Lesson Learned...Triggered a mini-cycle with just upgrading tank size

[hometown9]

I posted yesterday my SPS were dying quickly after upgrading from a 50G to an 80G with no change in equipment, media, etc. Today I awoke to remaining SPS dead, montis starting to bleach and other corals looking terrible. Elevated Nitrite and Ammonia which has me thinking a mini-cycle has been triggered.

Only addition was 20 lbs of dry sand and 30G of water during this upgrade. Absolutely nothing else changed. My 50G had been established and thriving for 2 years.

I have no idea where the balance to a cycle triggering starts/ends, but in this particular case the simple upgrade + dry sand was enough to do it.

 

[Super Fly]

sorry to hear that. Besides the new sand, did the new tank's water parameters match exactly to the old tank, i.e. Alk, Calc, Mag, PO4, NO3, Salinity & temp? Also is the light new?

 

[hometown9]

sorry to hear that. Besides the new sand, did the new tank's water parameters match exactly to the old tank, i.e. Alk, Calc, Mag, PO4, NO3, Salinity & temp? Also is the light new?

Yeah same water, same light, same temp. Same everything with exception of more water and the dry sand. Maybe it was the sand.

 

[LRT]

These kind of things suck. I also experienced a mini cycle when I upgraded my system and I used fritz when I upgraded. Probably to many changes at once. I'm finding the more stable the environment the happier and any little thing I do. If its flow, lighting or anything gets disrupted my corals get mad at me.
Sorry to hear this

 

[Reefs and Geeks]

Did you rinse your old sand, or just transfer over? If moving sand, it should be cleaned well before moving to a different tank. The bacteria and other fauna in the sand can die fairly easily, and if they do, than the sand just brings over detritus to rot in the new tank. When I transfer sand, I clean 90% of it and transfer, and save 10% uncleaned to transfer for a bit of bacteria. Then feed the new tank sparingly for a week or so while monitoring for die off.

Sorry to hear about your corals. Never easy to see die off

 

[ApoIsland]

I doubt dry sand is going to cause that. 30g of new water added to 50g of old water certainly isn't going to cause any problems if you got even remotely close to the parameters of old water.

Sounds like you used all the old water. If you had established sand in the 50g tank before transferred without rinsing/cleaning, that will be your source of ammonia spike. Plenty of threads on here about tank crashes after disturbing even shallow sand beds. I also make sure no water from my old tanks gets transferred to new tank once the sand bed is disturbed. So much nasty stuff buried in there getting released.

I have large rapid swings in most parameters every month with my 50-60% water change with no ill effects to sps or any other coral. I have also moved the main tank to 3 different locations over the years with no ill effects. Granted I don't keep Acros so my experience doesn't apply there, but for all other corals it does.

 

[ApoIsland]

Did you rinse your old sand, or just transfer over? If moving sand, it should be cleaned well before moving to a different tank. The bacteria and other fauna in the sand can die fairly easily, and if they do, than the sand just brings over detritus to rot in the new tank. When I transfer sand, I clean 90% of it and transfer, and save 10% uncleaned to transfer for a bit of bacteria. Then feed the new tank sparingly for a week or so while monitoring for die off.

Sorry to hear about your corals. Never easy to see die off

I should have read this before posting. This is a clearer more concise way of saying what I tried to say. And 100% accurate

 

[hometown9]

Did you rinse your old sand, or just transfer over? If moving sand, it should be cleaned well before moving to a different tank. The bacteria and other fauna in the sand can die fairly easily, and if they do, than the sand just brings over detritus to rot in the new tank. When I transfer sand, I clean 90% of it and transfer, and save 10% uncleaned to transfer for a bit of bacteria. Then feed the new tank sparingly for a week or so while monitoring for die off.

Sorry to hear about your corals. Never easy to see die off

Thanks. I was running bare bottom. I added dry sand that I cleaned, rinsed and dried. Figured I was adding a neutral component to the tank by doing that. Maybe I shouldn't have cleaned it all.

unrelated - does Dr Tim One and only neturalize the nitrite / ammonia pretty effectively, or should I just let it cycle

 

[Cell]

@brandon429 might find this one interesting.

