Tank cycle question - Dr. Tim's fishless

[Calpoly2103]

Hi All,

I started Dr. Tim's fish less cycle two days ago by adding 120 drops of dr tim's ammonia drops to my new 40 gallon Nuvo 40 IM (actual gallons is 30 after live rock/sand/etc). Afterwards, I added Dr Tim's bacteria bottle. I should also mention my rock has been curing for 6 weeks in a separate tank, which was also seeded with dr tims bacteria in beginning of the cure.

I tested about 8 hours later after ammonia & bacteria on 4/7 and got the following:
SG: 1.025
PH: 8.0
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 3

I just tested again 4/9, two days later and got these parameters:

SG: 1.025
PH: 8.0
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 10
Nitrate: 40

Does this look like its going okay? I'm concerned that Nitrates are so high after adding ammonia just one time. The instructions say to add more every few days if Ammonia is at 0, but i just didn't expect Nitrate to be at 40 so quick. Thanks for any input.

 

[RandyC]

Edit: oops! I read too quickly and noticed that nitrites were actually 10 not 0. Kick me for reading too fast. Your cycle isn't complete. You'll need to wait until nitrites go to 0. I wouldn't worry about the nitrates going up so high for now. Your cycle looks like it's progressing fine. Keep in mind that some people, even with Dr. Tim's can still take up to a month, though I think that's more the outlier than the norm.

--- previous post ---
Yes. Your cycle is complete. I'm guessing you were probably good to go after the 6 week cure.

If you want to test your tank's ability to process ammonia, you can dose ammonia chloride to 2ppm and if it can process that to nitrates within 24 hours, you're good to go with livestock. You may want to do a water change to bring nitrates down a bit though.

 

[Calpoly2103]

Edit: oops! I read too quickly and noticed that nitrites were actually 10 not 0. Kick me for reading too fast. Your cycle isn't complete. You'll need to wait until nitrites go to 0. I wouldn't worry about the nitrates going up so high for now. Your cycle looks like it's progressing fine. Keep in mind that some people, even with Dr. Tim's can still take up to a month, though I think that's more the outlier than the norm.

--- previous post ---
Yes. Your cycle is complete. I'm guessing you were probably good to go after the 6 week cure.

If you want to test your tank's ability to process ammonia, you can dose ammonia chloride to 2ppm and if it can process that to nitrates within 24 hours, you're good to go with livestock. You may want to do a water change to bring nitrates down a bit though.

Thank you for your quick response. I too typed too quickly. My Nitrite is not at 10, it is about 1-2 on 4/9. I mistakenly used the Nitrate card as the color guide. Whoops.

I guess I'm just surprised that Nitrate jumped to 40 after just ONE dose of ammonia to 2ppm. The instructions (http://www.drtimsaquatics.com/resources/fishless-cycling) say to dose ammonia at least 3-4 more times over the entire cycle. At this rate, my Nitrate would be around 150+. Even looking at this graph below, nitrite got to 35 at the end of the cycle and mines already at 40.

 

[RandyC]

Thank you for your quick response. I too typed too quickly. My Nitrite is not at 10, it is about 1-2 on 4/9. I mistakenly used the Nitrate card as the color guide. Whoops.

I guess I'm just surprised that Nitrate jumped to 40 after just ONE dose of ammonia to 2ppm. The instructions (http://www.drtimsaquatics.com/resources/fishless-cycling) say to dose ammonia at least 3-4 more times over the entire cycle. At this rate, my Nitrate would be around 150+. Even looking at this graph below, nitrite got to 35 at the end of the cycle and mines already at 40.

Did you start with 0 Nitrates when you brought the rock into the tank? Or did you use some of that rock curing water? Also, there could have possibly been some dead organics on the rock that hadn’t finished decaying yet.

 

[Calpoly2103]

I made several water changes during curing process and my nitrate nitrite ammonia were all at 0 when rock finished curing. I tested parameters before dosing ammonia and it was 0.

I made 30 gallons of fresh salt water and put the rocks in first then sand then new water. Perhaps there was a tiny amount of old water that snuck in through the rocks, but not much.

 

[Zoajohn]

Dr. Tim’s is good stuff. I cycled my nano tank in two weeks with it.

 

[Calpoly2103]

Dr. Tim’s is good stuff. I cycled my nano tank in two weeks with

Just curious, after dosing ammonia, what were your Nitrates at during the 2 weeks of your cycle? Thanks

 

[Zoajohn]

I want to say between 20-40, can’t really remember.

 

[Calpoly2103]

Hey All,

Thanks again for your help last time. I do have another question. I'm now on day 20 of my cycle and it seems to be progressing well. I decided to measure my Big 3 yesterday, just to compare what I had when i started. My Calcium remained unchanged at 480, magnesium remained unchanged at 1470, however after 20 days of cycling, my ALK dropped from 12 to 8 ! There is nothing in my tank except for rock (which cured for 1.5 months before i started this cycle) and some live sand. I have a return pump and mp10's running at medium speeds.

What would cause ALK to drop over the last 20 days? There is nothing in the tank using it as its still cycling. I use Red Sea Coral Pro Salt.

Currently 2ppm of Nitrite is transformed into nitrate within about 2 days, so my cycle seems to be going ok. PH is at 7.8 (It dropped from 8.1 to 7.8 after I dosed ammonia)

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Nitrifying bacteria use carbonate from the water column when converting ammonia to nitrate. In theory you "get this back" if you have anaerobic bacteria in the rock that transform nitrate to nitrogen gas, but that's relatively unusual in a new tank. Another sink for alkalinity is simply abiotic precipitation of calcium carbonate - this is expected to occur in most seawater systems, particularly if you're starting with a relatively high alkalinity. One might reasonably ask whether that's possible if the calcium didn't go down, but the reality is that hobbyist test kits for calcium have a good deal of uncertainty in the result, and it takes a good deal of alkalinity change to drop the calcium by a small fraction.

 

[Calpoly2103]

That makes sense. So, nothing to be alarmed about, and I will let my cycle carry on.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thank you for your quick response. I too typed too quickly. My Nitrite is not at 10, it is about 1-2 on 4/9. I mistakenly used the Nitrate card as the color guide. Whoops.

I guess I'm just surprised that Nitrate jumped to 40 after just ONE dose of ammonia to 2ppm. The instructions (http://www.drtimsaquatics.com/resources/fishless-cycling) say to dose ammonia at least 3-4 more times over the entire cycle. At this rate, my Nitrate would be around 150+. Even looking at this graph below, nitrite got to 35 at the end of the cycle and mines already at 40.

The nitrate value is likely caused by interference from the nitrite. With some kits, 0.5 ppm nitrite will falsely read as 50 ppm nitrate with a nitrate kit.