Dr. Tim's needed with seeded dryrock?

[Zero_Cool]

Apologies if this is the 1000th time it has been asked but I couldn't find an answer.

I have about a 3 months wait before setting up a new tank. While waiting I bought Marco dry rock and designed the aquascape in sections for easier reassembly. I then put these into bins with clean saltwater, a powerhead, heater and a piece of live rock purchased from 2 different LFS to seed them with bacteria. I have been ghost feeding for 3 weeks now.

My question is when I get the tank set up is there any advantage/disadvantages to adding Dr. Tim's OaO woth associated ammonium chloride for a fishless cycle flowing 2+ months of seeding the dry rock?

System will be about 250 gallons. 120 lbs of rock and 100 lbs of sand (60 lbs "live" bagged sand and 40 lbs dry) for greater surface area.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Jekyl]

Apologies if this is the 1000th time it has been asked but I couldn't find an answer.

I have about a 3 months wait before setting up a new tank. While waiting I bought Marco dry rock and designed the aquascape in sections for easier reassembly. I then put these into bins with clean saltwater, a powerhead, heater and a piece of live rock purchased from 2 different LFS to seed them with bacteria. I have been ghost feeding for 3 weeks now.

My question is when I get the tank set up is there any advantage/disadvantages to adding Dr. Tim's OaO woth associated ammonium chloride for a fishless cycle flowing 2+ months of seeding the dry rock?

System will be about 250 gallons. 120 lbs of rock and 100 lbs of sand (60 lbs "live" bagged sand and 40 lbs dry) for greater surface area.

Thank you for your help.

Shouldn't need any bottled bacteria. Just don't go crazy adding fish.

 

[brandon429]

Jekyl, what a relief to see cycling allowed to be free from bottle bac purchases considering the details given. In any other forum he’d be told to for sure buy some, that seeding with live rock + direct feeding for a month wouldn’t be enough.

 

[Zero_Cool]

So that I am clear - what you are telling me is seeding the dry rock with the live rock for 2 months while ghost feeding will be sufficient for the generation of sufficient bacterial coverage to facilitate the nitrification process in my new tank set up. Is this correct?

What would the anticipated/estimated "cycle" or wait time once the tank is running for livestock additions with my seeding plan?

Thank you

 

[Jekyl]

So that I am clear - what you are telling me is seeding the dry rock with the live rock for 2 months while ghost feeding will be sufficient for the generation of sufficient bacterial coverage to facilitate the nitrification process in my new tank set up. Is this correct?

What would the anticipated/estimated "cycle" or wait time once the tank is running for livestock additions with my seeding plan?

Thank you

Tbh adding the live rock probably had nothing to do with the rest of the rock being cycled. Even without feeding after a few weeks of the rock being wet, the bacteria needed would have formed naturally. Bottled bacteria is never needed, it just speeds up the process. As far as the live rock goes, size depending, might have been enough to manage a fish or 2 on it's own.

 

[brandon429]

I speak in links when it comes to cycling posts. They show examples, real outcomes from similar setups.

this below was a lesser cycle than you provided, howaboutme only did the ghost feeding for four weeks, not ghost feeding plus live rock association and he builds a full nano reef from that approach

that part alone, the live rock, had you fully cycled in twenty days by mere contact association with the non live rock. The extra ghost feeding had you also set by day twenty just the same:

Build Thread - My SPS Waterbox Peninsula Mini 15

Hi all. Long time member (I think I joined right around when R2R started or took off years ago) but got out of the hobby for about 6 years and now I am back! I don't see many build threads for the PM 15 (mostly the 25) so thought I'd share my journey here. This post will be a bit behind...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

Notice how 100% of aquarists relay that reef tank water can’t provide cycling bac.

here is a thread where we cycle a completely dry start 200 gallon system with only twenty days reef water contact from a running reef

reef water contains cycling bac.

Connecting Established Reef To New Tank

EDIT: In conclusion, if using the method I did - connecting an established reef to a new system with dry rock (clean), I recommend the following: 1. Dose your new tank prior to connecting to your old tank with NO3 and PO4 enough to raise to your established tank levels. 2. Take your skimmer...

www.reef2reef.com

live rock transmits it’s cycling bac just the same, it’s how reef water picks up bacteria to transmit to dry a start reef.

