Cycle screwed up? new tank
- Thread starter burrito
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shrimpinator123
New member
Good post and point taken, I guess I was more thinking of people like me, you and everyone else on this forum who is more responsible with their reef keeping. That story just shows how stupid people are. I don't think stuff is diffrent..... I had a employee at an LFS (place is usually reputable) tell me that he did not know what an anemone was.
Abstract3000
New member
Well since it seems everyones fighting over old methods we used to used in the 90's with adding a couple damsels it works alright but somewhat inhumane.
Anyhoo back to that damn Tims Aquatic cycle crap, I swear one of the most simple concepts to understand in the world of reefing becomes utterly confusing with this product. So to answer your question, Lets start out with the "Cycle" we Cycle a tank to ensure that ammonia is handled properly. This means that we grow enough beneficial bacteria to break Ammonia down to Nitrite, then further more Nitrate.
So the objective here is to have "enough" beneficial bacteria populated to tackle the job relevant to the bioload. This means you should be able to dump enough ammonia into the tank to bring it up to 1 or 2 PPM and within 24 hours you should get a reading of 0. That's it! Plain and simple, go buy some ammonia from the dollar trea and a seachem ammonia alert test to save the headache of titration test, start dumping till you get in to the danger zone, when it zeros out add some more, and keep doing this till you see it getting to zero in 24hours, mission accomplished.
Anyhoo back to that damn Tims Aquatic cycle crap, I swear one of the most simple concepts to understand in the world of reefing becomes utterly confusing with this product. So to answer your question, Lets start out with the "Cycle" we Cycle a tank to ensure that ammonia is handled properly. This means that we grow enough beneficial bacteria to break Ammonia down to Nitrite, then further more Nitrate.
So the objective here is to have "enough" beneficial bacteria populated to tackle the job relevant to the bioload. This means you should be able to dump enough ammonia into the tank to bring it up to 1 or 2 PPM and within 24 hours you should get a reading of 0. That's it! Plain and simple, go buy some ammonia from the dollar trea and a seachem ammonia alert test to save the headache of titration test, start dumping till you get in to the danger zone, when it zeros out add some more, and keep doing this till you see it getting to zero in 24hours, mission accomplished.
homer1475
New member
I will agree with the pure ammonia cycle, but there is no need to keep adding it. Unless you want to deal with super high nitrates at the end of the cycle? Which IMO isn't hard to deal with either if you do a 100% water change.
Ammonia should be added once up to 2ppm(plenty of calcs out there to give you a rough guestimate on how much to add). Then maybe once ammonia and nitrites are 0, redose to "stress" test the biofilter. There is no need to keep adding the ammonia. If the thinking is to feed the bacteria, plenty of studies out there that show our beneficial bacteria can live up to a year with 0 food(ammonia).
Ammonia should be added once up to 2ppm(plenty of calcs out there to give you a rough guestimate on how much to add). Then maybe once ammonia and nitrites are 0, redose to "stress" test the biofilter. There is no need to keep adding the ammonia. If the thinking is to feed the bacteria, plenty of studies out there that show our beneficial bacteria can live up to a year with 0 food(ammonia).
Abstract3000
New member
No, the continuous addition of ammonia is to boost the population size of beneficial bacteria to an absurd amount that will most likely die off proportionally to what can actually be sustained but gives a buffer depending on the amount of bio-load thats initially added to the tank as thats a huge variable. In the past i just do %50 water changes with little issues, but then again i ensure adequate filtration. Either way the objective is the same
So everything is holding stable. Ammonia under .25, salinity 1.025, temp 78, ph 8.1
Nitrites won’t go under 5ppm. Dr Tim’s says when nitrites and ammonia go under 2ppm to does more ammonia. Should I leave it be still? It’s been about 3 days now with these parameters. Why won’t nitrite budge. Add more ammonia?
Nitrites won’t go under 5ppm. Dr Tim’s says when nitrites and ammonia go under 2ppm to does more ammonia. Should I leave it be still? It’s been about 3 days now with these parameters. Why won’t nitrite budge. Add more ammonia?
I would just leave it alone. Wait for your nitrites to come down. Then I would add a little ammonia and test again the next day to make sure ammonia and nitrites are back to zero. The nitrite stage was the longest for me. It hung around 5.0 for what seemed like the longest time and then just dropped to 0.
That's me also. I went through the same thing your going through now. I kept adding ammonia and testing everyday. At the end I had a bacteria outbreak and had white nasty stuff everywhere. I had to use a net to get it all out. I don't know for sure if it was from adding ammonia so often but that's my guess. If you feel like it's stalled I guess you could do a small water change I don't think it would hurt.
Your tank is 1 week old and you are expecting nitrogen cycle to be done or thinking it's stalled..... It takes almost a month to get it right.
When I cycle tanks I let ammonia build up to 1.5ppm and then leave it alone till ammonia and nitrites come down to 0. I never cared what nitrites levels increase to. As long as they go up and come down to 0 I am happy.
Another thing nitrites take twice to three times as long to come down than ammonia.
Like everyone has told you leave it alone and wait till ammonia and nitrites levels are 0 then do a water change or two and you are good to go. At this point you probably still have 3 more weeks to go.
Good luck happy reefing.
When I cycle tanks I let ammonia build up to 1.5ppm and then leave it alone till ammonia and nitrites come down to 0. I never cared what nitrites levels increase to. As long as they go up and come down to 0 I am happy.
Another thing nitrites take twice to three times as long to come down than ammonia.
Like everyone has told you leave it alone and wait till ammonia and nitrites levels are 0 then do a water change or two and you are good to go. At this point you probably still have 3 more weeks to go.
Good luck happy reefing.
mcgyvr
New member
Yes.. So stop adding anything but freshwater to make up for evaporation and in 1 week you can start adding critters to the tank..
Your probably getting close but adding ammonia so often is probably stalling your own cycle. I started my 60 gallon probably around the same time you started with dry rock and dry sand then added a couple of rocks from my already established tank. I added ammonia to 4ppm it's the only time I added it and today my nitrites are at zero. I'll add a little ammonia and hopefully ammonia and nitrites will be zero tomorrow. Let it finish it's cycle I wouldn't add anything else to it.
