How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

[KevPool]

So I can't find any information on the ammonia% of MicrōBacter Quik Cycl if I use the default on the calculator of 9.5% with my volume it suggests 0.24ml.

I think what I will do is a complete water change in the morning. I probably won't get all of the water out of the sand as I don't want the rock to stay out of water for very long but I will do my best to get most of it out.

Since the total volume of water is around 3-3.5 gal after you include 10 lbs of sand and 6-8 lbs of rock plus the two bags of filter media I have in the return I will know for certain the total volume once I pour a 5 gal jug in from what's left in the jug.

I will do several tests in the first few hours, honestly I really don't mind doing that as I have the day off and it is snowing here.

My only concern is adding more liquid ammonia but I will take your lead on whatever you suggest.

Have a question would it be beneficial for me to drop a heater into my jug to get the water up to 78° so I'm not waiting for the tank to heat back up? Just thinking it might a good idea.

Btw I am very new to saltwater so this is a great learning experience.

Thanks man

 

[brandon429]

Hey for sure the best heating way for change water is set the saltwater container in a kitchen sink of hot water for five mins or so

take bucket out of water and swirl around a sec, then set in a thermometer to check temps, will bring up mixed water faster than heating. I personally wouldn’t mess with re testing ammonia again you’ve met their time duration directions on the bottle

if some snails and a cuc cant live in there after the new water, they killed them. I do not think they will die, your test kits shows conversion working as norm. To re test ammonia if you like is still fun and we can use the pics of the confirmation matched to brightwell instructions as a nice test, either way is fine.

 

[KevPool]

So for my cuc since it's such a small area and I've started with dry rock would you suggest?

 

[brandon429]

Any of the common snails are fine, a five dollar frag of red or blue mushrooms stuck on a smallrock is no foul, considering the one day full reefs out there. You’re a good while in is why that’s not a profane recommendation. Plus they import actual reef strains vs bottle bac strains, new frag additions, it begins the reef transformation.


the single most beneficial thing you can do for the reef above all is add one small chunk of someone’s truly best live rock, with coralline and ridges and nearly all red or purple hues with projections and spiky growths, that kind. Put in the size of a fist after we see if the initial bioload lives, so we know if the cycle was ever stuck. We need that closure + test kit comparison
If you wanted a cleaner start, no live rock cheats that can be had too

just naming the single lowest work highest coral and animal support option cheat.

snails of any species are ideal. One can die in anyones new addition, but for true nh3 non control they’re all incredibly sensitive and will die as a group if the system is not cycled and cycling charts are wrong for ammonia control dates. It is a good test for science to add some snails, after the brand new water and add one sinking pellet for them all to share no more for a few days, we track that initial load out. That would be a huge contribution to the thread in fact.

if they die then it’s me recommending it and brightwell label directions being in question lol I think they will live. We want to see if aquarium start dates can be safely modulated, so people can take action safely for various reasons


the rules we want to use to try and save thousands of reef tanks from recycle loss are: duration underwater matched to a cycling chart for ammonia is the initial factor, testing can be used to evaluate, but not for zero levels. Presence on the test kit can be used as verification in different ways other than zero ammonia, zero nitrite and some nitrate before allowing a reef start. all nitrogen species showing on test kits but stuck is the classic findings in a stuck cycle-they’re usually false alarms our new studies show.

having met the directions date on the bottle used factors, ammonia and or direct feeding applied will generate a functioning bioslick. Every time. How wastewater tests out on entry level test kits ranges tank to tank, and doesn’t govern cycle compliance accurately tank to tank. Cycle chart timing does
we need to know if thats true mostly, or always.

 

[brandon429]

A thread tracking the incidence of seneye nh3 misreads

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/using-seneye-reef-readings-to-cycle-tank.773299/ there are two more, I want to log these in one thread so we can begin patterning. I’ll go find the others in no way does that reef above have tenths ppm nh3 but thats not been proven, yet.

www.reef2reef.com

that thread this is very neat for us, posted on the most recent update is a seneye chart for a running reef showing raw ammonia being added in the morning and what the baseline was for the ammonia before the addition. It takes only 1.5 hours to totally process the boost of ammonia, this is fascinating data.

look up the nh3 conversion rates, the consistent ppm range for nh3, in ocean/reef water. It matches closely the ranges shown on the working / adjusted slide seneye meter vs the misreading/bad slide reading.

we can see using calibrated seneye readings that colorimetric test kits take too long to indicate change compared to what’s really going on, I think this factors in the low end alerts that cause so much concern for testers. Accurate feedback on what ammonia does and by when is a big deal for cycling science.

 

[KevPool]

I have to run out for about an hour I will send the next set when I get back.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[KevPool]

So really no change in a couple hours of will do another test this evening and post it.

 

[KevPool]

Not much of a change Brandon

NO3 is 5
NH3/NH4 0.2

 

[brandon429]

The levels you report above we can find in hundreds of fully working reefs. It’s not that those reefs have the levels, it’s that the test kits report those levels for everyone commonly

We need either the animals in the tank or the three picture ammonia test


it’s the only way to make this thread different than literally every other cycling thread where zero timed start dates can be had, and 100% of tanks cycled will take longer than the directions say on the bottle. Now that we’ve seen the logged three parameter readings, time to work one of the two final assessments

 

[KevPool]

So it's morning in the tank the lights are doing the sunrise ramp up for the next hour and the cuc is looking great. When the lights started the ramp up they started to wake up a bit more and move around they all seem quite normal.

