Instant Tank Cycle

[brandon429]

ok now its done. analysis complete heh

last step: digestion by the thread OP/it's hard to grasp you don't need to buy something, test something, hesitate further in any way. they want to do just that. peers don't let them have it any other way

remember a mere 7 pages ago we were told no reef tank could be deemed cycled off a tank pic.

 

[brandon429]

we can for sure know if a tank is cycled if we're lucky enough to have benthic visual cues in place.

that one has two: coralline + huge mat of diatoms.

 

[brandon429]

in a world of for-charge reef tank testing


it's nice to have a testless cycling option. this thread charts the evolution of for-charge reef tank testing in interesting ways in my opinion

to this day: we cycle dry start setups and live rock setups, any reef tank setup, without testing.

in threads like these:

cycle any dry start/bottle bac setup without testing:

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

Updated Cycling Science in Action This is a testless reef tank cycling thread, the only one from any board. If you ever had trouble with reef tank cycling in the past, you won't any longer after working some jobs with us. chances are you are using/about to use a method of reef tank cycling...

www.reef2reef.com

cycles any live rock transfer without testing:

A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

I'm at river city Aquatics in Austin rn Now this is skip cycle live rock If kept wet in saltwater it will not: Starve Get uncycled Fail to skip cycle Cause a mini cycle See all the coralline The bottom of the tank has pods and micro brittle stars, all healthy proof of being cycled with no...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

Aquabiomics = Eli from page one:

Hey was this cycle able to be visually verified? Any word on the others I've back edited in here for four years?

Modified API Test Results

Hello, After seeing a post about Dan_P’s modified API ammonia test. I decided to give it a try since I’ve been getting the .25 Ammonia reading on API for a month now (my tank is six weeks old and has 0 nitrites and 10-20 Nitrates). I’ve tried the Seachem Ammonia test to compare and the results...

www.reef2reef.com

Testing for the cycle was stated as required by you, was that true in hindsight?

I never trusted the for charge testing that followed shortly after this exchange. It's riding a wave of false doubt, seeds were created here above.

 

[brandon429]

Every time we find a skip cycle gem in work threads i think of this thread.

Few more visual verified cycles:

New to reefing, did I skip the cycling process?

So about 2 weeks ago I setup my first saltwater tank, a fluval evo 13.5g. I put in some sand and saltwater and let it run for about a week and a half. I purchased some live rock from an existing aquarium and added it to my tank and it's been 4 days and all my parameters are perfect, ph of 8...

www.reef2reef.com

Skip Cycle with Live rock and Life Rock ?

Hey guys, I just started up my second reef tank. Waterbox Cube 20, I built a life rock reef scape and am adding in live rock, some in my mid chamber and some in the display to skip cycle. I know this isn’t a pure skip with the life rock but can I swing it as a skip because of the Live I have in...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

Red Seas Ammonia test always sets high ammonia

I'm using Red Sea's Ammonia test and always appears high ammonia level +2, +1.5, has happened something like this to you? I also have a seachem Ammonia alert that shows wcerything correcto

www.reef2reef.com

Following Eli’s advice from page one and two here, that posters cycle is broken because Red Sea says so

Eli said the only way to know a cycle is done is to test for it, he didn’t give any other qualifiers

and I think that’s by design.


why didn’t Eli give us feedback on page one or two about the impacts of mis testing in reefing? The way it might lead people to make wasted purchases or make unneeded responsive reef tank changes? he has to sell it that way in order to drive business.

if people don’t need reef testing like it’s painted to be needed, a revenue stream dries up


If there’s any doubt in the validity of for-charge DNA testing, it won’t be the hot button topic of the millennia. When the Ted talk comes I’ll know the fleece is complete.

 

[brandon429]

I want to state how tight the parameters are for me to update this thread:

one sole criteria determines each update: did a picture of the reef tank determine the certain cycle end date


answer for 5/6/24, yes.

What is best way to start cycle if you desire to do it slowly

The following is image I just took, I had one shrimp in panty hose and I not sure Coral is active. One of Hermits in lower right.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

there's a lot of free cycles are logged here, all testless cycles worked.

