TANKED - the show…. I have questions…

[Thebutcher]

So with getting back in to the hobby again and trying to get my son interested as well I have been letting him watch some episodes of TANKED. I can’t help but notice that they literately never cycle the tank… at least they don’t address it on the show. They use Nutrisea Water and sand and while they mention that they can put fish right in there the website for nutri-sea says it instantly cycles (or starts the cycle immediately). My thought is that there would still be a waiting time even if you use these products.

When I started up may old tank, even if I used live sand (CaribSea) and live rock from the LFS there still needed to be a week or so to cycle the tank.

How was/is it possible for these guys to drop the sand, fake corals and nutri-sea water then drop the fish in what seems like minutes later? I mean, they take the water room temp, add it to the tank then drop the fish in right after. how did they get the 200gal of water to warm up to the correct temps? Have things changed really that much since I’ve been in the game?

currently I have my RODI making 90 gal of fresh water so I can mix up salt and get it to temp before I add my 80lbs of sand sand and live rock from the lfs and let it cycle… what did I miss when I was away?

 

[kharmaguru]

Don't use Tanked to learn ANYTHING. I think I made it through half an episode. Artificial deadline drama and plastic corals and I was out.

 

[Reefing102]

Agreed with the above. Don’t use Tanked to learn the hobby. I like to use it only to learn the names of some of the fish (which aren’t accurate sometimes either) and the abilities of acrylic.

That said, there are some “instant cycle” bacteria products out there that microbactr 7, fritz turbo start, dr Tim’s, etc. Though I don’t reccomend it, those products have been used by people to immediately add fish. @Dr. Reef I believe uses Fritz for his tanks and his quarantine process.

Whereas Tanked likely has about at least a few days between setting it up and adding fish (there’s episodes when they first add the sand and it’s a sandstorm compared to adding the fish to mostly crystal clear water. (No water I know clears that quickly in minutes/hours). Also I do not believe Tanked is filmed anymore…ended in 2018?…anyway so even their processes are at least 5 years old

 

[BeanAnimal]

Most of those shows are fairly fake. They stage a lot of stuff and cover up a lot of unfinished work and mistakes that have to be fixed later. In the case of tanked, I assume there are a lot of dead fish, system crashes etc.

I would also assume that some system contents have been cycled in a temp system and/or the fish/coral are often dumped in for the "hurry up.. .they are coming" nonsense and then removed until the system is cycled and the reveal day is a later date, or the contents are added/removed for the reveal.

Over the years many (most) of these shows back story disasters have found their way to forums. The house flippers, room remodels, etc. and the liability waivers and lawsuits. You sign you rights away, the destroy your property and leave a poorly planned half done disaster... and you then pay to have it fixed by real professionals.

But it makes good TV

 

[Dr. Reef]

I use Fritz turbostart 900, I dose and add fish at same time. Never failed.
I did an extensive study on bacteria in bottle. it can be found here.

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Call me old school, back in the day we placed a deli shrimp in a tank to kick start the cycle. When tank reached 1.5-2 ppm ammonia we pulled it out and waited sometimes weeks to months for bacteria to colonize and drop ammonia and nitrites down to 0 to make tank safe for livestock. With recent...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Tanked did an episode on a restaurant local to me. From what I understand they put like 200 fish in the tank in the show and all but one had died by the time the the restaurant had their grand opening 2 weeks later. It was a whole mess.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Tanked did an episode on a restaurant local to me. From what I understand they put like 200 fish in the tank in the show and all but one had died by the time the the restaurant had their grand opening 2 weeks later. It was a whole mess.

That is the likely outcome in every one of their builds. Bottle bacteria and a capful of ammonia does not a complete ecosystem make.

Works fine for a bare QT setup or a small stocklist...

I would say not for a full blown reef where countless organisms must populate and come to balance with what are MANY smaller "cycles" that go on for months inside the "cycle". I would say it takes a hell of a lot to get a nitrogen cycle stable for 200 fish with a system full of rock and sand.