How I got my "DEAD" tank to cycle in 1 week

[Greenmaster]

I'm not quite sure where to start I guess at the beginning.
I have a 320g tank with a 100g sump. If you want to read about it "CLICK HERE" This was a dead cycle as there was no live rock or live sand to start it off. I didn't get anything from a currently running system. This system had been dry for months it then got rinsed with fresh water a couple of times (no ammonia nitrites or nitrates in the fresh water) I then filled the tank with salt water and turned the heat on.
Okay here are the test results of my cycle. (Please remember that colors on these charts are hard to read and my numbers may be off by a bit)
The following will be abbreviated as such, Ammonia = Am, Nitrite = Ni, Nitrate = Na
I started my cycle on February 6th 8:37 before my tank had finished heating up Temp was 75F/24C I added 60ml/1/4 cup of 14% aqua ammonia.
8:45pm Am 6+ / Ni 0 / Na 0
9:30pm Am 6+ / Ni 0 / Na not tested. After the test I added a 375ml/12.7 fl oz. of Nutrafin Cycle by Hagen. Temp was unchanged.
Feb 7th
4:30am Am 5-6? / Ni less then 0.1 / Na less then 5 temp 79F/25.5C The two that say less then were just a trace but there was a slight color change in the tube so there was something.
10:10am Am 5-6? / Ni less then 0.1 / Na less then 5 temp 79F/25.5C
3:00pm Am 5-6? / Ni 0.1-0.2 / Na 5 temp 80F/26C the temperature remained unchanged the rest of the cycle.
8:00pm Am 4-6? / Ni 0.4 / Na 10
Feb 8th
6:00am Am 4-6? / Ni 0.5 / Na 15
9:30am Am 4-6? / Ni 0.5-1 / Na 20
11:45am Am 4-6? / Ni 1-1.5 / Na 25 at 12:00pm I added some sodium bicarbonate
10:30pm Am 4-5? / Ni 3 / Na 30
Feb 9th At 12:00pm I added a 500ml/16.9 fl oz. of Stability by Seachem. At 5:00pm I added some Reef Builder by Seachem in order to get my KH up (bacteria consumes sodium/calcium carbonates in order to process waste)
7:30pm Ab 3-4 / Ni 5+ / Na 40 I didn't record the other tests done this day because nothing changed... it had stalled and I believe the low KH was the reason.
11:30pm Am 2.5-3.5 / Ni 5+ / Na 40-50 After the tests I added some alcohol to provide a carbon source for the denitrifying bacteria.
Feb 10th
8:30am Am 0.75 / Ni 5+ / Na 20 After the tests I added some more sodium bicarbonate and alcohol
10:30am Am 0.6 / Ni 5+ / Na 20
12:30pm Am 0.5 / Ni 5+ / Na 20 After the tests I added more Reef Builder and alcohol
10:30pm Am 0.25 / Ni 16? / NA 20 The Ni of 16 was taken by diluting 1/20th and getting 0.8 and then redoing it at 1/10th and getting 1.6
Feb 11th
5:30am Am 0 / Ni 5+ / Na 40
2:30pm Am 0 / Ni 10? / Na 20
Feb 12th
2:30am Am 0 / Ni 4 / Na less then 5
2:30pm Am 0 / Ni 0 / Na 0 Tests done.

I have several things that I believe contributed to my quick cycle.
I have lots of home made live rock to see the demo I made on how to make it "CLICK HERE"
I also have a bunch of ceramic pellets/cylinders/stars
I have a deep sand bed of 3-4 inches in my tank and in two sections of my sump.
I dosed with two different types of bacteria each from different company's and stores. The bacteria supplement is a shelf stable product and can have problems in storage and shipping. That is my reason for getting the product from different stores. Another thing that you need to look at is the expiry date. You want one with the longest time left on them, mine had dates of Dec 2012 and June 2013. They were both from smaller stores not big box stores that have their own warehousing.
I kept my KH up EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! For every 1 part ammonia that bacteria turn into nitrate the following are required.
4.18 parts oxygen
7.14 parts alkalinity as calcium carbonate (as CaCO3)
12 parts alkalinity as sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3)
For bacteria to turn Nitrate into Nitrogen you need a carbon source I chose alcohol as ethanol as I have heard of many people who use vodka.
For every part of Nitrate that is turned into nitrogen you have 3.0 to 3.6 pounds of alkalinity as calcium carbonate (as CaCO3) produced.
At the end of my cycle, because I had dosed so much sodium/calcium carbonates I had precipitate in my tank from the denitrification.
I think I covered most things here... your questions are welcome and I will do my best to answer them!

