How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

[f16dryver]

I'm at at 2/0/5 (api/sali/sali) at day 10 after Dr tim's. Been this way since day 1 after adding bac and ammonia.

Thing is, I tested before dosing ammonia and it read 0. Tested the other aquarium and it read 0. And I'm too green now to try the calibrated approach.

Thoughts?

 

[f16dryver]

Here's the result from other tank. Same test kit.

Showed the same when I first tested before dosing ammonia in the new tank

 

[brandon429]

Extremely fast airplane pilot thank you for posting! That brings to mind the few times Taricha and Dr. Reef said they rec’d dead bottles for testing

and on the flip side one of our first links from page one was just like that and still passed adjusted testing


now that you have given the ideal time for Dr Tim’s to work and coat surfaces it’s hard to imagine zero ability of surfaces, is this cycling tank too large to do the adjusted test/ hope it’s not a hundred gallon system

it would be neat to get the suspect tank changed out for known safe water, benchmark the readings again for proofing now that biofilms are available on surfaces, and re dose that api back to barely green vs deep green, aka the calibrated test (the lowest increment of change up from the calibrated zero reset, so we can clearly see if it moves down by tomorrow)


you’ve also got time on your side, this duration you mention is 90% the time required from a cycling chart for ammonia control as well, plus it’s been fed and boosted unless the bottle was doornail dead…very rare evens

curious how hard it would be to change out the water now?

those tests have a lag time that digital tests don’t have. I like this realignment scheme because it brings down sensitive levels to a degree we can see better, across titration kits. * also possible if tank is big* remove a bunch of those sitting rocks, place in five gallon bucket of clean swater and proof it all at that dilution.

I can’t see why working with smaller dilutions and high relative surface area wouldn’t reveal action or inaction from the suspect rocks to be verified?

 

[f16dryver]

Extremely fast airplane pilot thank you for posting! That brings to mind the few times Taricha and Dr. Reef said they rec’d dead bottles for testing

and on the flip side one of our first links from page one was just like that and still passed adjusted testing


now that you have given the ideal time for Dr Tim’s to work and coat surfaces it’s hard to imagine zero ability of surfaces, is this cycling tank too large to do the adjusted test/ hope it’s not a hundred gallon system

it would be neat to get the suspect tank changed out for known safe water, benchmark the readings again for proofing now that biofilms are available on surfaces, and re dose that api back to barely green vs deep green, aka the calibrated test (the lowest increment of change up from the calibrated zero reset, so we can clearly see if it moves down by tomorrow)


you’ve also got time on your side, this duration you mention is 90% the time required from a cycling chart for ammonia control as well, plus it’s been fed and boosted unless the bottle was doornail dead…very rare evens

curious how hard it would be to change out the water now?

those tests have a lag time that digital tests don’t have. I like this realignment scheme because it brings down sensitive levels to a degree we can see better, across titration kits. * also possible if tank is big* remove a bunch of those sitting rocks, place in five gallon bucket of clean swater and proof it all at that dilution.

I can’t see why working with smaller dilutions and high relative surface area wouldn’t reveal action or inaction from the suspect rocks to be verified?

No, thank you guys for posting really good info to advance the hobby.

I've cycled many tanks in my years, first time with bottled bac. The shrimp method should have at least shown some nitrites at this stage.

So if I've read that right, I'll do a large water change, then take a new baseline. Thereafter, dose an increment to next color shade, and see if the color defaults to baseline after 48 hrs.

I have a 100gal but with a saltmixing station capable of almost a 100% change capability. I'll do this over the next 2 days and report back

 

[f16dryver]

As in preparing the water for tomorrow's big water change event, I realised I have a bottle of stability, yet another bac in a bottle product.

Should I just dose that now and see if my ammonia drops over the next few days. I say that because I suspect after the water change, baseline measurement and additional ammonia, I'll prolly be stagnated again. Its a gut feel with no measurable nitrite and small nitrates that prolly came from the seeding bottles.

