Cycling: water change or leave it be?

[fotuskyt]

On day 8 of Dr Tim’s fishless cycle with one and only and ammonium chloride in an IM Nuvo 15. Set up is mostly 15lbs dry rock and dry aragonite with maybe 5lbs of live rock from my 20gal so not starting with a large established bacterial population. followed the chart but only dosed the chloride once (on day one) because it has yet to drop below 5ppm to dose again which has me wondering if I dosed incorrectly? (I did 60 drops for 15gal) I’m also reading conflicting information about “cycle stalling.” Not trying to rush the process by any means, just wanna know what I should do whether that’s a water change to get ammonia down to around 2ppm or add more bottle bac and leave it be?

Current parameters
PH: 8
Ammonia: in between 4 and 8ppm (using API, I know not the best but I’m going to the LFS tomorrow to get an accurate reading)
Nitrite: .25 ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm

 

[blaxsun]

Stick with the cycle instructions. And no, I wouldn't change the water yet - still too early.

 

[brandon429]

That's entirely too much ammonia for your test kits to deal with accurately, the false stall is in the cheap non digital kits vs the biology

To fix your cycle and be rid of the kits holding you up, go to a testless cycle

Don't add more ammonia

Add in one ground up pinch of fish food into the mix, grind it into powder

Wait five days, change out the water, all of it, and its cycled.

If you did the water change right now it would still be ok, but the carbon plus five days is easy insurance for a guaranteed known ready date in this particular arrangement

Reefers should be using a quarter of the amount of ammonia stated to use. We don't need 2ppm that's entirely too much for these cheap kits then nobody can figure out what to do afterwards

 

[jda]

Leave it be. The ammonia will come down. Don't worry about nitrate until nitrite is near zero - nitrite interferes with most nitrate test kits and you can get false readings.

Once your API gets down to near one PPM, then that is cool. One can mean zero with that test kit.

If that live rock that you added was really live, then it has all that you need on it. You just have to wait for it to spread out and colonize the rest of the tank.

 

[vetteguy53081]

On day 8 of Dr Tim’s fishless cycle with one and only and ammonium chloride in an IM Nuvo 15. Set up is mostly 15lbs dry rock and dry aragonite with maybe 5lbs of live rock from my 20gal so not starting with a large established bacterial population. followed the chart but only dosed the chloride once (on day one) because it has yet to drop below 5ppm to dose again which has me wondering if I dosed incorrectly? (I did 60 drops for 15gal) I’m also reading conflicting information about “cycle stalling.” Not trying to rush the process by any means, just wanna know what I should do whether that’s a water change to get ammonia down to around 2ppm or add more bottle bac and leave it be?

Current parameters
PH: 8
Ammonia: in between 4 and 8ppm (using API, I know not the best but I’m going to the LFS tomorrow to get an accurate reading)
Nitrite: .25 ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm

Allow it to fall on its own. With ammonia chloride, ammonia level will jump. When the ammonia drops to zero or close to for 5 days and nitrate is steady at 20 or below for 5 days - you are cycled. Allow bacteria to do its thing
When you add fish, ammonia and nitrate will go up and down which is normal.

 

[Cthulukelele]

You definitely don't need to change the water and changing too much would be detrimental to your cycle stripping away too much ammonia, but I'm gonna go a bit against the grain here. Building habits in the hobby is important. If you're only going to be doing fairly small intermittent water changes and want to start getting onto a schedule, it probably won't hurt and could help you start to build good tank maintenance habits.

 

[jda]

I am a fan of letting ecosystems develop. This mostly means letting nature do it's thing. With your live rock, assuming that it is real and diverse, then you are well along the way, so let it be. If you want to be a water change person, then change a bit of water and get into the routine like the post above laid out.

Just know that you are not cycled, as in done. You will be through the first part or the cycle and able to handle some fish waste, but the tank is not dynamic, not able to handle mass issues and not all the way through the actual nitrogen cycle since nitrates will build up and eventually need managed. Just be smart, go slow and every day the tank will get further and further along.

