Never ending cycle?

Ladybug5234 · Apr 4, 2012

Here's a rough log of my tank, based on my recollections. Please note that I have always used Seachem Stability with great success and no fish or coral loss. I am perplexed as to the length of this cycle and its non-response to Stability. What I have never used is freshly harvested live rock, and I am wondering if that is what is causing this prolonged cycle. I am also aware I have thrown a few "monkey wrenches" into it by adding rock at different times, but what is done, is done. I'm just wondering if I should clean out the tank and remove the rocks, clean them up more and try and find the body of the missing blenny (maybe the cause of high ammonia & nitrates?), or if that would just make things worse. ??? Here's the log, please tell me what you think...

Date	Tank Activity	Chemicals	Test Results
2/22	Started the tank with 65 gal of NSW, 40 lbs. of corapet sand #2, and a 2 lb established piece of live rock from a friend's tank	80 ml of Seachem Stability
2/23-2/26	Added several blue leg hermit crabs, nassarius snails, cerith snails	20 ml of Stability
2/27	Kept lights off, no skimmer	missed a dose of Seachem Stability
2/28-2/29	Kept lights off, no skimmer	20 ml of Stability
3/1	Added 3 Oscellaris clowns & 1 tail spot goby that HAD to be rehomed today	20 ml of Stability
3/14	Added several more blue leg hermit crabs, nassarius snails, cerith snails, 3 Ricordea and several zoas	20 ml of Stability
3/19	Added 55 lbs of live rock freshly harvested from Florida Keys	80 ml of Stability
3/21	Added a yellow tang, lawnmower blenny, 2 Mexican turbo snails & tuxedo sea urchin to help with algae on rocks (came with rocks). Also added an orange frogspawn given to me as a gift & a large green nephtea leather.	20 ml of Seachem Stability	Ammo: .25 Nitrate: 20 Nitrite: 0 PH: 8.0
3/22	Found yellow tang being feasted on by hermits and snails. Promptly removed.	20 ml of Seachem Stability	Ammo: .25 Nitrate: 20 Nitrite: .25 PH: 8.0
3/25	Found lawnmower blenny half chopped up by maxijet powerhead. Promptly removed.		Ammo: .50 Nitrate:40 Nitrite: .25 PH: 8.0
3/26-3/30	Tail spot blenny goes missing. Body never found Green nephtea is shriveled.	14 ml of Aquavitro Alpha
3/31	Performed a 20 gallon water change with NSW. Added 5-10 lbs of previously live but now dried out rock. Rinsed rock well in NSW before putting into tank. Manually removed some algaes from live rock during water change.	80 ml of Seachem Stability	Ammo: .50 Nitrate: 30 Nitrite: .25 PH: 8.0
4/1-4/3	Clownfish are doing fine. Ricordea are fine but green nephtea continues shriveled and is now shedding. Moved it to a higher flow in tank and appears better overnight.	7ml of Auavitro Alpha 20 ml of Seachem Stability	Ammo: .50 Nitrate: 40 Nitrite: .25 PH: 8.0

Mike&Terry · Apr 4, 2012

If it were me, I'd remove the remaining fish and softies until your tank is cycled. Clownfish are very hardy, but ammonia can be deadly. As you continue to lose more livestock, you are prolonging the cycle.

As for the Tailspot, your cleanup crew probably already made quick work of him. Pulling out and scrubbing your rock at this point probably isn't going to do much good, especially with livestock in the tank.

You may want to bump up the water change intervals to help get those numbers down and run your skimmer wet. It takes time for good bacteria to colonize in your rock. Stability, Special Blend, MB7 and other bacterial products can help speed this process up, but it still takes time.

You should hold off adding any knew livestock until your tank is fully cycled. And with a tank of this size, you are better off adding livestock more slowly over a longer period of time to allow your system time to adjust to the new bio load.

One of the best pieces of advice we have ever received in this hobby is "Nothing good ever happens fast in a reef".

-Terry

CJO · Apr 4, 2012

Agreed. You basically never gave your tank a chance to cycle before adding more (and more) bioload. Take out your fish and corals and give your tank a few weeks to cycle. You should see the normal cycle curve- ammonia will drop, nitrites will rise; nitrites will drop, nitrates will rise; finally nitrates will start dropping. Only once your ammonia and nitrites have reached 0 has your tank completed its major cycle. I'd also wait until nitrates are below 50 and SLOWLY start adding things back in. Soft corals and the clowns (assuming that they are small) would probably be all right to start, but don't add any more until a few weeks have gone by. Also, your tank is too small for a tang.

CJ

BarbH · Apr 4, 2012

+1

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Ladybug5234 · Apr 5, 2012

Thank you for your replies and insight. I agree that I may have jumped the gun here, given this set of circumstances, which in every tank build are different. Again, I was going on years of experience using Stability and cured live rock. I think that's the variable here... CURED LIVE ROCK. Now I know better than to buy "freshly harvested live rock" ever again!

If anyone else has any other advice, other than the one given above, please chime in.

cdness · Apr 5, 2012

I used Seachem stability on my 75G and the cycle took forever. Actually it seemed to go quicker when I stopped dosing the stability. I don't think I personally will ever use that product again.

You are moving too fast to begin with. You should not be adding stuff this early in the tank while it is still cycling. Ammonia is toxic to all marine life and nothing should be in there while you still have ammonia. Nothing good comes fast in this hobby but bad things do happen fast. Put on the brakes and let the tank cycle. If possible move the livestock to a different tank if you have one to let the new tank finish. Add stuff back in slowly.

