycle with methods that convince them to remain in ignorance about what is actually happening in the cycle, regardless of how many work threads supposedly prove that it worked.
People running into unsolved issues that they ask questions about are people with an incomplete understanding (I'm stating this as fact by the specific wording). If together we pursue a deeper understanding centered around repeatable results from properly-tested hypotheses, this will help all of us to understand better and run into less issues as a whole.

In my view philosophically/logically/scientifically, anecdotes will never replace peer reviews backed with repeatable experiments. Overemphasizing anecdote forces uncontrolled experiments, which forces us away from the scientific method.

Anyhow, I think I've made this point clear and hope we don't cloud the discussion of this thread's purpose.

 

[Garf]

Maybe it seems to work sometimes, but that is the definition of an uncontrolled experiment (too many variables unaccounted for, especially from a distance only viewing through an online forum).
This is not what I consider to be a valid use of the scientific method.

You may be wasting your thumbs. I explained all this to Brandon last summer when he kept mistaking NH3 for NH4 (but only when it suited him, to spread scare tactics and shore up his own delusional threads). Folks often define a “fishless cycle”, they are often sent down the “fish in” cycle route, further put in peril by his insistence on not testing.

 

[marcosnano]

Quick update, for the gentlemen who were helping me out with advices.

47 hours ago I took 2 fish. Yellow tail demsel and a small clown.

First 24 hours everything seemed fine, fish were very active and looking happy. Demsel was hidding behind rocks but he would go out to eat and he would spend some time out.

Now, second 24 hours. Clown is spending time at top heavily breathing and damsel is hidden in the rocks, I don't see it all anymore. They are not eating at all today.

I checked water, no ammonia, still some nitrites, some nitrates. Temp. 79. pH is 7.8.

2 hermit crabs not active at all, they didn't moved for 12 hours at least.

What can possible go wrong?