 

[brandon429]

hey I hate to see that much water used my gosh I know its perfect prep water/tds all set etc

if it fails Ill feel bad we wasted literally sixty bucks+ or so of fine water.

how about the bucket dilution test? remove fifteen pounds of rock, place in 5 gallon bucket of clean water and run the calibration? I really think its a decent indication of activity/surface area

then if it passes about half water change on the big tank will do, you can reef by then. I dont think that's leaving half free ammonia to burn em either, I think its reducing that which causes test interference, if any, but I never suspect free ammonia after ten days fed, and on Dr. Tim's. there's merely interference from the huge initial 2ppm jolt we are told to place in, and our calibration streamlines that jolt into something measurable.

this bucket side test really seems very conservative of funds and clean water/can use for the legit clean start. I dont think we need to heat the test bucket this time of year, merely airstone circulate and keep relatively topped off to initial fill level for basic salinity control, nothing precise required. these bac r flexible we think.

 

[brandon429]

not sure how many rocks it'll take to fill up half the bucket but that's decent rep of a typical reef contact area/movement zone for waste water. *also watch out for how much renewed ammonia its taking to cause that slight rise

on many many kits the lag has us dosing way too much again, then we're back to solid green. I recommend small dose then if you notice its not creeping, be skeptical of that potential lag. it may not happen, but something to watch out for in the calibration step. Any decent titration test should be able to register drops of liquid ammonia into a bucket test, if not, I dont like that test then. lol that's its basic job in life.

but if it shows a true slight increase, and you didnt add much ammonia, and it can't move withing 24-48 hours/truly stuck that's literally the first one in fifteen pages. that bottle would have to be dang dead not a cell alive to be that much of a dud

why would I double my production time from 24-48 hours? giving lag time. if it can't move after 48 hours then the total skeptic will be convinced. and if it works, change out about half your water for new, a full change will not be required it'll be interference on the tests causing the remaining elevated reading, and it'll be safe to start. Choose the fish disease protocol wisely, we think that's the #1 risk and not the incomplete cycle.

 

[f16dryver]

OK ready for more confusion?

Used an ammonia badge. This was when it first went in.

After 30mins


And here's another test done with the api. Bear in mind the api does test no ammonia/yellow on my other tank



So I figured I'll be doing a full water change anyway, and have some ammonia left, so let's do the bucket test but with the full tank instead.

Dosed another 10ml to add 1ppm to my tank volume


We're here now after 30mins. Only a slight darker green than before

 

[brandon429]

Those two non digital kits don't agree, that's the pattern we usually see in cycle issue threads. The badge looks safe zone initially.
That's a neat pic.


I noticed you mentioned dosing up to 1 ppm

When you run the calibration test make sure to show the first api pic in the known zero ammonia condition so we can see if it registers zero when rocks with bioslicks are present. Don't dose the test tank to 1 ppm, that will overdrive the kit again. To get the bare indication change for api pic 2 we can't aim for a target by dosing the known amount, we dose drops, tiny increments until the test reacts and if they can't register a change when the amount of .25 ppm has been added then the test is so inaccurate its not useful.

But if a few drops, .25 worth ammonia does move it, that kit is sensitive and we can watch for third api pic back to baseline in a day or two


The idea of dosing 1-2 ppm ammonia has no basis in cycle assessment. many of today's test kits can't deal with that blast and a starting bioload that runs daily with feed isn't producing that much ammonia per hour anyway.

Bottle bac sellers wrote today's cycling rules.


By having everyone dose way over what their test kits can handle, coincidentally cyclers buy more bottle bac after having added some, because the tester says cycle stuck.

It's handy to see that disparity in reporting between simple seachem discs and api.

 

[Garf]

Badge is free ammonia, API is total ammonia. Different animals which vary depending on largely pH, but other factors as temperature.

 

[f16dryver]

Badge is free ammonia, API is total ammonia. Different animals which vary depending on largely pH, but other factors as temperature.

Interesting. So possibly free ammonia or nh3 is low while nh4 is high. And the titration kits boost ph which converts nh4 into nh3 and hence the super high reading.

Now the question is, by adding nh4cl, how much turns to toxic nh3 and how much become nh4.

@Randy Holmes-Farley thoughts?

 

[f16dryver]

I'll be measuring pH tomorrow. It could be I have an extremely acidic tank.

So here's the changes after adding 1ppm nh4cl


This has gone a shade up from 2 but not as dark at 4




And this has gone to 0.05ppm



So for every 10ml of nh4cl I add, it raises TAN by 1ppm, nh3 by 0.05, does this mean that 0.95 comes from nh4?