 

[ApoIsland]

Thanks. I was running bare bottom. I added dry sand that I cleaned, rinsed and dried. Figured I was adding a neutral component to the tank by doing that. Maybe I shouldn't have cleaned it all.

unrelated - does Dr Tim One and only neturalize the nitrite / ammonia pretty effectively, or should I just let it cycle

Adding dry sand that was cleaned isn't going to cause problems.

Has to be something else. Not sure it's poasible as I have never experienced the event but maybe the ammonia spike came from the dying sps corals that died from some other reason.

 

[Cell]

Was the dry sand brand new or re-used? How did you clean it? Rinse with tap or RODI until the water ran clear?

 

[brandon429]

Number one move: drop your lights stop photo burn

Reacclimate lights from a 40% cut back to current levels over 5 days


This is likely irritation not true crash, nothing was antibacterial in nature. Dropping lights power can save this reef you are unlikely to lose stuff if caught in time

Let's see updated tank pic up close

 

[brandon429]

Regarding your readings: I can find those in mature tanks currently it's not the standout issue here, what ammonia and reported nitrite might read

In no way whatsoever do I think ammonia is a current concern it's not possible. This is mad corals and irritation burn I'll bet a bitcoin

reasons you got the readings: TBD. We're not through hashing out why 100000 people report stuck cycles on mature tanks/ same readings but fish are ok

 

[hometown9]

Regarding your readings: I can find those in mature tanks currently it's not the standout issue here, what ammonia and reported nitrite might read

In no way whatsoever do I think ammonia is a current concern it's not possible. This is mad corals and irritation burn I'll bet a bitcoin

reasons you got the readings: TBD. We're not through hashing out why 100000 people report stuck cycles on mature tanks/ same readings but fish are ok

Thanks for the glimmer of hope. I just reduced lights though seems like sps is pretty much done. If no cycle why the cloudy water and nitrite / ammonia increase? Here are some up close pics.

NO3 @ 25 and PO4 @ .11 so those not through the roof yet. I've been dosing bacteria and skimming wet. Scrubber is producing an entirely new type of algae. Weird.

 

[brandon429]

all your fish would be dead if ammonia was uncontrolled so that part is verified safe

nitrite reads erroneously in thousands of reef tanks we don’t factor it anymore since the testers are incorrect

we don’t have reliable nitrite tests in the hobby, and nitrite is neutral anyway it doesn’t matter if some is there

only ammonia matters
perhaps items from bottle bac solution causes cross reads who knows, it’s not possible to verify the readings anyway. Seneye is what we look for in accurate ammonia readings, the other tests aren’t accurate

to verify that, google “reef tank cycle stalled” and see all the tanks with live fish, corals, who claim uncontrolled ammonia from the same levels. None of them are stalled. Adding dry sand can’t spike ammonia and the pre rinse doesn’t look thorough it seems silt was left in. That will clear as the fractional portion of sand in suspension settles out in a few days

I see some sps that look ok, still don’t think all the coral will die. Some irritant was present / not sure why

check this thread out below for patterns, we do sand work here for 5 years your job above would be the easiest work we did.
the only two changes i would have done is a clear pre rinse verified before adding, then nothing can cloud or haze, and drop lights immediately not after a delay. I bet all your stuff is ok and bleached ones come back slowly don’t toss em

 

[brandon429]

Highlights:
we don’t test for ammonia and nitrite though we do the deepest cleaning possible in all of reefing. If we did, everyone would think they’re stalled or mini stalled

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

we have some digital ammonia testing in there, mindstream, and it shows no mini cycle on a full sandbed swap. First link is a seneye proof that rip cleaning doesn’t mini cycle. Only digital ammonia can be trusted, not colorimetric subjective read ammonia