 

[Zero_Cool]

As far as the live rock goes, size depending, might have been enough to manage a fish or 2 on it's own.

6 lbs total between 2 bins so a very small amount compared to the dry rock.

And that is my concern, not a high enough ratio of live rock to dry rock for a 250 gallon sytem.

This is why I ask about the added bacteria.

 

[Zero_Cool]

... the live rock, had you fully cycled in twenty days by mere contact association with the non live rock. The extra ghost feeding had you also set by day twenty...

I understand that bacterial reproduction/replication of "beneficial" bacteria is relatively slow compared to others. Is the 20 day timeline considered the threshold for having enough to properly saturate/cover the dry rock surface area?

 

[brandon429]

Yes, per link just added in

 

[Zero_Cool]

Yes, per link just added in

Thank you

 

[brandon429]

The timescale for ammonia control is set by the well known cycling chart, it’s ten days. in any book, any web page, the ammonia drop is day 10-12 max and the nitrite drop is day 25 and the nitrate is variable

we do 20 days wait to support the natural and constant doubt reefers apply towards water bacteria, we are twice over the wait time prescribed by the oldest documentation the hobby could possibly consult.

amazing consistency year to year, source to source, that ten day ammonia drop.

If it were much longer, scientists wouldn’t let that chart go untended since about 1950ish, not sure when they came about/whenever basic ammonia control biology in aquatic systems was discovered / also links to human wastewater management principles


however long civilization has been preparing human wastewater to go back in the ground or into a stream/lake is how long scientists knew that passing high volumes of ammonia water over active substrates causes a drop in the target parameter within ten days usually in all cases.

not one published cycling chart exists for an 18 day ammonia drop, for example. Not one, other than ones reefers made on excel using api kits as the rule.


it’s only reef forums, armed with api test kits, that have undone that notion for aquarists


youd be amazed at what the new digital ammonia testing with the Hanna meter and with seneye is doing to reinforce the old notions that by day ten, nobody needs to worry about ammonia control issues unless someone has just set totally dry rocks into water and provided nothing at all.

Marine cycles are always compound boosting or primarily boosting in some way, that tendency is what streamlines reef tank cycles into such a predictable group, to the degree we no longer need verification of readiness after X number of days.


this claim sounds crazy I know, but I have a 34 page work thread testing the exact claim using other peoples fish and money, with no losses…eventually science is going to have to accept, reef forums will have to consider, it’s not possible to build that many cycles on bad science. We can’t just keep lucking into running tanks and healthy fish by day ten forever, unless it really works that way.

 

[brandon429]

I have some chemist friends who do neat experiments and send me messages about results even before they finish articles


and day ten keeps getting reinforced, no matter how we slice it


day ten wait even accounts for the most fearful event in reef cycling: the dead bottle bac. Dead bottles have been found in some studies, logged online. Private messages told me about some


why this doesn’t harm our cycle threads: nobody in reefing just adds bottle bac, they add feed as well. In the presence of dead bac, rarely 100% of cells in water are dead (just not enough to please api is the usual standard) and that feed they always add, copiously to 2 ppm, + ten days = still cycled enough for two clowns and enough that no seneye cycle at day ten has stalled. Not any per calibrated units


even on the inside scoop, day ten still holds. To make a reef tank packed in rock and warmed, fast-moving water not be ready by day ten we have to create a cycle that nobody in reefing would do

if we spot check any arrangement in reefing, it’s good to go by day ten. The more and more seneye logs uploaded to the web the more we can see the universal controls afforded by these motion/volume/placement of rock models we all pretty much copy from one another.

one aquarists does it in a 250 gallon tank, another person does the scaling of a reef tank in a 3 gallon tank, and seneyes hooked to both show ammonia control only varying *hundredths* ppm between very different aquariums all by the same timing date. That’s amazing, whoever wrote a cycling chart got it pretty darn right. Must have been Nostradamus