Should i turn off skimmer when adding live rock to seed?

[brandon429]

no, based on stats in the fish disease forum. you'd have to fallow the tank and run qt on the currents to get today's best possibilities for helping them.


there are probably 5 or more top ways to help them, I figure whatever is worth being a sticky here has some merit:

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Makubex]

Will it go away tomorrow or tonight when ammonia hits 0.1 or 0.0? And nitrites 0-0.2? I remember in freshwater fish, ich would go away with just clean water and happy fish

 

[brandon429]

I wouldn't agree those are the current levels though, that's just what the test kit reads. if this was seneye, we'd know something about ammonia. they are not able to prevent fish disease in marine systems via clean systems for sure, that's why all the various treatment modes exist. only fallow and qt will keep those fish alive until april

not being gloomy Im a stats guy/snapshotter

skipping fallow and qt will kill 70% or higher of new-start fish tanks within six mos is the pattern.

they act fine and feed from hand because those are not your levels above. your disease is shown in each post in that forum, people always get what yours get after a cycle.

but not all the ones that do fallow and qt, they lose far less, they've got the winning combo in 2020 the posts and stickies show.

Some tank's like Pauls don't require fallow and qt.

I guess if we add fish to a fifty year old reef the rules change.

yours was only recently ready

not any of the three tests you are running above can help, they're approximations only and far from the accurate level. check any API nitrate vs red sea, or salifert comparison thread, fifty ppm difference between brands.

The tests you are using are wrong.

 

[brandon429]

this is one prime reason I don't keep marine fish, I just like coral production systems they're so much simpler.

per the online ratios, a couple of clownfish can likely skip fallow and qt and do fine statistically

but who stays with a couple common clowns...we stock diversely, and we add hardscapes that never passed through fallow...we bring in disease every time. and new tanks are all about additions...constant, for years. vectoring in disease over and over.

marine disease care is nothing like freshwater for sure.


fallow and qt works for the type of tank you have, uv helps with algae.

when you read about UV curing ich, the work threads will soon cease in the forum if UV alone is the trick, we've been using it forty years in the hobby yet ich still persists...

 

[Makubex]

just did a testing after 12 hours the nitrites look better but still high, ammonia however looks like as if it increased-could it be because i left the led full spectrum lights on? Uhh... its sitting at .23

 

[daybreaksky]

"the #1 thing that does not ever, ever happen in reefing is consequence-free ammonia noncontrol, which is the basis of this thread as we never doubted the readings not once in spite of logged online searches regarding api."

@brandon429 good input. the reason the test result wasn't doubted is the fact that besides the ammonia reading there was consequential high Nitrite reading and a confirmation from lfs. I agree a test may be wrong but 3 tests? seems pretty unlikely.
My initial concern was some sort of antibacterial contamination but at this point I'm not sure
@Makubex can you run both tests on clean RO water that you got from LFS to topoff the tank to see if there is a false positive?

 

[brandon429]

I expect blank water to show none, these tests over report the actual ammonia conversion in living systems.


the fish being alive is the final say. the water clarity, the feeding day by day. The only counter test that will work will be seneye, not red sea...we have a thousand Red Sea ammonia tests online showing false positive ammonia just the same. No matter how long the hunt continues this tank will run normally and non seneye tests will cause alarm. If testing is stopped, alarm stops

i recommend this: the upcoming week simply stop testing and resume on Friday. Let’s see how it goes for one week with the alarm turned off, focus on fish disease option choices. If during the week the water clouds up and both fish stop feeding and hover at the top needing air, we will have a confirmation beyond just the expected api readings.

these readings posted above, all three params positive, are the most common api arrangement and its what most google search returns show to be the case in stuck cycle threads, but no reef cycle stalls. There isn’t a mid ground, ammonia is either fully controlled or fully not controlled and it crashes. The massive amount of surface area shown will never allow partial ammonia control. Nitrite has no bearing in reefing, doesn’t even factor here other than to alter the accuracy of the nitrate reading.


here is a work thread to prove using new rules that nitrite has no bearing in reefing (work threads are our version of peer reviews because these tanks will die soon if the science is bad)

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

Updated Cycling Science in Action This is a testless reef tank cycling thread, the only one from any board. If you ever had trouble with reef tank cycling in the past, you won't any longer after working some jobs with us. chances are you are using/about to use a method of reef tank cycling...

www.reef2reef.com

am aware Dr Tim says online that cycles stall. I debate that with a massive log of proof threads avail, this thread is becoming another one slowly as the days go by with living animals in the suspect system. When *only* a test kit says something is stalled but the tank doesn’t look like kidney failure, the test is wrong, even the rare times it’s seneye.


for the OP here, his aquarium shows nothing in line with the test kits. There is no consequence free nh3 noncontrol, his whole system would be dead in 48 hours because the ammonia would compound from daily waste and feed inputs.

