Day 7 of first shipment - Am 0.6

[CincyGida]

Hey guys - My ammonia was 1.0+ for 5 days until Richard said I should scrape the dead stuff off of each rock so I did yesterday. When I came home today it was at 1.0 so I did a 37% water change like I've been doing everyday and after that it read 0.6 or 0.7.

Now that *is* the lowest I've seen but it only seems to go down after a water change. My question is when can I expect it to go down naturally? I don't see anything new growing like algae, or bacteria, or whatever. I'm about to open my third bag of salt!

 

[jimtsr]

Hey CincyGida.

I would be classified as a noob on reef tanks, but I went through what you are now going through about 3 months ago. In my case and in many others I have read about, the ammonia should start comming down by about the 10th day. Keep in mind that you will still have to work through the increased nitrites after the ammonia goes down, but my experience (using all TBS rock) was that this part was fairly slight and only took about 5 days. I'm guessing you should be fairly well through the cycle in about 2 to 2 1/2 weeks total. You should still go very slowly after the initial cycle because your system will have a lot of maturing to do even after that. Keep in mind that this is just some input from one person who has gone through this process a total of 1 time for saltwater.

 

[CincyGida]

jimtsr - thanks for the reply! Tell me, how often did you do water changes? Your post is giving me more assurance.

 

[docklink]

CincyGida, what size tank and what size "package" are you dealing with. Everyones situation will vary some but jimtsr is pretty much right on. The smaller the water volumn you are dealing with, the more critical keeping the ammonia under 1.0 becomes. Reports here have ranged from several water changes a day (for 10 gal nanos) to no water changes needed during the cycle. Once it starts to stay under 1.0 by its own, then cease the water changes (changing the water dilutes the biologic poisons but also dilutes the developing bacterial growth). Don't worry about things growing yet, just help keep what is alive as happy as possible And keep an eye out for anything that appears to be dead. As Richard likes to point out, use your nose.... if it smells rank, its dead and needs removal. Good luck. It's worth it.

 

[jimtsr]

Durring the first 10 days I was doing 30% to 50% water changes every day. On two of those first days I ended up doing two water changes on the same day. I based my decisions on keeping the ammonia level at .5 or less. I was working to avoid as much die off as possible. Other than a couple of sponges, virtually everything that came on the rock is alive and well today.

Some have suggested that that much water change will actually lengthen the cycle because it does not allow for rapid growth of bacteria that will naturally convert ammonia to nitrite, but I did not experience this problem at all.

As soon as my ammonia levels dropped below .25 I started letting several days go by before a water change. At that point (about 10 days into setup) I started seeing an increase in nitrites, but I never had enough of a spike to worry about frequent water changes.

Hope that helps give you a bit more confidence. Once you get through these first couple of weeks things will settle down a lot AND you will be really good at doing your water tests and water changes quickly.

 

[Snarkys]

long as it is under 1.0 the best thing you can do is leave the tank alone and let nature take its course. the levels will go down and the cycle will complete.

call them and ask . they are always willing to help .

 

[Splach]

Hello CindyGida,

could I encourage you to go to "MY RC" and set your signature to include information on your tank and setup? You will find that you get much better answers on RC as people will have a quick reference to your setup.

As to water changes, I have a fairly large system and I did 4 or 5 water changes over the first 2 weeks with a couple of scary test results mixed in.

 

[Rockker]

Hi Cindy;

Today is day 8 for me. I have done water changes every day and yesterday was the first day steady at 0.5.

I don't think I'll do a change today but I will check it later this afternoon.

As long as it doesn't start sneaking up, I'll just let it cycle.

It seems I had a lot of die off from sponges. I did the "sniff test" twice and scaped off some pretty rank stuff.

Of course this is the base, so the top will cover most of it anyways.

Rockker

 

[Snarkys]

really as long as the readings are under 1.0 you should leave it alone and let the water cure . all the water changes prolly will stress everything out more than the ammonia and nitrite will. the water changes will also not let the water cure and will lengthen the time it takes to cycle.

here is a chart for how long it is a new tank should take . now TBS rock should prolly be a bit faster (or longer if there is some die off) but rushing things can be bad.

got the chart from here

http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html