 

[Cell]

Tank cycling

I've just setup a 100gallon tank and has been cycling for about 5 weeks...ive been testing and everything seemed fine .... But now I'm only getting ammonia reading at about 0.50 and not seeing any nitrite or nitrate...is my tank cycled??

www.nano-reef.com

Look how bad nano-reef.com needs our thread here. Anyone with a dual membership, link us to them for cross site study and testing. I bet if he adds life right now, it lives as our pages show. that's typical no TAN api test kit evaluation the peers who are telling him he's not cycled are doing

Dan_P explained TAN conversions to me not long ago and that's helped discern the nature of these false stuck cycle threads.

I dont post there but rtr and nr.com are friendly forums, nobody from either site minds cross linking. Id be curious to see if they consider, or instantly disregard our fifteen pages of cycles that directly match that one above and are now solved.

after TAN conversion on the stated ranges above. those tanks are starting at 2ppm free ammonia and moving down to .05 or .025, a massive movement that only a cycled tank can run. on seneye they'd never have this concern as of 4 weeks ago


They had him buy more bottled bac, and still told him it wasnt ready.
show them this post and we can do a cross forum analysis.

My goodness that thread is painful to read. Its really remarkable that one of the few concrete, universal processes that exists in reefing has this much confusion and ignorance surrounding it. If the industry leaders weren't also trying to make money off cycling, perhaps we would be further along.

 

[Garf]

Interesting. So possibly free ammonia or nh3 is low while nh4 is high. And the titration kits boost ph which converts nh4 into nh3 and hence the super high reading.

Now the question is, by adding nh4cl, how much turns to toxic nh3 and how much become nh4.

@Randy Holmes-Farley thoughts?

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-02/rhf/index.php

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Interesting. So possibly free ammonia or nh3 is low while nh4 is high. And the titration kits boost ph which converts nh4 into nh3 and hence the super high reading.

Now the question is, by adding nh4cl, how much turns to toxic nh3 and how much become nh4.

@Randy Holmes-Farley thoughts?

The fraction of each form depends only on pH:

Ammonia and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

 

[brandon429]

Team remember this thread isn't like the others, f15 you haven't acidified anything that affects our start date calls.
You're test kits aren't digital, we think they're useless in today's cycling. Our thread does not approach any of those tests as reliable or consistent or not the cause of the greatest fallacy in reefing.

If you added fish to the changed water big tank, they'd live fine displaying all symptoms not associated with being burnt by ammonia noncontrol, ie every ammonia help thread ever posted till we see an alternate. I value the chemistry bigtime on discerning nh4/3 status but f15flyer your cycle has already been tracked out pages before, it's like jackalexanders initial post. it'll have the same outcome.



We need to see the calibrated run, this tank water is jacked to the sky and even a 98% water change probably leaves enough error floating around to affect api at this point.

 

[brandon429]

Back to links we can study over time.

Cycling 100g

I started cycling my 100g with dead rock 3 weeks ago. I started off with adding ammonia until it was at 2 ppm and also added a bottle of micobacter start xlm. The ammonia reading right now is 0 ppm, nitrites are at 20ppm and nitrates are at 10ppm. Do I need to keep adding ammonia or should I...

www.reef2reef.com

Classic false stuck cycle, nitrite hesitation, this cycle was done before he posted. See how quick the new way is to name a start date

And we're here and available for feedback on fails for any bad calls

Notice how old cycling science will never allow a pinpointed start date, we wait till the tests allow. We are polar opposite in every mode here


F15 your start date is right now. Change water add fish. That doesn't mean all kinds of testing variance, light in the room being dim+hard to read can't make api fail even my calibrated test. Your start date comes from the others tested for Dr Tims and the fact it's the most used fish in cycle bottle bac. They don't even wait ten days to add the bioload, which does fine

 

[brandon429]

Anyone with a demonstrably tuned and calibrated seneye... you post findings we'll get out the notepads. I would not doubt the findings at all considering the patterns I've seen for only that aspect of the meter.

Let the record reflect only seneye gets respect here the other testers are the sole source of problems.

 

[Garf]

Any chance you can admit a cycle can stall, even if temporarily?

 

[f16dryver]

The fraction of each form depends only on pH:

Ammonia and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

Thanks @Randy Holmes-Farley, your article really helped and it also matches the ratio in my tank. Measured pH and its at 7.9 and that's close to a 5:95 ratio.


So is this a common result of fishless cycling with nh4cl, where there's a high resultant nh4 when the cycle is done?

And is nh4 left completely untouched by the nitrifying bacteria?