 

[brandon429]

A thread tracking the incidence of seneye nh3 misreads

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/using-seneye-reef-readings-to-cycle-tank.773299/ there are two more, I want to log these in one thread so we can begin patterning. I’ll go find the others in no way does that reef above have tenths ppm nh3 but thats not been proven, yet.

www.reef2reef.com

a seneye said he had .4 ppm nh3 but we knew that reading was wrong same way we know here. Even seneye can be wrong, just not so often that a million search returns on google show it as totally unreliable

our hobby simply has no practice on when to call test kits wrong, we believe them no matter what, this is the buyers mentality.

cycling training from forums will send us to the store for more purchases. We need to cycle as MACNA entrants do in order to be timely, in control, and saving cash

 

[brandon429]

I went back to re read this wasn’t shipped kpi live rock, it’s from a cured tank and had worms on it already, I’m 100% sure this was a skip cycle setup and common api false alarm. There is no mechanism that causes live rock to die when moving it tank to tank thats how all macna conventions are ran. This thread is going into multiple tracking threads so we can compare it to others logged. For four pages the cycle was doubted but nothing is wrong here


without fish already doing well nobody would believe your rock didn’t fully die. Our reliance on api is inextricable as forum posters, we will believe the tests no matter what.

new rules for cycling are coming down the pipe though

 

[Makubex]

I havent used rodi water yet bc i need to know if i can do a 10% water change now

 

[brandon429]

yes and its a great idea to change more than that if possible just to freshen up from the various additions. The bottle bac added compete for oxygen and weren’t needed but also typically unharmful... we deal in oxygen excesses in nearly every reef tank (another reason why the fish don’t hover near death every morning, we know about your ammonia + oxygen stasis each morning by your fish activity)


fresh salt water change, say 25% if possible, tidy up around the tank all perfect. If you have UV I would use it now.


Aquabiomics on page one post #18 called it right.

 

[Makubex]

Why should i ise my uv now?

 

[Makubex]

Oh and hooray my ammonia is near .1 and nitrites are .25(close to .2 THE SAFE LEVELS) i added a gsps and i could swear it grew 1/6 of a cm already! Thank u so much daysbreak!!

 

[Makubex]

Alright alright nitrites are 0(or less than .2) ammonia however is .15 i recommend bio spira to anyone!

 

[Makubex]

Can i turn on the skimmer now? And the uv sterilizer? Can i do anything i want with the tank now? Like adding more cured live rock and a little bit of dry coral? Bleached then dried dry rock? 3 springer damsels? All on this thursday? I also wanna add these 4 mushrooms and a softie, also BIG QUESTION can i just do water changes when my nitrates read high instead of every week?, I know ammonia turns intro nitrites and then nitrate BUT nothing gets rid of nitrates therefore a water change is required... nitrAtes are less than 5 rn btw

 

[Jib]

Can i turn on the skimmer now? And the uv sterilizer? Can i do anything i want with the tank now? Like adding more cured live rock and a little bit of dry coral? Bleached then dried dry rock? 3 springer damsels? All on this thursday? I also wanna add these 4 mushrooms and a softie, also BIG QUESTION can i just do water changes when my nitrates read high instead of every week?, I know ammonia turns intro nitrites and then nitrate BUT nothing gets rid of nitrates therefore a water change is required... nitrAtes are less than 5 rn btw

Given all of your recent troubles, I would refrain from adding any livestock for a few weeks. Give the tank a chance to establish. I'd also recommend watching Bulk Reef Supplies 52 weeks of reefing series on YouTube while your waiting.

 

[iamacat]

Can i turn on the skimmer now? And the uv sterilizer? Can i do anything i want with the tank now? Like adding more cured live rock and a little bit of dry coral? Bleached then dried dry rock? 3 springer damsels? All on this thursday? I also wanna add these 4 mushrooms and a softie, also BIG QUESTION can i just do water changes when my nitrates read high instead of every week?, I know ammonia turns intro nitrites and then nitrate BUT nothing gets rid of nitrates therefore a water change is required... nitrAtes are less than 5 rn btw

You should stop and take the time to learn what you are doing.

There is clearly no plan in place here. There isn’t a system being followed. There have already been many issues that are not even close to resolved. Take the time as the previous poster stated and educate yourself before leaping into a situation. You have spent more time correcting your mistakes than you have spent developing a healthy reef.