Using waste water to cycle new tank?

[Tristan]

Im setting up a new reef tank and I was wondering if I could use waste water from an established tank as cycling water for the new tank?

Would this work or would the ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates in the waste water compromise the test results?

 

[brandon429]

Cycling always comes down to your tank oxidizing a few ppm ammonia to zero within 24 hours to signal completion. Using new or old tank water won't alter that, and if you are using all cured live rock it doesn't need to cycle so it really depends on the rock you are using not the water. If it's cured rock, ready to go if you'll transport it home underwater, and if it's dry white rock you keep it at 2 ppm ammonia and add bottle bac until it goes to zero. Ammonia is the only param you have to track during any cycle, not the others.

 

[Tristan]

Cycling always comes down to your tank oxidizing a few ppm ammonia to zero within 24 hours to signal completion. Using new or old tank water won't alter that, and if you are using all cured live rock it doesn't need to cycle so it really depends on the rock you are using not the water. If it's cured rock, ready to go if you'll transport it home underwater, and if it's dry white rock you keep it at 2 ppm ammonia and add bottle bac until it goes to zero. Ammonia is the only param you have to track during any cycle, not the others.

Wouldn't I also need to check to see that once the ammonia is processed that the nitrite is also processed?

 

[brandon429]

No it's no longer needed to be tested for at any time this is only a couple pages but it will cover any cycle we do:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/n...d-cocktail-shrimp-live-rock-no-shrimp.214618/

The reasoning is this- nitrate we know will be produced when the ammonia goes to zero even if dilutions or test errors show no nitrate, it got produced so we don't have to check. Nitrite is non toxic, prone to testing or read errors with API gear and various additives we use like prime gives false positives .... so focusing only on ammonia using a non API test kit hones cycling practices down to something repeatable for every tank. Judging cycles off the three makes for headaches especially with cheap test kits.

 

[Humblefish]

You only need two things to cycle a SW tank: Nitrifying bacteria, and an ammonia source to "feed" and help propagate that bacteria. The waste water from an established tank shouldn't have any ammonia in it and not enough bacteria in the water to worry about. I would dose some pure ammonia to kick things off, and then dose one of those "bacteria in a bottle" products (ex. Seachem Stability) to give the bacteria levels a boost. This is assuming you are starting with all dry rock & sand.

 

[Tristan]

No it's no longer needed to be tested for at any time this is only a couple pages but it will cover any cycle we do:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/n...d-cocktail-shrimp-live-rock-no-shrimp.214618/

The reasoning is this- nitrate we know will be produced when the ammonia goes to zero even if dilutions or test errors show no nitrate, it got produced so we don't have to check. Nitrite is non toxic, prone to testing or read errors with API gear and various additives we use like prime gives false positives .... so focusing only on ammonia using a non API test kit hones cycling practices down to something repeatable for every tank. Judging cycles off the three makes for headaches especially with cheap test kits.

Got it. Before I would monitor ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates.

So could I use those seachem ammonia alert things to monitor my ammonia during the cycle?

 

[Vu337]

I used waste water to cycle my tank

 

[brandon429]

Those alert badges go along with the part of the thread where we have to choose between accuracy or inaccuracy of low level ammonia. The only tests I know that are accurate at low levels are salifert and they cost $$ but are accurate.

It's a guess as to whether the cheaper ones will work but in any case if 2 or 3 ppm are being reduced clearly over and over that's probably well enough to consider. Whether the tank is new or used water you still need to see some free ammonia turning to zero a few times then good to go

It's also very true that old tank water has some nitrifiers in it (complexed as floc and with other aerobic bacteria too) although not as many as the surfaces.

If you sat group a rocks in a vat of old tank water, added nothing, and came back in five mos they would self cycle to a degree naturally, and even a bit slower if you added them to all new saltwater and did nothing ( bacteria and ammonia always get into open systems, see the fill and come back in 30 days technique of all 1980s freshwater fish tanks before bottle bac days lol) but the reason we spike the bottle bac and ammonia nowadays is to speed things the heck up.

 

[Scottsquatch]

I know that nitrite is still more toxic than nitrate. In FW, it is still important to monitor nitrite as well (unless that's changed and I'm just old and outta the loop) so it's interesting to me that it's not important in SW.

 

[brandon429]

Consider the links provided in the cycling thread. I too would not have known it changed if it wasn't for reading the material on its non toxic nature in the marine aquarium

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php