Tank Not Cycled?

Lame Dog · Jan 20, 2023

G'day from Sydney Australia!

I'm very confused with what is going on with our new tank!

My son and I had a 40g tank that housed, a mandarin, 2 clowns, a carinal and some leather corals running for over 2 years, if I'm honest we didn't keep it too stable and maintenance was irregular but it had lots of red/green algae - part of the issue was it was quite high and hard to access (needed small steps to reach in)

In November we decided to invest in a custom set up that we could build from scratch and make everything as easy as possible to maintain , so we have a new 100g 6ft tank with sump.
We set it up with new dry rock and sand , the rock from the old tank we broke up and placed in the sump along with the old bioballs media ( The rock with leathers and mushrooms went in the tank) , we also added some macro algae in the sump which is slowly growing, we upgraded the skimmer and invested in 4 rea sea led90 lights and new return pump , Clarisea reefmat , Red Sea Wavemaker and ATO

When we moved all the rock we also moved the fish, after a week all looked good 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate and everything looked very happy, after this we added a purple tang and banana wrasse. We had a diatoms bloom that lasted a few days and introduced some snails to help with this. We went away for a week and had someone look after the tank, during this period both clowns died and were removed - not sure what happened to them ( I had placed them in the sump for a couple of days as they were very aggressive to the new arrivals, but had put them back in the DT) . On return from holidays the ammonia tested at 0.2ppm, nitrite 0 and nitrate 0 on a red sea test kit, ph 8.2, SG 1025 and temp 24c. Everything else looked happy.

I was concerned by what happened to the clowns and that we had ammonia (but thought possibly the small spike could be due to the clowns) and also concerned by the the lack of nitrate at this point. LFS thought probably the same and recommended dosing with continuum bacter gen M to add bacteria just in case. Ammonia went to 0 a day later and was 0 for 2 days , but still no nitrate or nitrite. 2 days later ( A total of 3 weeks after fish introduced) the ammonia is back to 0.2ppm, nitrite and nitrate 0 and the purple tang who seemed very happy looks like he has white spot. The fish have been fed best part of a cube every day

I'm now going to set up a qt tank to treat the tang, but no idea what is going on with the tank, surely the old rock/media meant we wouldn't have a cycle, but why do I have a small reading of ammonia( RO tests 0 ammonia) and no nitrates! I read a lots of articles on here but still confused as to what could be going on and also not sure if I dont have a cycled tank what I can use in the QT to have this running ok to support the tang

Any help/thoughts greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Nigel

MACHO · Jan 21, 2023

Lame Dog said:
G'day from Sydney Australia!

I'm very confused with what is going on with our new tank!

My son and I had a 40g tank that housed, a mandarin, 2 clowns, a carinal and some leather corals running for over 2 years, if I'm honest we didn't keep it too stable and maintenance was irregular but it had lots of red/green algae - part of the issue was it was quite high and hard to access (needed small steps to reach in)

In November we decided to invest in a custom set up that we could build from scratch and make everything as easy as possible to maintain , so we have a new 100g 6ft tank with sump.
We set it up with new dry rock and sand , the rock from the old tank we broke up and placed in the sump along with the old bioballs media ( The rock with leathers and mushrooms went in the tank) , we also added some macro algae in the sump which is slowly growing, we upgraded the skimmer and invested in 4 rea sea led90 lights and new return pump , Clarisea reefmat , Red Sea Wavemaker and ATO

When we moved all the rock we also moved the fish, after a week all looked good 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate and everything looked very happy, after this we added a purple tang and banana wrasse. We had a diatoms bloom that lasted a few days and introduced some snails to help with this. We went away for a week and had someone look after the tank, during this period both clowns died and were removed - not sure what happened to them ( I had placed them in the sump for a couple of days as they were very aggressive to the new arrivals, but had put them back in the DT) . On return from holidays the ammonia tested at 0.2ppm, nitrite 0 and nitrate 0 on a red sea test kit, ph 8.2, SG 1025 and temp 24c. Everything else looked happy.

I was concerned by what happened to the clowns and that we had ammonia (but thought possibly the small spike could be due to the clowns) and also concerned by the the lack of nitrate at this point. LFS thought probably the same and recommended dosing with continuum bacter gen M to add bacteria just in case. Ammonia went to 0 a day later and was 0 for 2 days , but still no nitrate or nitrite. 2 days later ( A total of 3 weeks after fish introduced) the ammonia is back to 0.2ppm, nitrite and nitrate 0 and the purple tang who seemed very happy looks like he has white spot. The fish have been fed best part of a cube every day

I'm now going to set up a qt tank to treat the tang, but no idea what is going on with the tank, surely the old rock/media meant we wouldn't have a cycle, but why do I have a small reading of ammonia( RO tests 0 ammonia) and no nitrates! I read a lots of articles on here but still confused as to what could be going on and also not sure if I dont have a cycled tank what I can use in the QT to have this running ok to support the tang

Any help/thoughts greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Nigel

I wouldn's be adding any unknown chemicals right now. Rn it sounds like your having a mini cycle. This is probably due to the water volume and the addition of new fish. also we can think of it like mixing salt if you pour freshwater into salt it gets dispersed same thing with bacteria. You have the established bacteria from your previous tank. However that bacteria has not established on the new rockwork and sand yet. From what it sounds this was only a day process or so? no turbo start or anything of the sort? i would recommend using microbacter 7 or turbo start won's hurt just to get the bioculture up and established quickly. if you start seeing nitrite going up 100% a mini cycle is the cause however you could be correct in the assumption that those dead clowns could be a small factor. But there's no way to know since im assuming the water was not tested before introduction of the clowns and other fish.

Jilly92 · Jan 21, 2023

When did you do waterchange after the move?

RocketEngineer · Jan 22, 2023

I question the ammonia reading. That seems like it’s within the margin of error of most hobby test kits. Being that you reused the old rock in the new system, it doesn’t hold up that you suddenly have ammonia issues.

Also, clowns have a higher tolerance to ammonia vs more delicate species which is one reason they typically get introduced first. The bigger issue to me is the outbreak of Ich. That seems the more likely cause of loosing the two clowns as the added stress of the moves plus the parasites may have been too much at once.

If this were my system, I would start by QT the fish, get them healthy and the main system parasite free, then move forward again.

brandon429 · Jan 22, 2023

That is 100% correct Engineer, disease preps. This reading .2, .5, etc is what we expect in stocked reefs, the zero reading is the outlier

old cycling science causes this concern, this sale of new bacteria claimed needed. The LFS isn’t at fault, they do the best they can but you just can’t get updated cycling science from a pet store it has to come from internet nerds.

this thread shows the wide scale panic caused by slight ammonia readings, which we now expect to see vs react to seeing:

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

post a pic of this tank in question, it’ll show a cycled reef. There are no stuck or incomplete cycles in reefing, there are only non digital test kit problems, but not actual biological problems in reef tank cycling.

Lame Dog · Jan 22, 2023

Thanks everyone for your responses - very much appreciated.

The PT has what I would call very slight white discoloration patches, and not fully blown ich/white spots at the moment, other than this his gills are very white but he is eating and behaving fine as are all the other fish. I'm setting up a Qt and hope to have this up running soon to be on the safe side

I think I was as concerned by the 0 nitrates as the 0.2 ammonia. As I was expecting if the tank to running ok nitrates should be produced by now but they still read 0, the macro alge has grown, could this be consuming all the nitrates?

I'll send through some photos of the Tang ( If I can get good ones) and the tank tonight for your opinions if that's ok, please let me know anything you think could be improved!

Thanks again