yes - ONE MORE cycle question.. :)

[xaflatoonx]

90 gallon tank
Almost 110 lb dry rock
80 lbs live sand.
Used RO/DI water

Set up my tank and filled with water 10 days ago.

ONLY the display tank was filled with water.
Even though i have the piping for the full set up ready to go.

so day 4 - once all the water was clear - i started adding fish food to initiate the cycle. Also added Instant ocean live bacteria bottle. Did that for 3 days. got ammonia to around 0.25

I was recommended to use liquid ammonia. Did that - calculated.
Ammonia shot to 4ppm as expected.

Checked yesterday and my ammonia was around 2ppm and nitrites were around 2ppm and get this - my nitrates were around 40 ppm.

So as per instructions that i have - I need to re-increase the ammonia back to 4ppm when it drops to 0.25ppm... and do that until the tank is able to turn the 4ppm ammonia to 0 within 24 hours. That should also then show a nitrite of 0. At that time - if the nitrate is more than 20 - i am supposed to do a partial water change to bring it to 20.

so far so good?

if there are any errors - please let me know.

Second -

when i turn on my full cycle - i.e - the overflow, the sump, skimmer and return - I assume I will just add salted water into the mix and it will just start circling through right?

wont that impact my ammonia/nitrite/nitrate? since that is essentially adding another 40 or so gallons to a 90 gallon set up that has gone through a cycling process?

what is the best way of adding this additional water? through sump and push through return? or add to display and let it over flow?

 

[wooden_reefer]

Your tank is cycled it seems because both ammonia and nitrite are shown to be rapidly dropping.

Nearly all if not all of the bacteria is in the substrate and water change (without drastic change of salinity/ph) does not alter the population of bacteria. Hope this answers your second question.

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

a sugestion for your water change to lower nitrates...since you only have water in your display, do your partial water change before connecting your sump and filling it with new water. That way the water you take out will have the highest consentration of nitrate, giving you the biggest bang for your buck in reducing nitrate levels.

You can do as many partial water changes as you want and not disturb the beneficial bacteria as long as you don't disturb the substrate where the bacteria manly live. Just be careful when you have livestock, especialy inverts, that the peraminters of your replacement water match as closly as possible with water taken out. Doing water changes is kind of like re-aclimating the livestock. They can only tolerate changes so quickly. That's why smaller water changes more often are recomended.

You can add water to wherever you want, doesn't matter. Sounds like you have the cycle proccess down. Sorry for rambling if you already knew the water change info.

 

[xaflatoonx]

excellent point devestator007 - and no rambling at all - the more you explain the better as i get to learn more... thank you.

Thanks Wooden_reefer - that definitely answers my question.

I hope I am ready for some inverts by this weekend - i am pretty excited.
Hoping to see some algae/diatoms so i know the new comers will have something to eat.

 

[wooden_reefer]

excellent point devestator007 - and no rambling at all - the more you explain the better as i get to learn more... thank you.

Thanks Wooden_reefer - that definitely answers my question.

I hope I am ready for some inverts by this weekend - i am pretty excited.
Hoping to see some algae/diatoms so i know the new comers will have something to eat.

For fish, there is a whole new dimension called disease control and QT. For fish, cycling the DT is just the easy beginning, prerequsite.