Ladybug5234 · Apr 9, 2012

Again, guys, the tank had already cycled and when I added rock, it began a NEW unexpected cycle. But good news is on the horizon... tank is doing much better! Nitrates and ammonia are on the decline... slowly. I did take out some of the rock and removed lots of decaying sponges and other "meaty" organisms, so maybe that helped. Nitrates have dropped to 20 and ammonia is at 0.25. I have not added anything else and will not do so until my readings are at 0.

Tenor · Apr 10, 2012

Ladybug5234 said:
Again, guys, the tank had already cycled and when I added rock, it began a NEW unexpected cycle. But good news is on the horizon... tank is doing much better! Nitrates and ammonia are on the decline... slowly. I did take out some of the rock and removed lots of decaying sponges and other "meaty" organisms, so maybe that helped. Nitrates have dropped to 20 and ammonia is at 0.25. I have not added anything else and will not do so until my readings are at 0.

You are correct, adding new rock will starting the new cycle again but will not vital like starting a new tank. If your fishes are not getting sick then thing will be ok. Corals not happy then more likely because of light or placement.

shred5 · Apr 10, 2012

You are asking what going on and within 1.5 weeks of setting up the tank you add 4 fish. Then less than 3 weeks latter you add more fish just after adding fresh live rock. Adding dry rock to the tank that probably has dead critters in it.

I will tell you whats wrong, Pretty much everything you are doing. Have some patients and take it slower.

Do not add anything to the tank till all rock is in and fully cycled.

Yariel0527 · Apr 10, 2012

For me you didn't cycle the tank at all. What you did was over loading the tank with bio so basically you shock the bacteria when you add all of this critters at once so the bacteria give up on you. When you use NSW the water you don't need to add any kind of chemicals because the water came from a natural all ready cycle source so what you really have to do is to give the tank a few days so the bacteria get stable in the new environment. What you need to do is to remove all the fish for at least one week do few water changes if you could do them with NSW will be better run the skimmer and stop adding chemicals to the water it will stabilize it self. You just need to reproduce more bacteria so it can start to work and eliminate all of those bad nutrients from the tank. But keep in mind the a Nitrogen cycle have to start by it self if you rush the cycle the bacteria wouldn't reproduce enough to continue and complete the cycle.

Tabasco1 · Apr 10, 2012

May I ask if you were testing the water during the week and half between set up and the initial addition of fish? If so, what were those readings?

Ladybug5234 · Apr 10, 2012

Maybe I wasn't clear. The tank ran a short cycle because it had cured live rock. That's why I added the fish.

My question was could the freshly harvested live rock have caused a new cycle, and we figured out the answer which was yes. Case closed. Everything returned to normal

toothman · Apr 10, 2012

Even though you had a piece of cured live rock in the tank the other freshly harvested rock still needed to cycle. You rushed things a bit.

Tabasco1 · Apr 10, 2012

How do you know you had a cycle in the 1.5 weeks? Were you testing? Did you get a reading of .1+ of amonia that cycled to zero? If you never had an amonia spike to begin with your tank never cycled even if it was reading zero. Hopefully you are over the hump with this build and I would move real slow going forward. I think the best practice for cycling is to get a true amonia spike over .1ppm (probably .25 and never add life if your amonia is at that level or .1 for that matter) then your tank will cycle down. Just be patient, my last build took 8 weeks for my amonia and nitrate to read zero and I was comfortable adding life. A little long, but let your tank tell you when it is ready.

Also, just a heads up, you may want to re-home one of the 3 clowns. As they mature probably 2 will pair off and kill the 3rd one. you never know, but I'd say the odds would go that way.

Good luck!

CJO · Apr 10, 2012

toothman said:
Even though you had a piece of cured live rock in the tank the other freshly harvested rock still needed to cycle. You rushed things a bit.

Tabasco1 said:
How do you know you had a cycle in the 1.5 weeks? Were you testing? Did you get a reading of .1+ of amonia that cycled to zero? If you never had an amonia spike to begin with your tank never cycled even if it was reading zero. Hopefully you are over the hump with this build and I would move real slow going forward. I think the best practice for cycling is to get a true amonia spike over .1ppm (probably .25 and never add life if your amonia is at that level or .1 for that matter) then your tank will cycle down. Just be patient, my last build took 8 weeks for my amonia and nitrate to read zero and I was comfortable adding life. A little long, but let your tank tell you when it is ready.

Also, just a heads up, you may want to re-home one of the 3 clowns. As they mature probably 2 will pair off and kill the 3rd one. you never know, but I'd say the odds would go that way.

Good luck!

The denitrifying and other beneficial bacteria live in the live rock. If you transfer mature live rock from another tank, you already have the bacteria you need for a stable system. The only cycle you will see is from anything that dies off while moving the rock, which is minimal, or from something else you add, like sand. So, it is possible to start a reef tank with little to no cycle. However, you do still need to take things slow so that the bacteria has a chance to grow with the biological load that you add to the system.

For some fish will do as you say and will partner up and kill a third. However, clownfish do not usually exhibit this behavior unless you bring them after more than one has changed to female. Normally, if you bring in several adolescents, the most dominant will become a female and will pair with the next most dominant. The others will remain adolescent males. Then, if the female dies, the dominant male will become female and will pair with the next most dominant.

CJ