New Tank Cycle - Strange Readings

[ponyboy96]

Hey everyone. I’m new to this hobby and have been reading and watching a ton of videos on things. So my wife and I bought a Reefer 300xl and are trying to get it to cycle.

For seascape we added 3 bags of carrib sea live sand and about 40lbs of dry rock. We seeded the tank with aqua vitro seed bacteria. We waited a few days and went out and bought a Red Sea test kit. Everything was 0 as expected, no ammonia, no nitrites. I dosed dr Tim’s ammonia 3 days ago and have been monitoring things. We have consistent 2ppm ammonia. The weird part to me from what I’ve been reading, so we added the ammonia to start the process, we have 0 nitrites still, but 5 on the nitrates scale. ammonia levels haven’t changed.

For the tank we have been running the skimmer the whole time and the lights. Should we turn off the lights and protein skimmer?

Any thing else we should do or just wait.

 

[andrewey]

No need to run the lights- save on electricity costs Skimmer is optional. Can run it while cycling to break it in or leave it off. Up to you!

Your findings are perfectly normal. Depending on the source of dry rocks/sand, they can introduce nitrates into your water from the decomposition of previous organics. If you had put the rocks in fresh saltwater and tested, you would likely have come up with the same nitrate level. Keep up the regular testing and you should start to see your ammonia being processed into nitrite and eventually into nitrate in time. Congrats on your tank!

 

[Brandon Smith]

Maybe there was die off in the live sand. I would let it ride for now. Is the water clear? If so, I don't see why you would need to run the skimmer. There could have been some die off in the live rock as well. Did you cure it first, or add it straight to the tank?

 

[ponyboy96]

Thanks for the responses. The rock is dry rock that was supposed to be seeded with spores. We rinsed it and added it straight to the tank. We have also been adding bacteria, but didn’t want to do a live fish or dead shrimp ammonia kick off, so we used the dr tim’s. I guess we just don’t have enough bacteria in there to do anything with the ammonia. I was curious if the bacteria in the live sand or the bottled stuff was any good or not. I’m starting to think it’s not because I would expect to see some nitrites after 3 days. Tank was set up 7 days ago. Maybe it’s still too soon.

The water in the tank is very clear.

 

[cvrle1]

Good call on not using fish to cycle the tank. No need, and really bad for the fish. When I cycled my rocks I used Dr Tims ammonium chloride and dosed it to 2ppm as per instructions. Then 4 hours later I added bacteria (Microbacter XLM) as per instructions. In 2 days I barely had Nitrites, in 4 days, they were up to 0.5 ppm and by day 5 it was at 1ppm. That should give you idea on what you should expect. Not seeing any Nitrites after 7 days is weird. Makes me think your tester may be faulty or maybe bacteria that you used isnt good (dead or whatever)

 

[ponyboy96]

Good call on not using fish to cycle the tank. No need, and really bad for the fish. When I cycled my rocks I used Dr Tims ammonium chloride and dosed it to 2ppm as per instructions. Then 4 hours later I added bacteria (Microbacter XLM) as per instructions. In 2 days I barely had Nitrites, in 4 days, they were up to 0.5 ppm and by day 5 it was at 1ppm. That should give you idea on what you should expect. Not seeing any Nitrites after 7 days is weird. Makes me think your tester may be faulty or maybe bacteria that you used isnt good (dead or whatever)

I’m thinking it’s a bad bottle of bacteria also. It’s day 7 of using it and the directions are to dose for 7 days. Should I try a different brand of bacteria? I have a bottle of microbacter7 the wife bought for the freshwater tank. Thinking about throwing that in there and seeing what happens.

 

[andrewey]

Unfortunately not all bottles of bacterial additives are the same. They differ in their concentration, strains of bacteria, type of storage (live, cyst, etc.), as well as their shelf life. As such, just because a particular product claims it will work in a certain time frame, doesn't mean that claim is true and more importantly, doesn't mean that will be your own experience based on your individual parameters (temperature, salinity, pH, oxygen saturation, rate limiting nutrients all impact growth rate). I don't mean to suggest that's what's going on here, only to suggest the introduction of nitrifying bacteria into a saltwater aquarium is rife with variables and isn't a one size fits all situation no matter how many companies or hobbyists try and convince you otherwise That's why the testing of your particular ecosystem is so important- it follows the idea of "trust, but verify".

I'm going to refrain from suggesting a particular product publically, but if you are interested in other user's experiences, there are some great write ups where certain users tested certain bacterial additives head to head- shoot me a message if that's something that would interest you.