Question about my cycle/water changes

[mfinley24]

Hi! I have a newer tank - it's been set up for about 6-7 weeks now. I initially set it up with live rock, live sand, put in some biospira, have a decent amount of pods.

I check its parameters every week. About 3 weeks ago they became stable - my ammonia was at zero, no nitrites, my nitrates were a little less than 10 but I had some. I went to my LFS and the man working told me that I was probably safe to start getting a CUC and then my first fish but inverts are super sensitive to nitrates/they don't like nitrates over 10. I got a pistol shrimp, 3 peppermint shrimp , a hitchhiker crab and starfish, and 5 hermit crabs and introduced them over the course of the next week.

After about 2 weeks of having them, my nitrate test appeared to be higher than 10 and it freaked me out for my inverts so I did my first water change. I also changed out my filter floss. 4 days later, I tested and I had .50 ammonia in my tank. I asked my LFS and they said I probably messed up my cycle by doing the water change and depleted the growing bacteria.

I treated with Tim's one and only, waited a week, tested again and I'm back to 0 ammonia, no nitrites, and some nitrates. My algae growth has picked up again so it seems like I'm back to where I was around the time I did my first water change.

My questions are: am I ok to get a fish now or should I wait longer? At what point can I do a water change? I don't want to mess things up in my tank again.

 

[Quietman]

How much water did you change? Most of the bacteria you're concerned with doing a cycle is not in the water column. And unless you changed out most of the water resulting in 0 nitrates (so nothing for bacteria to feed on) I'm not seeing how you could impact the cycle much. You might not had quite enough bacteria to handle the added load from the CUC/fish or possibly you had a loss of some CUC and it just flashed up on the ammonia on test (bad timing). If you're back to 0, you're probably ok just wait a few weeks and add livestock slowly and monitor like you've been doing.

Start doing water changes to maintain your nitrates where you want them.

 

[mfinley24]

I had a starfish lose like 2 legs but I'm not sure they were just sitting there rotting or what happened to them. All of my CUC is accounted for other than her legs. I think I may have been over feeding though. I was feeding every day and did some reading and switched it to every 2-3 days. Could any of that contributed?

As for my water change, I did about a 25% water change.

 

[mfinley24]

Would I have issues with keeping my bacteria if I'm using those dumb marine balls in my filter area? It was my understanding that the live sand and rock would be where most of it is coming from but I did get those plastic balls since my LFS recommended them and I wish I hadn't chosen those as my biomedia.

 

[Quietman]

No if anything the dumb marine balls would've helped with ammonia...bad for nitrate mgmt though. Over feeding CUC starfish legs...all are nutrients in so sure that's likely. 25% WC isn't going to hurt the cycle much at all. The bacteria population that handle ammonia (and other nutrients) will rise and fall with food source. So higher feeding will result in higher population. Lowering the food will have die off and put nutrients back. You don't have to worry about that bacteria growth and die off in your day to day reefkeeping. But it is a lot of the basis why reef tank mgmt is based on slow changes...allow the entire food chain to adjust and stabilize...see what your nutrient removal needs to be (WC) before making more changes.

 

[William Mumford]

I would add a fish. Then do a water change my idea is that water changes are only necessary when you need to get rid of something I would think with 0 inhabitants it needs nothing changed add a fish wait a week and start your water changes regularly. What testing are you using?

 

[William Mumford]

If your cuc doesnt have food to eat it will start to eat each other maybe you starfish was someone lunch.

 

[Billldg]

As @Quietman has already said, the bacteria doesn't live in the water column, it lives mainly in the sand and rock, so water changes shouldn't effect the bacteria much at all. Your parameters will go up and down as you add things to it. That's why you don't add everything at one time, you do it in steps to allow your bacteria to build up to the new load. Personally I don't include CUC and frags in the load as they really won't effect it either. When you start to add fish and coral colonies, then your load on the tank will change. We do water changes to help keep nitrates and phosphates in check and to add nutrients that are depleted. Depending on how big your tank is, I feel you are ready for some small fish. Then after that the general rule of thumb is to not add no more than double the load every month after.

Also, I have had my CUC in my tank when the nitrates were well above 50 ppm with no side effects.

 

[mfinley24]

As @Quietman has already said, the bacteria doesn't live in the water column, it lives mainly in the sand and rock, so water changes shouldn't effect the bacteria much at all. Your parameters will go up and down as you add things to it. That's why you don't add everything at one time, you do it in steps to allow your bacteria to build up to the new load. Personally I don't include CUC and frags in the load as they really won't effect it either. When you start to add fish and coral colonies, then your load on the tank will change. We do water changes to help keep nitrates and phosphates in check and to add nutrients that are depleted. Depending on how big your tank is, I feel you are ready for some small fish. Then after that the general rule of thumb is to not add no more than double the load every month after.

Also, I have had my CUC in my tank when the nitrates were well above 50 ppm with no side effects.

I have a BioCube 32 so it's not huge. I wanted to start off with a goby to hang out with my pistol shrimp and then work my way from there maybe adding a fish every 2 weeks or so until I've gotten the ones I want. I'm thinking probably 4-5 max. A goby, blenny, clowns, and maybe a six line wrasse last or a royal Gramma.

I wanted to get a cleaner shrimp and a tuxedo urchin and maybe a few more hermit crabs since I only have 5. I feel like my CUC is lacking. How soon could introduce those to my tank if I got a fish?