No mini cycles for 30 pages with pure pre rinsing and light re ramps. Im baffled at what caused your bleaching. Even sand silt isn’t lethal, regarding ammonia tracing I can’t see any mechanism at play here that would spike ammonia so at least the dangerous part has passed

i predict that as the ramp up continues by next week 95% of your sps is fine and the other 5% comes back by winter


my sps bleached due to heater out for two months I didn’t know the tank was 68 lol for weeks two years ago in January. I thought my lfs was selling me copper water heh. All came back in 5 months back to like new from pure white, all of it. I’ll find pic sec old phone

Before

After shot when lights on, all fixed thank goodness. The blueberry monti and lobo were immune to temp shocks apparently. Not the others

Taken just now

 

[hometown9]

k ok, s

Highlights:
we don’t test for ammonia and nitrite though we do the deepest cleaning possible in all of reefing. If we did, everyone would think they’re stalled or mini stalled

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

we have some digital ammonia testing in there, mindstream, and it shows no mini cycle on a full sandbed swap. First link is a seneye proof that rip cleaning doesn’t mini cycle. Only digital ammonia can be trusted, not colorimetric subjective read ammonia

No mini cycles for 30 pages with pure pre rinsing and light re ramps. Im baffled at what caused your bleaching. Even sand silt isn’t lethal, regarding ammonia tracing I can’t see any mechanism at play here that would spike ammonia so at least the dangerous part has passed

i predict that as the ramp up continues by next week 95% of your sps is fine and the other 5% comes back by winter


my sps bleached due to heater out for two months I didn’t know the tank was 68 lol for weeks two years ago in January. I thought my lfs was selling me copper water heh. All came back in 5 months back to like new from pure white, all of it. I’ll find pic sec old phone

Before

After shot when lights on, all fixed thank goodness. The blueberry monti and lobo were immune to temp shocks apparently. Not the others

Really appreciate the feedback, thanks. Unfortunately I tossed a few of the sps already but will keep everything else with hopes of recovery. I reduced lights to 40% and will ramp up slowly. Water is still terribly cloudy after day 5 so hoping that eventually clears. It's not sand silt as it's only during daylight hours. I'm beginning to think the sand is the ultimate culprit here with my failed rinse. There is just nothing else to really explain all this. NO3 continue to go up...now close to 25 from ~2. PO4 steady. Alk/Calc steady (10, 450). Temp steady (78). Salinity steady (1.026).

 

[kartrsu]

I’m no expert with SPS tanks but I’ll share a recent experience if helpful. My frag tank went through a mini cycle when I started feeding my inverts in the tank more than usual. Their numbers were dwindling. Tank was also fallow for over 3 months. After I tested for ammonia, I used Bio-Spira to reseed the bacteria population and my nitrates went from 5 to 25+. Next day or so, I did water changes to bring the levels down to acceptable and everything is happy again. I heard microbacter7 also helps reduce nutrients. Good luck!

 

[brandon429]

We should hook up a temp carbon filter/ cheap hang on back from wal mart see if that helps clarity. A big water change too, I would. Matching temp and salinity only requirement.

It is impossible for the hobby to extricate itself from Bacteria/ free ammonia concerns but it's not the case here. We don't have seneye data so we don't have a real read on ammonia but we know it can't hover or rise. Nitrite won't factor at all at any stage in reefing so that's one less misread at least

There's about 5 currently running cloudy water threads, causes range is hard to pin down. Silting is best guess, easy to filter out


The difference between API and Seneye is the whole existence of the notion of a mini cycle in reefing, they dont occur

you have a full cycle, or you have none.

The in between, that doesnt happen, has never been shown on a seneye or mindstream, bc it doesnt occur

we've filled in the blanks bigtime to make up for guess testers.

 

[ca1ore]

Hard to see why a simple upgrade would trigger a cycle ….. unless you used a lot of nutrient laden old sand. I've done a bunch of in-place upgrades without a new cycle. SPS don't handle being moved well. My guess would be that some died due to stress, triggered some ammonia which stressed other coral which released more ammonia ….. well, you get the idea.