Updated Cycling Science thread 2020

[MnFish1]

Many nitrosomonas are motile and free swimming - most hang out on the rocks.... Nitrobacter are non-motile. I do know know about some of the 'newer' candidates for nitrogen cycling (archaea etc). In any case - I have not understood for 10 years the idea that you need to spend weeks with an empty tank testing minute by minute for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate - when its quite simply happening either on its own - or with bacteria added - with a fish (according to instructions) - not the old fish- cycling method. I mean no disrespect to those that do it 'the long way' - but it seems to me that most of that thinking is that 'nothing good happens quickly in this hobby' - which 'sounds good' - but for an experienced person - (as compared to a beginner) - that knows what to put in the tank 'when' - there is no reason to go through a (I mean I have seen up to 6 months) long cycle.

 

[brandon429]

you were the first to intro me to the idea about multi strains handling oxidation, I knew of the bottle bac strains/ 'bacter and nitrosomonas but the idea of heterotrophs still accessing ammonia for energy substrate was shocking and I hope they'll be the eventual source of work for the unassisted marine cycle test (finding out how long a stack of dry rocks will self-cycle totally unassisted, saltwater only and a controlled open top bucket)

if myriad strains from our surrounding environ are helping us out somehow, contaminating into place, forming a food web-then maybe they're able to convert from terrestrial seeding locations into saltwater-able and get our job done. it sure works for freshwater, but as of 2020 I wanted to list the Unassisted marine cycle as currently undefined.


Nobody can tell us if it works or not, or how fast, or how consistently if materials for reefing can self-cycle if left exposed to common home contaminants in the air and water prep stage.

most people are under the impression if you don't dose bottle bac and provide feed, bacteria cannot find a way.

what will 2021 and a bunch of seneyes bring?

 

[brandon429]

it was on the six canister filter thread lol where we talked about multi strain ability what a fun slaughterfest that was
it was wwe cycle wrestling with broken glass and 25 foot drops everyone leaves in a stretcher. cycling procedure evolution.

 

[aurora.k]

Thansk @brandon429 In other words... 2. If you have Tank A - with cycled rock, fish, inverts - you can safely move them to tank B - without going through a 6 month cycling process - in fact you can do it immediately. (keeping params - temp, alkalinity, etc stable as possible)

On 2., can I move all my coral as well? Acros and everything? Even if I add new dry rock and sand? I think yes based on this thread (and have been reading many threads and plan on adding bac as a good measure), but am nervous as heck about this!

 

[brandon429]

If the new dry rock and sand is cycled you can move them but ammonia control won’t be the risk. Bleaching due to too much light, lack of food web and param changes to alk etc are the risk. Here is a work thread showing that job being done start to finish

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/connecting-established-reef-to-new-tank.684759/

 

[Timfish]

I like the aquabiomics tests - one problem - I sent multiple samples from multiple areas in the tank - with some pretty 'varied' results. Additionally - my diversity was one of the lowest they had seen in one area - and one of the highest in another. So - its very difficult to tell...

@MnFish1, do you have your results and a description of the locations where they were taken in your reef posted anywhere? Thank you!

 

[MnFish1]

@MnFish1, do you have your results and a description of the locations where they were taken in your reef posted anywhere? Thank you!

I will try to get them

 

[brandon429]

this bump is specifically for any post out there taking more than a day to determine if you are cycled.

if you are on page 4, days/weeks awaiting completion, we wrote the new rules just for you. MACNA would have already been started last month using the rules were it not for the covid

 

[brandon429]

Edited, my example thread went sideways. Will find a drama free job and link back

 

[Paul B]

Brandon, very nice. But do you have Carpal Tunnel syndrome yet from all that writing?

 

[brandon429]

does waking up numb from the wrists down each morning count as that

 

[brandon429]

Lets do an inter forum cycle analysis


any reader: find from any board on the Internet a tank that meets the submersion times on a cycle chart for ammonia control but appears to be stalled. Link our thread to them, and link them to us.

From across the pond we will make a referee call regarding a legit start date for the system in question, then we will track out the post cycle process for accountability in the call.

*not looking for a rock curing thread, shipped ocean rocks with animals dying

talking about reverse direction: making a call on when adding bacteria to formerly inert surfaces is done. When can a new tank owner begin? Find a stalled cycle thread in the post verse let’s see it

 

[Dystopium]

Lets do an inter forum cycle analysis


any reader: find from any board on the Internet a tank that meets the submersion times on a cycle chart for ammonia control but appears to be stalled. Link our thread to them, and link them to us.

From across the pond we will make a referee call regarding a legit start date for the system in question, then we will track out the post cycle process for accountability in the call.

*not looking for a rock curing thread, shipped ocean rocks with animals dying

talking about reverse direction: making a call on when adding bacteria to formerly inert surfaces is done. When can a new tank owner begin? Find a stalled cycle thread in the post verse let’s see it

I am beginning a new 100G mixed reef tank should be in sometime in January. Going to be leveraging Macro Rock. It's been 15 years since my last reef tank based on live fiji rock. I have been keeping up with this thread and it just makes sense. Hope my contribution can help.

