Keeping rock cycling?

[James Barton]

So I just begun my nitrogen cycle with dry rock and dry sand in a 150g water trough for my 185g tank. I'm currently waiting to close on my new house and won't be moving in for a few months. Everyone that I've seen cycle their rock, moves it straight into their tank after the cycle is complete. My question is, what do I need to do to keep my bacteria growing and cycling for the next few months until I can get moved into my new place and get the tank setup? Do I need to do water changes? And should I be worried about keeping ph up around 8.1-8.3? Salinity is 1.026 and phosphates are under .25. Anything else I should be doing or keeping an eye on? Today is day 1 and I am cycling with a shrimp.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Do I need to do water changes?

It would be good yes as nitrates will build but one a month should be fine.

And should I be worried about keeping ph up around 8.1-8.3?

Not at all.

Salinity is 1.026 and phosphates are under .25.

If your concerned about Po4 in the rock you can use lanthanum chloride (Phosphate RX) right before you change the water the first time. The bacteria Will reduce some as well.

In short, you'll need to ghost feed the rock. fish food is fine, another shrimp etc. to produce ammoina and continue the cycle. You could dose ammoina but it would be labor intensive.

 

[brandon429]

literally all you have to do is keep the rock wet with saltwater. temp wont matter, even salinity if its in a decent range. hydration is whats required to keep set-in bacteria alive and functioning, they get all they need via natural means just like in the wild. they still get food, if we provide the hydration.

 

[James Barton]

How often would I continue to feed fish food? And how much?

 

[brandon429]

any amount up to and including none gives the same impact to your bacteria, they don't need our help once established.

They don't even need our help to get established either...only need water and air. when we add feed and bottle bac that's speeding things up, but these bac are fully able to cycle a tank even if we add nothing other than saltwater and just wait longer. you will be fully cycled when you place them in holding, so the worst part of the wait is over.


You adding food can begin to seed organics into the rock though, so id add very little if you must add some though zero is required to be added.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

so id add very little if you must add some though

Yup, very little.

I did stall my coral qt tank once.

 

[James Barton]

any amount up to and including none gives the same impact to your bacteria, they don't need our help once established.

They don't even need our help to get established either...only need water and air. when we add feed and bottle bac that's speeding things up, but these bac are fully able to cycle a tank even if we add nothing other than saltwater and just wait longer. you will be fully cycled when you place them in holding, so the worst part of the wait is over.


You adding food can begin to seed organics into the rock though, so id add very little if you must add some though zero is required to be added.

Thanks so much for that info! I thought that without the ammonia they would eventually die off.

 

[James Barton]

So by the time the tank is setup I would just have to add water to the tank and transfer the sand and rock, and should be fully cycled? Are there any water parameters I should be testing for?

 

[brandon429]

this is a highly nuanced subject lol

everyone in reefing would feed the bacteria. the only reason I wouldn't is because it would let down the claims from our microbiology posts that we don't have to factor in bacteria when we do actions to our tank, and this has to include storing rocks as well. they need only water and access to air, since the bac are aerobic.

We had to set params for what bacteria will tolerate in our cycling threads so that people felt free to move, clean, rescape, transfer, all without losing precious animals and $$ so we had to come up with a system that warns us when to concern over bacteria...so far, we only factor in loss of bacteria when we are dealing with true drying of materials, medication events, and temp extremes so outlandish it wont occur in home reefing even during mistakes

not a single water param I can think of matters to these bacteria, once established. the salinity needs to have salt so those species are selected for but even that is massively forgiving, filtration bac in a sw reef vs a brackish setup aren't different although they do differ heading into the freshwater salinities.

if you feed some flake feed= fine

if you don't, those rocks will still pass a digestion test after your new setup which is what signifies cycled rock.

the only reason to give it this much thought and type is because what you are asking is directly along the lines of what bacteria will tolerate, and that sets our care and action boundaries for the reef tank and its fun to muse on those limits when the topic comes up.

By the way, we'd just LOVE a little test of these claims.
if possible, when you are sure these rocks are cycled, it would be amazing to see a little ammonia digestion test after they sat all this time unfed. or, if you'd prefer to feed them, section off some of the rocks and let em sit in a bucket of just water the whole time, unfed, and digest test those at the end. it would be neat to get update confirmation when this is done. the classic digest test is to set the rocks and water they're in to 1 ppm verified accurate ammonia, then check back in 24 hours to see if zero.

 

[James Barton]

This brings up a question. I cleaned about 150lbs of used sand from another person's tank using water and bleach. The sand smelt terrible. I rinsed it thoroughly and let it sit for a few days, then I put this sand in my water trough and then added the rock (also cleaned, using MA).

I started my cycle on the 2nd of this month (today marks the 7th day) and when I tested the water the parameters were as follows: ammonia - .25, nitrites - through the roof, and nitrates - 10.

I did put 1 piece of "live rock" (was out of water for a couple of days) in the trough as well. I didn't think this cycle should be showing nitrates already? Is it just going really well or what?

I am cycling in a 130g water trough with sand and rock in my shed, no direct sunlight. I just finished cleaning my 185g tank, however, I won't be setting it up for a few months since I'm moving into a new house.

Now provided the back story, back to the original question I had. When I do finally setup my tank and transfer my rock, do I keep the sand? Does the sand need to be "cleaned" or rinsed again? Or am I safe to add the sand straight from the trough?