 

[brandon429]

we have not even discerned the degree % of live to dry rock in that system yet from post 147, I'm posting this here before he's finalized what % of that is dry vs cured live rock

the reason I didn't need the answer is the overriding blanket of green algae on both surfaces

that means both surfaces are cycled, the rule of visual benthic growth verification applies here/pigmented surfaces like that indicate cycled for basic ammonia control, even after a thorough cleaning of the tank. truly cycled.

 

[brandon429]

Eli, Aquabiomics, this one’s for you too.

Nitrite stuck on 1.0, help?

Hello, I have been cycling a 60 liters tank for about 5 weeks now, but my nitrite is stuck on 1.0 for about 1,5 weeks now. My ammonia is consistently 0 for about 2-3 weeks allready & my nitrite used to be higher (2.0 to 3.0) I used pre cycled wet rock from a running tank at the LFS. I allready...

www.reef2reef.com

How much more direct, and free of charge, can we get than that example?

We knew he was 100% cycled off the words he used, before pics, and without testing.

The reason for this thread:

Because he might get a misread, a false stuck cycle, and then think he has to buy something from you or elsewhere to unstick it. For five years we’ve been doing what you said didn’t work.

Reefers need to know that we can cycle without testing, and be very sure of the tank status using alternate clues vs paid testing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Reefers need to know that we can cycle without testing, and be very sure of the tank status using alternate clues vs paid testing.

I advise ammonia testing. Tried and true. Directly bears in the concern (ammonia). Cheap and easy.

I see no reason to do anything else. Forget driving ammonia to zero. Drop it from 2 ppm to 0.5 ppm or less (which shows a big ammonia drop while still allowing for zero point errors in a kit). Do that twice and cycling is done.

 

[MnFish1]

I advise ammonia testing. Tried and true. Directly bears in the concern (ammonia). Cheap and easy.

I see no reason to do anything else. Forget driving ammonia to zero. Drop it from 2 ppm to 0.5 ppm or less (which shows a big ammonia drop while still allowing for zero point errors in a kit). Do that twice and cycling is done.

I agree with this - I would only use this method (adding 2 ppm ammonia) in tanks in which no living things are contained (and my guess is that this is also what you meant @Randy Holmes-Farley . Meaning if someone took all of the 'stuff' from their aquarium and put it into a larger one - in theory there should be no 'cycling' involved. I would not want to document ammonia removal by adding 2 ppm. Instead in these tanks - I would also not rely on visual cues. Ammonia testing helps, has helped many people, and if done correctly, most if not all of the ammonia tests available are accurate. My guess is that I would be able to tell if there was an ammonia problem in my tank 'by sight'. Many new reefers would not be able to do so - so - to repeat, I wholly agree with total ammonia testing when changing tanks, adding new rock, etc. Routine ammonia testing in a tank thats doing well should not be necessary IMO.

 

[MnFish1]

Eli, Aquabiomics, this one’s for you too.

Nitrite stuck on 1.0, help?

Hello, I have been cycling a 60 liters tank for about 5 weeks now, but my nitrite is stuck on 1.0 for about 1,5 weeks now. My ammonia is consistently 0 for about 2-3 weeks allready & my nitrite used to be higher (2.0 to 3.0) I used pre cycled wet rock from a running tank at the LFS. I allready...

www.reef2reef.com

How much more direct, and free of charge, can we get than that example?

We knew he was 100% cycled off the words he used, before pics, and without testing.

The reason for this thread:

Because he might get a misread, a false stuck cycle, and then think he has to buy something from you or elsewhere to unstick it. For five years we’ve been doing what you said didn’t work.

Reefers need to know that we can cycle without testing, and be very sure of the tank status using alternate clues vs paid testing.

Let's take the worst case scenario - there is a misread. It's easy to solve this by having an independent repeat test done. Let's take the second worst case scenario - Someone thinks they have a stuck cycle - and buys bottled bacteria? Is that really a big issue in the general scheme of things?

