Confusion about cycling my tank

JammyBirch said:
Yup fish waste is the primary source after you have a tank that can process the ammonia, the problem is the bacteria isn't there yet to convert the waste so the ammonia produced by the fish waste could poison the fish.

Clowns are tough they may make it, but they'll not be having fun while this is going down. As others have suggested get the bacteria in a bottle, that will speed things up.

I think the bigger lesson for you, as learned by most of us who have been doing this for a while have also learned the hard way, is to cross reference your LFS. Some of them want to sell fish and that's it. This is a good experience for you and you will love this hobby, once you're tank is banging on all cylinders and you're a pro you'll be able to help other too. There is a wealth of knowledge and good people willing to help, take advantage of it.
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Thanks. I really appreciate the words of encouragement. I felt really bad after finding out they might die. Getting started with a reef aquarium has a lot of details and things that can be overlooked.
 
You're not the first man, this is a very fun hobby and it can be frustrating getting it going. Are you keeping the fish or are you going to try and get them back to the LFS?

If you keep the fish, dose the bacteria into the tank and measure water parameters daily.

I good cycled tank should convert 2ppm of ammonia in a day or less. This is why not having the fish in there is nice. With no fish, you can test the bio filtration capability by spiking the ammonia to 2ppm and then measuring the conversion. It takes the guess work out of it and allows you to understand the capability of your system.
 
JammyBirch said:
You're not the first man, this is a very fun hobby and it can be frustrating getting it going. Are you keeping the fish or are you going to try and get them back to the LFS?

If you keep the fish, dose the bacteria into the tank and measure water parameters daily.

I good cycled tank should convert 2ppm of ammonia in a day or less. This is why not having the fish in there is nice. With no fish, you can test the bio filtration capability by spiking the ammonia to 2ppm and then measuring the conversion.
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I'll probably try to keep them in there for now. I'll dose the bacteria into the tank when I get home from work tonight. I will continue to measure parameters daily. I also ordered a master test kit since the strips seem to sort of suck.
 
ReefMagician said:
I'll probably try to keep them in there for now. I'll dose the bacteria into the tank when I get home from work tonight. I will continue to measure parameters daily. I also ordered a master test kit since the strips seem to sort of suck.
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lol ya they do...i like RedSea but Salifert is recommended by a lot of guys on here.

Once you get into the Coral game, i like the Hanna Checkers...pretty sweet.

Hey keep us posted on how it goes, one thing about it, dosing the bacteria will help your clowns out for sure.
 
Of the 3 of th badges I've bought, 0 worked. Even when I dosed ammonia directly, the badge still showed 0 ammonia present.
 
I have 2 badges used for TTM and I'll agree they are finicky.. It may a good reference but I still check ammonia with other test kits. for 7 bucks though I would say its worth it.
 
I wouldn't panic and no need to tear things down and to remove your clowns. That would just cause more stress on them and you.

Two clowns in a 125-gal. tank will have a very small bio-load. I missed the part you added StartSmart, which I assume is similar to Bio-spira. Personally, I think you'll be ok. Just keep checking your water and do weekly w/c for a few weeks.
 
Brieninsac said:
I wouldn't panic and no need to tear things down and to remove your clowns. That would just cause more stress on them and you.

Two clowns in a 125-gal. tank will have a very small bio-load. I missed the part you added StartSmart, which I assume is similar to Bio-spira. Personally, I think you'll be ok. Just keep checking your water and do weekly w/c for a few weeks.
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How big of a W/C should I do weekly? 5%?
 
I used Reef Rock 2.1, live sand and bio-spira to cycle my tank. I didn't add fish until the second week. After I did I did 20% water changes weekly for the first month, then every two weeks the next month. Today I do 30% once a month.
 
Brieninsac said:
I used Reef Rock 2.1, live sand and bio-spira to cycle my tank. I didn't add fish until the second week. After I did I did 20% water changes weekly for the first month, then every two weeks the next month. Today I do 30% once a month.
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In my case, what would you recommend? 10% after first week if adding fish?


Also, I added the two bottles of bio-spira. All seems well so far.
 
ReefMagician said:
UPDATE:

I tested the water today.

Ammonia: 0
NitrAte: 20
NitrIte: 0


Does this mean the tank is cycled?
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You started your cycle about the same time I did. I used the fishless method via ammonia dosing, the 10% stuff, and I dumped in a bottle of Bio-Spira. I've been keeping my ammonia level around 2ppm since 4/8/16.

When I test, the amount of ammonia is lower everytime, so I'm assuming the bacteria population is increasing. My Nitrites has started to raise pretty high, and my nitrate is very high as well.

Is this all happening in a 40b/40b system with ~65 gallons of water.

Moral of the story is, no I don't believe your tank is cycled. An easy way to tell is as other have stated, dose ammonia to 2ppm, test in 24 hours. The cycle is complete when ammonia, and nitrite are both 0. But since you have fish in the tank, dosing ammonia to that level is pretty cruel.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
ReefMagician said:
UPDATE:

I tested the water today.

Ammonia: 0
NitrAte: 20
NitrIte: 0


Does this mean the tank is cycled?
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It's probs easier to not think of your cycle as something that's "finished" at a certain point. Rather, you just need enough bacteria to process the waste of the fish you have. As long as your ammonia stays zero, you're good. When people cycle without fish, the 2ppm test is just cause that's a number everyone picked as pretty much safe, like if your tank an do that it can handle the first fish for sure.

And even later when you are ready to add more fish, you should go slow because each addition is another ammonia-factory that the bacteria needs to catch up with. I'd keep checking ammonia a couple times a day, then after a week back off to daily/every other day. Every day that passes you have less risk of a spike.

Now would be a good time to read some threads about quarentining in the "setting up" sticky. Especially in a big tank like yours, keeping diseases out can save a lot of hassle. If you put in a little effort on that now, as you are stocking the tank, you can save a lot of trouble down the road. It will be very expensive and annoying to lose all your fish to a disease that could have been prevented by setting up a qt now. That's another thing that fish stores don't tell people, cause they like selling new fish to replace dead ones.
 
I am a bit confused, you said you have about 10 lbs of live rock. So what is going to host the bacteria for the nitrogen cycle?
 
ReefMagician said:
Once I add the bio-spira, what should my next step be?
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Once you add the live bacteria to your tank do not run your skimmer or filter 24-48 hours. Test your water everything should be 0 except for your nitrates. That's what my readings were for my three tanks I started bacteria. Day 3 I turn on my skimmer and filter day 5-7 cycle complete.
 
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