Tank is not cycling

[brandon429]

#6 old rock has organics in it that rehydrate when reef'd again.

Even if you added no ammonia and no bottle bac you'd still be cycled given this long of a wait. I have threads handy to link where we cycled a fully dry, never used rock system, in 30 days with half a pinch of fish food one time at the start. The bottle bac here were added - in addition- to natural complements input by means we don't have to pay for. I haven't seen a stalled cycle thread in 18 mos. It's like giving a man who's been walkabout for two years a big glass of icewater

Final summary: it's not biologically possible to not be cycled at month three submersion

Send a sample into aquabiomics if you want non nh4 proofing of cycle readiness.

 

[wvned]

#6 old rock has organics in it that rehydrate when reef'd again.

Even if you added no ammonia and no bottle bac you'd still be cycled given this long of a wait. I have threads handy to link where we cycled a fully dry, never used rock system, in 30 days with half a pinch of fish food one time at the start. The bottle bac here were added - in addition- to natural complements input by means we don't have to pay for. I haven't seen a stalled cycle thread in 18 mos. It's like giving a man who's been walkabout for two years a big glass of icewater

Final summary: it's not biologically possible to not be cycled at month three submersion

Send a sample into aquabiomics if you want non nh4 proofing of cycle readiness.

I have never dealt with them but if chloramine is in the makeup water could it keep the tank population of bacteria suppressed over a long period of time.
Otherwise I would think the tank is cycled and the testing is wrong.

 

[brandon429]

But that's never been shown once in all logged threads. Agreed it could happen

It will gas out in 48 hours max, then nature proceeds, that's why all readers have never seen that happen in a thread they're in. Not that they haven't seen a failed nh4 test; that's daily. It's that we've never seen the ending consequence of that happening, animal loss or ammonia noncontrol symptoms

We see ammonia issues routinely in qt systems, but never a display. Too much surface area. It's the actual symptoms missing in every stalled thread on the web that's a key recurring detail. We have threads of fully stocked reefs showing similar readings

Here's one of ten:
Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads | Reef2Reef https://share.google/Yz6XkGf7gRPZi6h24

*yes there's infighting there, people hate getting paradigms challenged. It's the slow evolution of cycling science. Try and pick out the objective parts recurring in each example post/ debate

Every tank: symptomless

Every tester: never going to believe there's nothing wrong with the tank

Every instance: nh4, not nh3 which is 10x less

No seneyes present

No causative for the elevated readings

All coaches told them they might not be cycled

Multiple bottle bac bought for ghost condition

Objective science is in those patterns

All of those were running tanks years old and we still couldn't get them to believe, imagine if they were barely past the cycle date? Total rejection of science would occur, just to explain an nh4 reading that isn't used in reefing. Nh4 reads are for freshwater assessment.

 

[brandon429]

To entertain the worst case condition that is unlinkable: simply do a large water change here and go. That removes the metabolites causing concern, but not down to zero, because ready reefs don't run zero detectable ammonia. Even the rare cases of hard yellow api still have detectable nh3 any seneye owner knows. We should expect the presence of ammonia on basic kits in ready reefs; that rule change alone saves headache and allows us a clear time to focus on disease preps as the real risk


No reader in this thread has ever seen a single loss from ammonia in a display tank, but all of us have seen failed cheap test kits.


What brand is the test kit causing this thread?

 

[wvned]

To entertain the worst case condition that is unlinkable: simply do a large water change here and go. That removes the metabolites causing concern, but not down to zero, because ready reefs don't run zero detectable ammonia. Even the rare cases of hard yellow api still have detectable nh3 any seneye owner knows. We should expect the presence of ammonia on basic kits in ready reefs; that rule change alone saves headache and allows us a clear time to focus on disease preps as the real risk

The #1 way to spot old cycling science vs new is any debate over the ability to control ammonia after day ten wait. If we're past day ten wait and not talking solely about disease preps, that's old cycling science that kills fish about 8 mos later. This is not meant to cause consternation in the masses honestly it's only to aim concerns to where the data shows due.

No reader in this thread has ever seen a single loss from ammonia in a display tank, but all of us have seen failed cheap test kits.


What brand is the test kit causing this thread?

If he has chloramines in his water every water change and make up water may be adding chlorine and ammonia to the tank. I am sure in winter make up water would have to be added daily. I suppose it would depend how big the reservoirs and how often water is made.

The chlorine may be the issue and ammonia is just a symptom.
AI says
Chloramine can take weeks to dissipate from water, much longer than chlorine, which typically dissipates in a few days.
So over weeks more is added to the tank in the make up water.

 

[brandon429]

What we need to move forward on this thread:

A Pic of the tank

A Pic of the actual test kit reading/ a Pic of the vial I'm curious how it rates compared to readings collected from perfectly normal reefs.

In the pic of the tank there's a chance we might see proof of cycling details such as new algae or cyano growths. Little details really start to add up once we dig deeper.

What's the disease prevention plan for this tank, if it's fish first then corals, expect disease risks in a few months. This isn't debbie downer; it's the reason Humblefish stays busy every day for five years. Addressing current prevention plans and advising on how to play catch up with them is all of Humble's business day every day. Have a plan ready; don't attempt the catch up.