 

[Rocdoc]

Not meaning to sound like a jerk, but how do you know that your tank is cycled? I looked at your "live rock" construction techniques, but without having them in a cycled aquarium or in the ocean, I don't see how the rocks were live.

I have never heard of an aquarium cycling in a week. My concern is that your numbers are good because your tank is essentially sterile and that as soon as you introduce livestock your tank will actually start to cycle, potentially killing your livestock.

Am I missing something?

 

[nanojg]

Yeah, I dont think you are ready to add livestock, your rock and sand will need some time to start growing bacteria/organisms.

 

[bertoni]

The alkalinity consumption is more complicated than that. Once the decay process is completed, the alkalinity is released back into the system, so dosing can lead to a higher final value. I'm not sure alkalinity would be a limiting factor in any case.

The Stability might have helped consume the ammonia, but that doesn't mean that the live rock has much of a population yet. That would depend on whether the bacteria in the Stability product have colonized the rock and can continue growing.

 

[Greenmaster]

Not meaning to sound like a jerk, but how do you know that your tank is cycled? I looked at your "live rock" construction techniques, but without having them in a cycled aquarium or in the ocean, I don't see how the rocks were live.

I have never heard of an aquarium cycling in a week. My concern is that your numbers are good because your tank is essentially sterile and that as soon as you introduce livestock your tank will actually start to cycle, potentially killing your livestock.

Am I missing something?

My rock is dead... "Dry Rock" not live... well now it is live but only with bacteria. I have none of the other organisms that you get from live rock.
You are missing the fact that I added bacteria and I also added Ammonia...
I understand your concern but I don't think you understood my post.

Yeah, I dont think you are ready to add livestock, your rock and sand will need some time to start growing bacteria/organisms.

I have no "organisms" in my tank just bacteria. To get anything else I have to add it to the tank. Bacteria in optimal conditions can double every 20-40 min.

 

[duncantse]

My tank cycled in 2 weeks. I didn't know why it was that fast but I think you helped me explain it. I added ceramic rings in my filter so I think the bacteria can colonize faster.

 

[Greenmaster]

The alkalinity consumption is more complicated than that. Once the decay process is completed, the alkalinity is released back into the system, so dosing can lead to a higher final value. I'm not sure alkalinity would be a limiting factor in any case.

The Stability might have helped consume the ammonia, but that doesn't mean that the live rock has much of a population yet. That would depend on whether the bacteria in the Stability product have colonized the rock and can continue growing.

I stated the alkalinity being released back into the system... only I said pounds.
"For every part of Nitrate that is turned into nitrogen you have 3.0 to 3.6 pounds of alkalinity as calcium carbonate (as CaCO3) produced.
At the end of my cycle, because I had dosed so much sodium/calcium carbonates I had precipitate in my tank from the denitrification."
I should have said for every part nitrate there are 3.0-3.6 parts alkalinity as calcium carbonate. I'm not sure if it was the limiting factor or not. I just did what I felt I needed to do to get it to cycle quickly. And you are right that if you over dose you will end up having a higher alkalinity and once it gets too high the calcium starts to precipitate (turn back into small pieces of solid calcium) that is one of the things that causes a new tank to get cloudy.

The amount of bacteria in a bottle of Stability can't consume the ammonia at those rates. You are adding it to the tank so it can reproduce over and over... just helping it to get a bit of a head start. The bacteria definitely colonized in the tank. In order for the nitrates to be removed the bacteria has to grow in the hardest to reach places of the tank, because the bacteria need's no oxygen present, so the bacteria will to want to do the extra work of stripping the oxygen off a nitrate molecule. If there is any oxygen in the water it will take it from there first.

 

[Greenmaster]

My tank cycled in 2 weeks. I didn't know why it was that fast but I think you helped me explain it. I added ceramic rings in my filter so I think the bacteria can colonize faster.

I believe that the ceramic rings work really well. I don't have much experience to back that up, just two tanks that I have owned and I used them in both... so I don't know how they would have done without them.