 

[brandon429]

Thank you for posting! Even though we discuss the quick starts, the non stalls of cycles, a nice big system like that coming up would benefit from the BRS four month cycle approach. distills down to: set up tank rocks water, sand, add X brand bottle bac. A squirt of ammonia, nothing exact required, two pinches or flake feed.

wait four months not for ammonia control, thats in five days or so but for the rocks to cure out without lighting on them, building bio layers just sitting there stewing for the wait.

then at 120 days you have some maturation, along with easy can’t fail cycle, and you’ll have less tank uglies.


so as you can see we are practiced at making start dates...we can speed cycle anyone’s setup to make a legit date. But if I myself had a huge tank coming, it’d be this 120 day setup. I hate dinos, and this arrangement is the least likely to grow em

 

[ReefRy]

dang dude...I actually read almost all of that. Thanks and I'm really glad you got that off your chest.

 

[ReefRy]

dang dude...I actually read almost all of that. Thanks and I'm really glad you got that off your chest.

Never in my life have I used the word 'dang'. Ain't censorship a .....

 

[brandon429]

Hopefully it can all be traced back to stronger reef tank control and less loss. predictability in what reefs do vs responsiveness is the coming way, sharper control, higher retention rates and hopefully ich cures from a bottle that actually work/ fish disease new headache






reducing reliance on retail products for tank support is maximizing efficiency


knowing the fastest you can safely start a reef tank coupled with knowing when to prudently start one makes you a strong reefer, from the start. proaction vs reaction

being able to control when a reef will cycle or not specifically gives us relocation ability, invasion preventions via deep rip clean ability, the breaking of former rules I hope to show is a benefit not just anarchical challenge. Since I’ve never seen the claims written in cycling thread, we better review here if they’re true or not, thanks for the contribution.

 

[brandon429]

Tokash23 hi friend I saw u reading. What we did with your reef in private message is directly, uniquely 100% new cycling rules.

in any prior decade if you had asked someone if taking apart your entire system and blasting it clean would fix dinos in one pass, they'd say no while laughing heartily.

but that did indeed occur

there are direct measurable savings involved with cycle control. because bacteria adhered to live rocks are plenty, even if we strip out the sand and water bac, we were able to rip clean your tank into compliance. instead of a four month wait, ten new test kits, five new dosers, and much more worse before better.

in your rip clean we made direct use of the rule of surface area from post #1. removing surrounding bacteria, and their associates (dinos) did not leave bacteria on rocks in deficit whatsoever. That rule is why we didn't recycle your whole tank into a dead mess.

p.s
we sort of got lucky with the dinos lol many cases will not be a one-pass fix, but they're all skip cycle attempts.

 

[brandon429]

Test:

Day 8 of 32 gallon cycle. New creatures!

Evening. Day 8 of cycling my 32 gal Fluval Flex. very excited about some emerging life. No fish/cleanup crew yet but STUFF IS HAPPENING Looks like 1) mushroom 2) bristleworm 3) no idea 4) no idea 5) (Setup) Any guesses on the last two? Thx

www.reef2reef.com

Try and find one single cycling article ever written that covers this tank above. How they should cycle if at all


everyone reading can locate information on how to cycle a reef tank.


try and find and post here any cycling article or book entry or web page specifically dealing with cycling live rock transfers. Not mailed rock, live rock moved from tank to tank.


if that method comprises about 25% of all today’s new reef tanks, and it comprises 99.69% of all macna cycles, why is there no material for it


what our hobby does is apply the rule they’re given to all rocks. For that tank above, most poll responders would agree there to be a brief cycle, and adding ammonia and bottle bac would assist.

-but there was no cycle, and we would add no form of bacterial support that indicates we are in doubt of wet surfaces to retain adhered bacteria-


see how every option forum cyclers have been given leads to doubting bacteria and buying something?

___________________________________________________

using updated cycling science the tank is ready, it was a skip cycle, there was zero wait required. This is the only form of cycling I’ve ever done in reefing.

The rocks didn’t show up with sterile spaces accepting new bacteria because it was moved. The rock had all its original bacteria in place after moving, and took on no new bacteria. there was no dieoff, see the living benthic creatures? that tank has been full on reefing for nine days, but there’s no literature to discuss it accurately or have a context on how dry rocks are cycled differently than live rocks and how curing down mailed rocks for actual dieoff is different than live vs dry


what we do with adding ammonia, bottle bac, and wait times is determined by the type and ratio of rocks we select. We need to match the cycle to the type of rocks we’ve paid for.

The current rules for cycling we can find to read are for dry rock cycling only, they literally have no use for the other two. That group has been winging it, off paper

 

[kecked]

while I’ll confess I did read in detail this very long thread, I did not see the following. When I started with dry rock my issue had nothing to do with ammonia or nitrite or nitrate but with phosphate. Despite acid leeching and lanthinium and bleach, it took me a full month to drop phosphate below 2ppm! Once it dropped finally I dumped in a bottle of cycle and dosed some ammonia. That took all of a week to clear and I added in fish. I only monitored ammonia and nitrate to see if the bacteria were awake. I always do a 50% water change after the start up. Works for me. Likely a cheato ball would have handled the phosphate for me. Tanks been up ten years now.