 

[reef4dum]

I’m on day 27 cycling now with dr Tim’s, also using amm-chl since I didn’t want to stress fish. You did add a bottle of bacteria at the start right?

• My ammonia also spiked a LOT 1st week
• My nitrites/nitrates were so HOT PINK & off the charts for 9 days. I was worried I was doing something wrong. I’ve never had that color on my old tank LOL. I had my coral store do water tests every Sat just to double check what I was also getting

Just be patient, Don’t add any more ammonia I less it is below .5, and even then just like a few drops.

My coral guy told me to drop a pinch of food or a tablet in for the bacteria to feed off. You need to allow the bacteria to become dominant.

• Day 11 I was still reading Hot PINK nitrites/Nitrates and Day 13 they suddenly fell to a light pink.
• Day 14 0ammonia, Nitrites and just a hint of nitrates.

It will happen just be patient. I have not done any water changes yet or added any cleaning crew or my fish either. Plus my lights are STILL off. All day

 

[Spare time]

Dr tims usually takes a week or two with the first few ppm. I personally would let it drop a bit more and then do a water change. You can also just ride it out. This is typical with bottled bacteria from my years of experience cycling peoples tanks with different bottles and testing their water with different ktis

 

[brandon429]

fact checking post #6

here's a thread showing that statement has always been untrue.

100% Water Change

So in my previous thread, I had an ammonia issue that was out of hand. As suggested, I did a 100% WC and now i’m wondering when I should start adding fish back. If anyone has suggestions, let me know!

www.reef2reef.com

my advice initially here comes from practice running threads like that.

 

[brandon429]

anyone who is on day 27 of a Dr. Tim's fed bottle bac cycle has been done about three weeks. they just don't have the test gear to know that (they're using known misreading kits we can easily search out to verify)

the op's cycle here is also fully done. there are no half cycles on this entire board, there are only those that use seneye and those that don't. seneye owners never make crazy claims about ammonia, its for the other group.

the only detail missing from this entire thread or the cycle umps present is the need for fish disease prep. the cycle doesn't require concern, the bottle bac engineers worked that part out. it's all in the owner's disease prep from Jay's forum that determines success.

 

[reef4dum]

anyone who is on day 27 of a Dr. Tim's fed bottle bac cycle has been done about three weeks. they just don't have the test gear to know that (they're using known misreading kits we can easily search out to verify)

the op's cycle here is also fully done. there are no half cycles on this entire board, there are only those that use seneye and those that don't. seneye owners never make crazy claims about ammonia, its for the other group.

the only detail missing from this entire thread or the cycle umps present is the need for fish disease prep. the cycle doesn't require concern, the bottle bac engineers worked that part out. it's all in the owner's disease prep from Jay's forum that determines success

I was done cycling by day 14. I’m just on day 27 since starting. Maybe I wasn’t clear how I wrote it.

I was telling the original poster to let it due its course

 

[MnFish1]

On day 8 of Dr Tim’s fishless cycle with one and only and ammonium chloride in an IM Nuvo 15. Set up is mostly 15lbs dry rock and dry aragonite with maybe 5lbs of live rock from my 20gal so not starting with a large established bacterial population. followed the chart but only dosed the chloride once (on day one) because it has yet to drop below 5ppm to dose again which has me wondering if I dosed incorrectly? (I did 60 drops for 15gal) I’m also reading conflicting information about “cycle stalling.” Not trying to rush the process by any means, just wanna know what I should do whether that’s a water change to get ammonia down to around 2ppm or add more bottle bac and leave it be?