My heater crapped out so I had to throw a larger one in till I can go pick up another one for the back chamber.

This morning's tests seemed to be fine

Ammonia 0.4

Nitrite 0.2

Nitrate 5.0

If we look at the ammonia tests there was a small swing I noted last night of 0.8 but is down this morning. So yesterday's tests were as follows on ammonia.
11am 0.2
1pm 0.2
5pm 0.4
11pm 0.8
This morning 9 am 0.4

The cuc consists of 3 turbo snails, and two blue legged hermit crabs, I also added two mushrooms a Red Discoma and Green Discoma.

 

[KevPool]

I also added these.

 

[brandon429]

Now we are rock and rolling.


Getting to see the test kit pictures alongside the context of the living animals, thats what we are about. we get to compare and contrast the clear outcomes from the kits with the biology of the tank and the immediate water quality, though in 90 days dry rock starts are known to get some cloudy blooms from various causes


those pods they have for populating reefs I did not know about, I’m about to order some now off your post. New product I didn’t know about


my reef is deep cleaned sometimes and it’s robbed all the pods.

 

[brandon429]

right now your test is contributing to new vs old cycling science. We are mid test, outcome not known yet which is why it’s so fun

since the water was changed we know the only filter bacteria left are the ones stuck to surfaces, talk about isolating the activity zone. No water borne bacteria get to help now

truly are the crabs or snails acting in any way burned?

I’m not sure how we’d see that in a crab, I guess he wouldn’t be crawling about- Any snails pulled in tight/not extended?

when fish are ammonia burned, their gills are reddened inflamed and they dart about, refuse to feed, and die in a day.

 

[DVal]

Update: over a week in and everything is good! Ammonia and nitrite still undetectable. Nitrate is coming down at 17.

 

[brandon429]

The real fun is when the nitrite shows 1ppm still and the ammonia .25


we’d factor that 0% when holding course. The test kits seem pretty decent if they’re registering the classic three param harmony

 

[Delouise]

Today is Day 23 from first dosing Dr. Tim’s. Dosed NH on day 15 back up to 2ppm, with a zero reading on day 17. However my NO skyrocketed to what you see in the pic. By day 19. So, don’t worry and add fish?

 

[brandon429]

Yes and that’s a quick one. past bottle bac dates from directions, has moved ammonia demonstrably, other two don’t factor other than nitrate is a handy confirming param


this in the presence of rocks and sand in the display / surface area to be colonized these last two weeks = can start per this thread. Thank you very much for posting. Pls update with animals in tow


using fish will work, but that removes fallow and quarantine options be sure this is your direction. If I had a nano, it would likely be only two clowns total, not an array of fish, maybe that can get away with some disease wiggle room but diverse eventual fish loading/ most reefs really have to consider what the disease forum is using to fix diseases, we should factor that into fish start date. Controlling the nh3 will be easy.

the re test of ammonia isn’t required if at one time that ammonia reading, looking close to legit api zero, was once greenish.

 

[brandon429]

Ok team


who out there is cycling a new tank?



and their tests register all params. All three at the same time... and it’s angering and confusing to only have half the bacteria you need but all the attachment points an aquarium could ever want.


and you’re twice past the number of days on the bottle directions timeframe

lets get your water changed and move on, post em up it’s Black Friday no cycle is stuck day.



team got any updates on forward progress taken, either adding animals or running an ammonia movement test, on current test tanks already posted?

also updated: all brightwell bottle bac strains are now 30 day timeframes regardless of the bottle directions. It’s not that they stall, they just have incredibly slow bacteria to perform ammonia movement at day ten in about ten threads so far-patterns are what we track. A stall isn’t all brightwell posts taking a month, that’s literally how long it’s taking. A sixty day issue would be a brightwell stall.

 

[brandon429]

Kev your tank how’s it running this is a good several days now

if the water stayed clean and no mass dieoffs that’s ideal. Dirty water / fast cloudy water and nearly all animals lost corals would likely still survive would be ammonia non control.


if the test kit still shows some, thats a non seneye kit doing its best to report an active conversion rate in the thousandths

but if that water clouded and the snails all died in two days, that was not enough bacteria in place. True non control and I bet free ammonia would spike to the tenths if that happened.

 

[KevPool]

so last weekend I added these two clowns they have been doing great, also on Tuesday I picked up some frags that were on sale, my parameters have been great almost all week on Monday evening the ammonia was at 0.8 but was back down to almost 0 the next morning when I checked before work.

Sorry for the delay on updated parameters it's been a busy week. Also I've started my next project.

I'm building a sump room that will also have a wall tank and feed a tank upstairs in my living room. When I get home from work tonight I will test for my ammonia nitrite and nitrate and post it here, tomorrow is water change day I will be doing a 10% change.

It will take me awhile to get this new system up and running but let's test on that with the same kit recording everything from day 1 to give MicrōBacter Dry rock starter kit a second run and see how it would be on a larger system.