I agree with you - that it's possible to cycle a tank without testing. However, I wouldn't let the small risk of a false positive ammonia level lead me to not test it. One of the main reasons is that we get many questions here on 'whats wrong with my fish'. That I just added yesterday. It is very helpful to have parameters handy to determine what is going on in the tank. Ammonia is one of those parameters. IMHO - and it would be interesting to hear Randy's perspective. In my research, the amount of obligate nitrifiers grows until they are at equilibrium with their food source. Then the population remains at steady state. If one adds 5 larger yellow tangs to a 75 gallon tank - it may very well be an ammonia spike - and one should look for that. This also goes for tanks with an unknown dead fish, etc.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree with this - I would only use this method (adding 2 ppm ammonia) in tanks in which no living things are contained (and my guess is that this is also what you meant @Randy Holmes-Farley . Meaning if someone took all of the 'stuff' from their aquarium and put it into a larger one - in theory there should be no 'cycling' involved. I would not want to document ammonia removal by adding 2 ppm. Instead in these tanks - I would also not rely on visual cues. Ammonia testing helps, has helped many people, and if done correctly, most if not all of the ammonia tests available are accurate. My guess is that I would be able to tell if there was an ammonia problem in my tank 'by sight'. Many new reefers would not be able to do so - so - to repeat, I wholly agree with total ammonia testing when changing tanks, adding new rock, etc. Routine ammonia testing in a tank thats doing well should not be necessary IMO.

I presume we are talking about cycling. That is the stated situation in the post I quoted. Hence, no animals.

 

[Garf]

Hence, no animals.

The ideal time for new people to test, make mistakes and correct the errors (both in water parameters and testing methods), in my view. Reefing apprentiship without killing stuff.

Eli, Aquabiomics, this one’s for you too.

Are you reviving this thread every 6 months? Lol

 

[MnFish1]

I presume we are talking about cycling. That is the stated situation in the post I quoted. Hence, no animals.

The reason I mentioned animals - is that one way of cycling involves adding dry rock, bottled bacteria and fish on day 1. As I said - I agree with you that testing ammonia if you are dosing it is entirely appropriate. The title of the thread is 'instant tank cycling' - which I assumed meant either adding bottled bacteria - or adding already cycled live rock.

 

[brandon429]

yep, in perpetuity. We are going to see how many hundreds of testless cycle jobs we can log without fail, free, after being clearly told by a phD five years ago it doesn't work that way. I usually back edit every 5th visual ID cycle into this thread.


we are logging both dry rock cycles, worked testlessly, and common skip cycles via live rock transfer. there is not any type of marine aquarium cycle that requires ammonia/nitrite testing using new rules that don't try and make people pay up for what we can assess freely and with visual cues from tank pictures (or known wait times)

Eli also said that wet pack Caribsea sand has no viable cycling bacteria, but we know from Taricha's testing it does. I can see that Eli is driving his readers to cost-based testing in order to feel confident about microbes in the aquarium, and I want to show by contrast how that isn't needed.

 

[brandon429]

Randy

I'm glad you advise testing for ammonia, that gives us a contrast to log non tested approaches and see what works best for reefers.

Testless cycling is being developed/proven on file for years/ to address all the shortfalls test based cycling gave us for thirty years running-->which are thousands of false stalls, millions of dollars in unneeded extra bottle bacteria purchases, zero focus on disease preps, threads that run for 20 pages with nobody agreeing on cycle status or readiness, and the lie that many cycles "didn't make it" and crashed the tank (no examples exist for that I've seen)


we are fixing up a ton of untruths that old cycling science tries to sell us.

 

[brandon429]

I find it amazing Eli won't show up to chat. I'd like to know if his stance changed on visual cycling. I would firmly bet it hasn't changed regardless of # of jobs completed visually.

 

[RoanokeReef]

I find it amazing Eli won't show up to chat. I'd like to know if his stance changed on visual cycling. I would firmly bet it hasn't changed, so we can just back edit a hundred more jobs as they arise.

Since you are using terms only you seem to use, maybe on the first page you define each? I mean who is Eli? What does Visual Cycling mean? What does old cycling science mean? What is new cycling science? A clear definition would really help get your points across easier in my opinion as you seem to use these same terms in every thread you post. It seems like you are either running your comments through google translate or are just adding words to sound smart as in context they have no meaning. It's all very confusing.