 

[travis32]

Well, my tank that crashed, hit 8.0 + (was off the charts I had probably was between 8 and 20 ppm ammonia had over 1000-2000 asterina starfish die in a cataclysmic event...

I pulled 80% of the rock placed in a bin of fresh RODI salt water. I leve 30% or around 20-30 pounds in the tank with the 3" sand bed.

I checked ammonia every couple of days. The tank in the saltwater bin (with a powerhead and heater). was to 2.0ppm within 24 hours. It tested zero initially...

Within two weeks. the tub of rocks was still at 1.0ppm. The tank that had skyrocketed well above 8-10ppm. (chart max was 8.00 and it was almost black not green like on the chart...)

Within those same two weeks the tank of sand and rock had dropped from it's off the chart level down to under 2.0ppm.

Within 3 weeks the tank was at 0 and the rock in the tub was still detectable at .5. by the 4th week the tub finally caught up to the tank.

Why was it different? The tub of rocks never got above 2.0 and there would have been a lot more in the tank still dieing off in that time...

So, why did the tank recycle nearly 50 to 75% faster than the tub?

I think it has to do with surface area. I had sand in the sump and sand in the tank. The sand along with the rock mixture, mostlikely allowed bacteria to colonize faster. The rock in the tub just had the rock and therefore took longer to recover.

Or else most of the die off was on the rock. so removing 80% of the die off source allowed the tank to process the ammonia much much faster.

 

[bertoni]

The amount of bacteria in a bottle of Stability can't consume the ammonia at those rates.... The bacteria definitely colonized in the tank. In order for the nitrates to be removed the bacteria has to grow in the hardest to reach places of the tank, because the bacteria need's no oxygen present, so the bacteria will to want to do the extra work of stripping the oxygen off a nitrate molecule. If there is any oxygen in the water it will take it from there first.

How do you know any of that?

There are aerobic organisms that can consume nitrate, too, including those with endosymbionts, for example.

 

[Greenmaster]

How do you know any of that?

There are aerobic organisms that can consume nitrate, too, including those with endosymbionts, for example.

It's called research... that's how people know anything... by learning what others have done (researching somebody's research) or doing studies yourself. But since it is impractical for everyone to do all research ones self we take what others have done and try to assimilate the knowledge. When we feel like the information is incomplete or inaccurate then we do a test/experiment/study to try and figure out if our theories are correct.

Some of the bacteria that consume nitrate can live in both aerobic and anaerobic areas but it takes a fair amount of energy to take the oxygen off of nitrate (NO3) so, if there is dissolved oxygen in the water the bacteria will use that for it's processes instead. Because when it can take dissolved oxygen from the water it can grow and reproduce faster, just like electricity takes the path of least resistance bacteria take the easiest source of oxygen available.
... a bacterium can not "have" endosymbionts... they can "be" endosymbiont... endosymbionts refers to something living inside another cell/organism and that organism can control what is available for the bacteria. Basically an organism that uses bacteria to process NO3, keeps the bacteria in an anaerobic environment and provides the nutrients and NO3 for the bacteria. It is a symbiotic relationship.

If some of the sentences don't make sense I'm sorry... I'm pretty tired.

*edit
I realize you were saying organisms... not bacteria... in response to that... I haven't done much research on the organisms that you speak of... but there are none in my tank and they use bacteria that they keep in an anaerobic environment in order to process the NO3. The organisms can live in aerobic environments but the NO3 can't be processed in the presence of oxygen. The organisms provide an area within themselves that is anaerobic where the bacteria can live.

 

[bertoni]

I know what research is. I don't see that you've done any.

I didn't say anything about bacteria having endosymbionts. I said "organisms." And I'm not sure I've seen any proof that your comments on oxygen are correct.

 

[Greenmaster]

I know what research is. I don't see that you've done any.

I didn't say anything about bacteria having endosymbionts. I said "organisms." And I'm not sure I've seen any proof that your comments on oxygen are correct.

I haven't really done any research. All I have done is take what I have learned and put it to use on the cycle of my aquarium... I realize that it my have problems later on... the biggest reason people don't like anaerobic areas in their tanks is that there are many kinds of bacteria that do some things people don't want done in their tanks... like the production of H2S...

