New Tank Cycle Question

[brclark82]

I have just done the initial setup on a 55 gal. I have 60 lbs of Caribsea Fiji Pink live sand and about 60-70 pounds of Life Rock. I am planning on using Fritz Turbo Start and dosing ammonia for my initial cycle.

The rock and sand is advertised as being seeded with bacteria. I have the ammonia but the Turbo Start won’t be here for a couple days. My question is, would it be ok to go ahead and dose with some ammo is to see if the rock/sand bacteria can start working or would it be better to wait until I have the turbo start to add any ammonia.

thanks

 

[Screwgunner]

Try it with out the turbo you might not need it.

 

[sbazain]

just started new system dead rock bear bottom is going on 8 days dosed bacteria booster and stability 6mls every day added two clowns and their doing fine eating and swimming around going through the uglies now ammo 0.1 nitrite 1.5

 

[Screwgunner]

Do not put any more in !!!! Let it ride for a month. Just feed your clowns. Do 5 gallon water change every week or 10 gallons every two weeks. If you do not have any ammo or nitrite in a month you are good for another couple small fish . 55 is not big anouph for tangs or fox faces. So stick to cardinals gobys always check on line to see if they are ok for your setup. Bare bottom be careful about wrasses some need sand to sleep in.

 

[brandon429]

I'm going to relay a trick from the halls of new cycling science you will like

testless cycling

don't add the ammonia you read about adding, the trend to dose to 2ppm is terrible, causes algae, doesn't help cycling at all. fish food helps cycling, ammonia is only a small help due to the types of bacteria found in these bottles.

add in a few drops of it now, the ammonia, a simple estimate of a few drops is enough


a very small amount of ammonia, nothing like what people are inputting nowadays that's too much entirely

*plus one ground up pinch of fish food ground into powder*

let that be swirling in the running tank as you await the bac

add the bac when it gets in: wait ten days after you add the bac, and you're cycled, and no testing is needed nor is non digital testing helpful in the matter because its not precise enough to help you.

you can't not be cycled in this arrangement + 10 days

 

[brandon429]

you're adding a few drops of ammonia, some ground up fish food, awaiting bottle bac then adding it, then waiting ten days total and the tank is cycled fully at that point. actually before, ten days is just the safe window for no-test cycling.

*if you add fish without any disease preps, they'll die soon: read the disease forum for required fish preps. its in the stickies, and every single help post on that forum.


fish disease prevention is your concern, cycling is 0% of a concern.

 

[brclark82]

I'm going to relay a trick from the halls of new cycling science you will like

testless cycling

don't add the ammonia you read about adding

add in a few drops of it now, plus one ground up pinch of fish food ground into powder

let that be swirling in the running tank as you await the bac

add the bac when it gets in: wait ten days after you add the bac, and you're cycled, and no testing is needed nor is non digital testing helpful in the matter because its not precise enough to help you.

you can't not be cycled in this arrangement + 10 days

This is pretty much what I’m going to do…interestingly enough there was a delay in the shipment of my Fritz (lost, still hasn’t re-shipped who knows when I’ll get it) but I dosed my tank to 2.0 ammonia 48 hours ago and I’m already seeing a reduction in ammonia to 1.5-1.75 and 0.25 nitrites with just the life rock and sand…pretty impressed, I’ll just dump the Fritz in whenever it shows up and wait a week

 

[brandon429]

add the fish food component now/ it gives missing carbon from the system

 

[brclark82]

1) How much, what kind..I really only have freshwater flakes available for now will that work…was going to get the food when I got the fish…

2) if it may still be a week or so before the fritz arrives should I wait a little while before adding the food or go ahead?

 

[Garf]

1) How much, what kind..I really only have freshwater flakes available for now will that work…was going to get the food when I got the fish…

2) if it may still be a week or so before the fritz arrives should I wait a little while before adding the food or go ahead?

Yep, I’ve used freshwater flakes in the distant past, nothing new about ghost feeding.

 

[brandon429]

no it doesnt matter what kind of food

add the food now, it's a carbon boost you want in contact for the ten days.

 

[brandon429]

how nice and compact this thread was///no need to have a sixteen page debate between new and old cycling science. testless cycling will replace test-based cycling, we just need more proofs to stack up the running reefs on/after day ten.

if you skip fish disease preps, and add fish early like the other portion of this thread, see the disease forum for the known outcome:

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

cycle issues don't exist after day ten, disease issues do.

the reason we began testless cycling is so that we removed test kits that tend to always show .25-2ppm no matter how long we wait. that confuses cyclers, and has them veer off course from reading disease preps. testing using cheap non digital ammonia kits causes cycling issues, the actual biology is never an issue. anyone using a calibrated seneye can see right off the bat how fast ammonia control happens, it looks like your non digital test kits here were also able to show a drop, just don't expect them to go to zero. they usually hang right around .25-.5 on cycled reefs.

the reason the clownfish are doing fine vs dead in the other post is because bottle bacteria works so well, no testing is needed for it/we just add it.

the ten day wait + fish food covers you for the rare times the bottle bac was dead.