 

[mfinley24]

I would add a fish. Then do a water change my idea is that water changes are only necessary when you need to get rid of something I would think with 0 inhabitants it needs nothing changed add a fish wait a week and start your water changes regularly. What testing are you using?

I'm using API testing although my boyfriend just got Red Sea so I'm hoping to try that out on my tank soon.

 

[mfinley24]

No if anything the dumb marine balls would've helped with ammonia...bad for nitrate mgmt though. Over feeding CUC starfish legs...all are nutrients in so sure that's likely. 25% WC isn't going to hurt the cycle much at all. The bacteria population that handle ammonia (and other nutrients) will rise and fall with food source. So higher feeding will result in higher population. Lowering the food will have die off and put nutrients back. You don't have to worry about that bacteria growth and die off in your day to day reefkeeping. But it is a lot of the basis why reef tank mgmt is based on slow changes...allow the entire food chain to adjust and stabilize...see what your nutrient removal needs to be (WC) before making more changes.

So if I wanted something other than those balls - I could get some other form of matrix, remove those balls and replace with something better, and it won't really impact anything other than helping more with nitrates? Do you have a suggestion for something other than the balls?

 

[Quietman]

Well, balls collect debris that then decomposes into nitrate. The balls themselves are not bad it's that most do not rinse off (kind of like permanent filter socks). I have 1L of pond matrix in my RSR170 sump...is it doing anything for nitrates? Who knows? I kind of doubt it, but my main purpose was having media to quickly seed a QT or hospital tank to manage ammonia and nitrite. Any tank reasonably stocked is going to have enough surface area to manage ammonia and nitrites. Nitrates have several removal options: WC, algae in sump or reactor, carbon dosing - which just feeds another type of bacteria you skim away for removal, reactor with sulfur....the list goes on.

Pick your poison on nitrate removal methods. Pro and cons and knock down, drag out discussions abound on here.

If you do remove the balls - not knowing how many you have - go slow. Half or quarter at a time. Monitor. Wait for stability, proceed.

 

[Billldg]

I have a BioCube 32 so it's not huge. I wanted to start off with a goby to hang out with my pistol shrimp and then work my way from there maybe adding a fish every 2 weeks or so until I've gotten the ones I want. I'm thinking probably 4-5 max. A goby, blenny, clowns, and maybe a six line wrasse last or a royal Gramma.

I wanted to get a cleaner shrimp and a tuxedo urchin and maybe a few more hermit crabs since I only have 5. I feel like my CUC is lacking. How soon could introduce those to my tank if I got a fish?

I love my Skunk cleaner shrimp, I have 2 of them in my tank, but remember that eventually they will eat all of their food, the CUC that is, so you may have to feed the tank a little heavier to supply food for them. Tuxido urchins are cool, but they do eat coraline algae, so if you want coraline algae I would not get one. I think adding a goby now to buddy up with the pistol shrimp will be fine, as long as you don't add double the load to quickly you should be fine. You aren't talking about any big fish, aka Tangs and Triggers and such, so your load should be fine.

 

[brandon429]

In no way possible did you harm your cycle. you are test misreading. i vote no free ammonia, ammonia can't remain at a trace amnt daily its not possible. Many common additives like Prime mess up readings. true ammonia events, when bac are compromised, wipe the whole tank within 12 hours. ammonia is an all or nothing phenomena.

We can definitively prove you have no ammonia with a single tank picture, neatest trick. post one, we will look at fish behavior and instantly be more right than your current ammonia tester.

*a dead snail might can cause a spike, but it doesnt hover days at .25 and .5, those are universal api misread numbers. after we finish up here we will link your thread to the microbiology of cycling thread, where we dont use testing and still cycle all tanks. we don't take guesses, we use repeating science to make these calls. You used key terms from the thread we get to test w that pic and prediction set:

-6-7 weeks. we look for 4. Ive never seen an incomplete cycle at 4 weeks not once in reefing. Im aware of the ten thousand posts claiming so, its why we made the thread-address that big issue involving test accuracy and testing adulterants etc. there is no such thing as partially cycled, can't happen. You either have enough surface area and bacteria and the ammonia is zero day to day, or you have a crash. no in between. if a fish dies that indeed can spike ammonia, but it wanes after a while and never hovers at the same reading. Your tank is processing up to 4 or so ppm a day of ammonia, that means any source of input has to be exactly above that level and just barely, while the whole system looks smells and runs normally.

-live rock and live sand, they bring in bac if they show up wet. by rule, wet = bacteria unless you designed wet not to have bacteria like a doctor would or a lab tech. Withholding feed and water changes can never, ever, undo a cycle.

-only testing caused the concern, not animals. Its the sheerest poison they'll encounter in nature, free ammonia, it will burn the gills and they'll dart about fast and let you know, undoubted. no fish casually tolerates free ammonia, dead within 12 hours usually.

-cloudy water, smelly water, requisites if we have true sustained .5 not reported. Ill show you a vid of me draining my 13 year old nano reef down to the sand, corals rocks and all, for 33 mins. No water change can ever undo a cycle. at 4 weeks, actually before, cycles are done.

-people usually end up buying bottle bac as a remedy to these misreads, its a perfect setting for retailers. we want to be able to interrupt that always. we never used bottle bac in our sand rinse therad which is a series of full tank takedowns and then move to new home/reassemble. you did less than that in your water change.

there are like eight more clues lol that's plenty though. lets see em pics
B