I noticed that after I typed it out, I then edited the post... while you were reading it I guess and saved my edit just before you posted. As for proof of the aerobic/anaerobic you can look at our hobby. Tanks that have little or no anaerobic areas have to control their nitrates by water changes. Tanks that have lots of anaerobic areas or implement some type of reactor (providing anaerobic areas) have a better handle on nitrates. Denitrification occurs when oxygen levels are depleted and nitrate becomes the primary oxygen source for microorganisms. If you would like something from wikki Denitrification

 

[bertoni]

Well, that's nice, but there's still no evidence that there's any large population of bacteria on your rocks, although there might be. Likewise, there are references to organisms that live in the water column that can consume nitrate. In normal setups, that doesn't seem to be the case, which is evidenced by UV usage, but your setups isn't normal yet. There isn't any evidence that anaerobic areas beyond microbial films, which can be two cells thick, are necessary for denitrification in our systems. On the other hand, there might not be any microbial films; denitrification could be done in larger anaerobic zones or by endosymbionts. We don't have any data one way or the other, for the most part.

 

[Greenmaster]

Right to get proof of any of that I would have to devote a lot of time and money to figure out exactly what happened... But the truth remains in less then 1 week my system cycled and has the ability to handle a large bio load (ammonia) and I didn't use any live rock or sand. The purpose of this thread is to help those who would like to do a fishless cycle but don't want to have to wait a long time... It's to help people understand the process better, and hopefully be able to use some of what I have done for their own system... There are a lot of people that have trouble with nitrates and in turn have lots of trouble with algae and the like... I designed this system to be able to cycle fast, including the removal of nitrates, and it worked. All the reasons it worked I don't know... but I do know that there are lots of tanks that have issues and wish their tank could handle the nitrates this well.

 

[bertoni]

Well, you don't know that it can handle a large bio-load just yet, although that's certainly possible. You could test that with some more ammonia.

 

[Rocdoc]

I have several things that I believe contributed to my quick cycle.
I have lots of home made live rock

This is the part of the original post that led me to call your rock live. It is obviously not (or at least wasn't when your "cycle" started). It would be interesting to see how your tank would fare against the "large bioload" that you have indicated it is ready to handle.

I have two concerns about that:

1. Adding a large amount of livestock to this tank in its current state is, IMO, likely to cause a large ammonia spike which your tank is unable to handle, leading to the death of a large portion of the livestock (not desirable).
2. Posting this as "research" and indicating that it may be a way to help people who want to cycle without fish (which is a great goal) but are too impatient to wait for a regular cycle (which is unfortunately common) could lead to a bunch of folks following your instructions and crashing their new tanks as well.

Before you even think about recommending this as a healthy and viable alternative to the methods that have developed over the last several decades, you need to test your system with a moderate to large amount of ammonia and see how it handles it (as was previously suggested). I would hate to see other people rush to do this based on your untested theory.

And when you answer people's questions, be careful of your tone. For example, I didn't miss the fact that you added bacteria and ammonia to the system. And your tone in response to other questions has been pretty trite. Don't ask for questions then belittle those who ask them.

 

[geaux xman]

i've cycled 50lbs of dry rock in a 25g rubbermaid and it would take exactly 2 weeks. thats dosing with ammonia up to 10ppm on day 1, getting a strong positive nitrite a few days after. then by day 14, i would have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 60+ nitrate.

i do add mb7 and heater at ~85degrees.

i guess a 10ppm in a 25g rubbermaid thats loaded with rock, would be about a 2ppm in a 100g tank. once cycled, the rock would process 5ppm of ammonia in less than 24hrs.

 

[jmasterdiver]

I have cycled many tanks using ammonia and bottled bacteria. The bottom line is that your tank isn't cycled until it can quickly clear ammonia. Clearing it in a week? Not quick enough for a stocked tank. IMO, you can't call a tank cycled until you can repeatedly dose ammonia and have it clear in a matter of hours (the more heavily stocked, the bigger the dose you need to clear quickly). And once that ammonia gets to zero, if you don't keep feeding the bacteria that clear it, there will be a die-off of good bacteria and you have to start all over. Lots of surface area for bacteria to colonize is good, but if you don't keep a constant source of ammonia in there, your tank will not support livestock in mass quantities.

 

[geaux xman]

i think you mis-read, no one mentioned anything about taking a week to process the ammonia once cycled.