Current parameters
PH: 8
Ammonia: in between 4 and 8ppm (using API, I know not the best but I’m going to the LFS tomorrow to get an accurate reading)
Nitrite: .25 ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm

The drip method with Dr. Tims - to my experience is not accurate. In other words you could have dosed a huge amount of ammonia - depending on your drop size - Unless you measured amonia directly after the drops. IMHO API is not a problem. And I'm not criticizing Dr. TIMS. Just that the drops can be different sizes - depending on the pressure

 

[Propane]

You may not have figured in water displacement when calculating ammonium addition. It should be fine but will take a bit longer.

 

[brandon429]

nice gotcha.

 

[MnFish1]

anyone who is on day 27 of a Dr. Tim's fed bottle bac cycle has been done about three weeks. they just don't have the test gear to know that (they're using known misreading kits we can easily search out to verify)

the op's cycle here is also fully done. there are no half cycles on this entire board, there are only those that use seneye and those that don't. seneye owners never make crazy claims about ammonia, its for the other group.

the only detail missing from this entire thread or the cycle umps present is the need for fish disease prep. the cycle doesn't require concern, the bottle bac engineers worked that part out. it's all in the owner's disease prep from Jay's forum that determines success.

Let's take a hypothetical (which likely is not that uncommon). On day 0 an aquarist adds 4 times the recommended amount of ammonia. On day 0, they add the recommended amount of bacteria. This is a situation that can change your parameters. In fact (as I mentioned previously) - it's not hard to overdose Dr. Tims ammonia with the drop method, as compared to measuring out the ammonia with a syringe, etc. This can lead to ammonia levels of 8 ppm. It's well understood that ammonia levels of 5ppm or greater can hinder nitrifying bacteria.

Take the scenario where the aquarist adds the right amount of ammonia, but has markedly overestimated the volume of actual water in the tank.

 

[reef4dum]

Let's take a hypothetical (which likely is not that uncommon). On day 0 an aquarist adds 4 times the recommended amount of ammonia. On day 0, they add the recommended amount of bacteria. This is a situation that can change your parameters. In fact (as I mentioned previously) - it's not hard to overdose Dr. Tims ammonia with the drop method, as compared to measuring out the ammonia with a syringe, etc. This can lead to ammonia levels of 8 ppm. It's well understood that ammonia levels of 5ppm or greater can hinder nitrifying bacteria.

Take the scenario where the aquarist adds the right amount of ammonia, but has markedly overestimated the volume of actual water in the tank.

That was my post about the 27days. I wasn’t necessarily “cycling for 27 days” per se, I was just on day 27 since what I was counting my day zero at.

All that said, I agree if someone doesn’t make precise measurements and also know how much water volume they actually have they are probably overdosing in every step.

When I started this new tank,
(Live sand, Carib life rock, 2 seasoned bio bricks in the back from a different tank, all lights off)

• I first ran it with nothing dosed for 48 hrs
• I dosed 3/4 of the Fritz bacteria over 3 days and let the tank run for total 7 days.
Then…
• I dosed 3/4 of Dr Tims ammonia measurement for my system and THEN started my count of DAY 0.

I wanted the bacteria to settle in first, and also didn’t want to overdose the ammonia according to the per gal requirement. I did the drip method but into a measured vial to double check my dosage reading… then put that into the tank.
• day 2 I added the remaining bacteria.

I saw the initial ammonia spike, then nitrites AND nitrated skyrocketed for two weeks from my Day 0, but then dropped to 0/.1 and 0 ammonia.
———
I’ve found that if you add the bacteria over a couple days at FIRST alone then the ammonia I’ve had better quick first cycle results. ‍ maybe I’m just lucky with it or who knows but always seem to work for me. I keep the lights off and have no fish or any inverts or corals in the tanks during that process. I always waited for the harsh levels to pass first.

Still counting my days and ghost feed a small mount I see mini mini spikes and back down. As I watch it begin to stabilize I will prep my fish & cleaning team to be added

 

[nano7g]

Just adding a reminder to people cycling their first tank. When you add water for the first time, be conscious of the amount of water you’re adding. Once you add all that sand and rock, the actual water volume is less by some gallons. The number of drops you add have to be adjusted accordingly.