Should I water change during a mini cycle

[cnjcpb]

So, I moved some of my rock around after the tank had already cycled. I noticed my water got slightly milky so I tested. I just did a 20% water change and removed a small sponge that I used for mechanical filtration. I also vacuumed sand during water change. Would this cause a mini cycle? Should I do a 50% water change or let the tank do its thing? I want my phosphates to lower. I have chemipure elite and carbon in media basket.

ammonia - .20
Nitrite - 0-.20
Nitrate - 14
Alk 136
PH 7.8
Phos .3
Salinity - 1.024
Temp 79

 

[lapin]

Change the water. Dilution is the solution

 

[Dburr1014]

Let the tank do is thing.
Drop in the Chemipure.
Water changes will not do anything for po4.

 

[lapin]

If you have water with a certain percentage of “something “and you replace an amount of that water with water with none of “something “ it will dilute the “something “ . It’s real science.

 

[Dburr1014]

Unless that something is bound to the rocks in equalibrium with the water. So you change the water and that something unbinds back in the new water and your back to square one. Small amount lost. Maybe after a thousand water changes it would be helpful.
Real science!

 

[brandon429]

why was the reading of .2 here, which is every reading in API's existence (that never harmed any tank) being accepted as a critical event

this was not a mini cycle. moving things about in a tank releases organics which trip up cheap nh4 kits.

ammonia is not creeping in your top layer of sand to be released and not fixable for days on end. ammonia comes from animals by rule, or extremely rare accumulations of rotting food or animals we don't usually allow in reefing. there aren't other causes in a normally running tank.

did this tank have years of uneaten fish pellets lined in the sandbed? were dead animals left in the tank to rot and release ammonia? no

some rocks were moved.

the theme of false ammonia alert patterns across the internet for 20 years:
-post title is about a test reading for nh4, not nh3 which reefs use. if you convert .2 above which is for freshwater, into nh3 for reefing, does it look toxic? the test kit instructions show the gradient for you to make those estimates.

-never any actual losses in the tank. all these false ammonia concerns are purely cheap test kit matters.

99% of all false cycle help threads meet this repeating criteria.

 

[Garf]

post title is about a test reading for nh4, not nh3 which reefs use. if you convert .2 above which is for freshwater, into nh3 for reefing

What? Lol.

does it look toxic?

No, but you've posted that 0.05ppm NH4 was lethal previously, I've got a link I can post before you edit it if required.

 

[Garf]

Too late;

Ammonia Pegged at 8.0 After 50% Water Change, Nitrate 10ppm, What's is happening!

I personally wouldn’t lower the salt anymore. I’d actually raise it if anything. Remember, we are trying to limit future die off to prevent any more ammonia spiking. Question, did you add the bottle of bacteria yet? No on top of everything else my amazon/UPS order got delayed a day. If I can...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[BeanAnimal]

Unless that something is bound to the rocks in equalibrium with the water. So you change the water and that something unbinds back in the new water and your back to square one. Small amount lost. Maybe after a thousand water changes it would be helpful.
Real science!

Of course - how much rock and how much water is changed will dictate what percentage of the overall phosphate is exported. Only so much can be "bound". It may be more or less efficient, depending on the case. Real science

 

[BeanAnimal]

ammonia is not creeping in your top layer of sand to be released and not fixable for days on end.

Nobody said it was. This is rhetoric that serves no purpose.

the theme of false ammonia alert patterns across the internet for 20 years:

This is made up terminology and a made up statistic to match. It is more rhetoric. Please don't link to threads where the same argument plays out as proof.

99% of all false cycle help threads meet this repeating criteria.

Making up statistics only serves to confuse the issue.


"cycle"
Any time bacterial balance in an aquarium is upset, it will take time for that balance to return. The larger the imbalance, the longer equilibrium will take. The "cycle" is NEVER done and is simply the act of the different dependent bacterial colonies expanding and contracting to their respective food supplies.

There is no need to continually try to complicate this or redefine the terminology and the "science" has not changed.

is the reading in this thread valid? It may or may not be but all of the nonsense in between does nothing to answer that question with certainty.

 

[Lasse]

IMO - there is no panic readings even if they was ± 100% off, As mentioned before - WC is normally not the best way to lower the PO4 because you will get a new equilibrium rather fast. If you want to lower that - some methods to absorb PO4 (Like GFO) is the best way beside refugium or algae scrubbers.

0.2 in NH3/NH4 is of no concern - with your other parameters it will give around 0.006 in NH3 (the toxic form) Calculation done with help of this calculator

Sincerely Lasse

 

[brandon429]

I wish I would have asked to see the exact pic from the test kit, so we could have seen it's color rendition against that calculation above. I bet it would have indicated several times worse/we needed that original pic color ideally to make this thread really handy in cycle troubleshoots.

 

[Garf]

Nitrite - 0-.20

The presence of nitrite would appear to confirm ammonia conversion although if that is from the moving rocks around and messing with the sand, or from the initial cycle, that's unclear. Perhaps @cnjcpb could clarify.