 

[brandon429]

there is an easy way to corral your results

only evaluate what ammonia does after 30 days underwater. that's not to be avoidant of your results but we cant make any use of params within a week. not able to comment if the live rock portion is doing that, its atypical if so.

regarding the sand, if you can reach down underwater as it sits and pick some up, then drop it down, if it doesn't cloud you can reuse it.

Many people opt for new sand but at that weight it w save you tons of money to reuse it. The sand is fine as long as it doesn't cloud. if it does whatsoever, then rinse better and it wont be contributing waste breakdown to that mix of numbers above. add some bottled bacteria a couple times as that stuff sits in water.

after 30 or so days underwater with some bottle bac added + whatever is causing those nitrogen readings for you, you'll be cycled. likely sometime before then but 30-40 days is the universal enough time underwater mark for any form of assisted cycle.

Yours is assisted so far by whatever rotting proteins you have in there, and the bacteria brought in by the live rock

 

[James Barton]

there is an easy way to corral your results

only evaluate what ammonia does after 30 days underwater. that's not to be avoidant of your results but we cant make any use of params within a week. not able to comment if the live rock portion is doing that, its atypical if so.

regarding the sand, if you can reach down underwater as it sits and pick some up, then drop it down, if it doesn't cloud you can reuse it.

Many people opt for new sand but at that weight it w save you tons of money to reuse it. The sand is fine as long as it doesn't cloud. if it does whatsoever, then rinse better and it wont be contributing waste breakdown to that mix of numbers above. add some bottled bacteria a couple times as that stuff sits in water.

after 30 or so days underwater with some bottle bac added + whatever is causing those nitrogen readings for you, you'll be cycled. likely sometime before then but 30-40 days is the universal enough time underwater mark for any form of assisted cycle.

Yours is assisted so far by whatever rotting proteins you have in there, and the bacteria brought in by the live rock

I forgot to mention I started it with a shrimp. And unfortunately with all the rock in the trough I can't find the shrimp to remove it. So it's there until it's gone lol.

I just didn't think I would see nitrates after a week. Not to mention such a large spike in the nitrites. First drop from the nitrite test turned the test tube water purple.

 

[James Barton]

And I have removed some rock into a rubbermaid bin themselves that I won't feed so I can do the digestion test on the two when they are cycled. I too would like to see the results of this.

 

[Bperau]

I keep rock in totes in my garage and sell it to people. All I do is add water from evaporation and have some powerheads in there. I actually sprinkle flakes in the totes every now and then so the bacteria has the job of converting ammonia

 

[James Barton]

Alright. So today is day 11 of cycle and this is what my api test kit readings are showing me.

I still think this is odd for day 11. Didn't dose any bacteria. Just added a shrimp (which is lost in the trough, probably gone?). Put in cleaned dead rock, and cleaned sand, 1 piece of "semi-live" rock (was in an established tank but out of water for a few days before putting it into my trough with the rest of the rock.

 

[brandon429]

yep that's good but there's a lot of mixed components in your cycle, as the live rock may not have been dried out enough to kill it, so it produces some nitrate upon rehydration. regarding ammonia levels, shrimp decay is so random that test wont have any significance on day 11 no matter the reading. It doesn't mean your tank is processing ammonia; it could mean your dilution levels are too high vs the decay rates to read anything, this is a mixed cycle and they're trickier to call. You certainly aren't having a bunch of post-hydration rot going on from the rocks or the levels would all 3 be spiked.


after 30 days submerged the ideal test is two part: 1 ammonia test showing a spike to 2 ppm

then another ammonia test 24 hours later showing that reading above.

 

[James Barton]

yep that's good but there's a lot of mixed components in your cycle, as the live rock may not have been dried out enough to kill it, so it produces some nitrate upon rehydration. regarding ammonia levels, shrimp decay is so random that test wont have any significance on day 11 no matter the reading. It doesn't mean your tank is processing ammonia; it could mean your dilution levels are too high vs the decay rates to read anything, this is a mixed cycle and they're trickier to call. You certainly aren't having a bunch of post-hydration rot going on from the rocks or the levels would all 3 be spiked.


after 30 days submerged the ideal test is two part: 1 ammonia test showing a spike to 2 ppm

then another ammonia test 24 hours later showing that reading above.

So my best bet is to just leave it as it is, go out and buy some ammonia in a bottle. And after 30 days spike the ammonia to 2ppm and after 24hrs it should read 0?

 

[brandon429]

yep agreed. now if it doesn't, then by day 40 we'd expect it too given a few extra days. I predict it w still be ok by day 30 because you've added a couple sources of bacteria beyond what naturally get in the tank...although a huge dose of tank-specific cycling bottle bacteria should would be ideal too

 

[James Barton]

Ok guys. So I just bought a bottle of ammonia from ace hardware so I can more accurately dose the ammonia and spike it to see where I stand. So I put about 6 cap fulls of ammonia in a little bowl so I can use my dropper to slowly dose it. Well, I accidentally knocked the bowl into the water and all 6 cap fulls are in there. I tested the ammonia and it's well over the 8ppm mark... guess all I can do is wait?? Looks like I need to be more careful..

 

[brandon429]

it w be ok. you've now directly tested our oft-debated claim that anything over 5 ppm w suppress and stop nitrification. im betting not. though it may take a while it w still digest given submersion duration timelines and any bottle bac added. you are about 20 days into submersion as I see it. if you have added bottle bac earlier that's better, if you can get some now and add it that would help speed up the process. you would have needed about 6 weeks or so if you changed nothing and only used the shrimp, but now we've boosted ammonia and if we could balance that w some bottle bac you could get this done well enough to xfer into new tank by ending first week in july