Overdosed Dr Tims Ammonia

[TerryG]

Hi All! I currently started cycling my new tank 9-10 days ago using dr tims one and only and dr tims ammonia. Since starting my ammonia has been off the charts! I think I just realised why.. it’s because I over doses the ammonia.. my bottle said treats 394 litres and my tank is 640 litres so I just put the whole bottle in.. I did a 10% water change on Sunday and have started only just to see a drop in ammonia to roughly 2ppm from possibly 8ppm. I’m using Red Sea and api test. I put in a bottle of api quick start as well just in case I had killed all the bacteria with the ammonia and I recently put half a bottle of stability by sea Chem.. I have also put most of my live rock from my other tank into the new one but nothing has really changed. My current parameters are ph 8, nitrite 0.5-1, ammonia from 8ppm to 2ppm, and nitrates 10.. what do I have to do to get my tank cycled? My other tank was set up completely different so I’m a bit stuck

 

[jim_fitz]

i wouldnt do anything for a while

other than testing to confirm the ammonia is falling

 

[brandon429]

live rock= skip cycle none of this was necessary. and its not dead, just well fed now

change your water, reef, this is a skip cycle if you used anywhere near 15-20 pounds of real live rock. that will carry any known bioload in reefing, a skip cycle.

you dont have a way to know your actual ammonia, it's not what you are seeing at all. Those kits are fouled by gross ammonia overdoses and take days in lag time to recover. one big water change, add fish, they live, it's as simple as that. skip cycle. if you owned a seneye, I bet it's passing right now.

in no way shape or form did you kill cycling bac, you roid fed them for a spell. change water and begin, there is no bioload that can overcome 15 pounds or + of cured live rock in the middle of a display, it'll skip cycle for any known common bioloading.

the correct way to do this cycle: add no bottle bac

add no ammonia

simply set your live rocks among new dry rocks and continue on in a new tank, you didn't need coverage from the new rocks to help, the live xferred over was enough. the new rocks catch on bac within 20 days of contact, you dont feed or boost or test anything.

so, change water, stop testing with misreading kits, and reef using a known skip cycle technique that runs all reef conventions all the time for thirty years all entrants never fail.

cycle stalling is a notion given to forum cyclers, to promote fear in cycling, so they repeat buy suspected killed bottle bac. you did not kill your bacteria, you hyperfed them and they're thanking you currently. the water change is the equalizing guaranteed ready start. if you used 1 pound of live rock lol then that's too little for a skip cycle.

post a tank pic, so we can see your ratios and placement of the cured rock


100+ skip cycle reefs here to read. corals, fish, perfection. 0 wait days after setup.

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

This is a testless cycling thread, we don't want ammonia testing here for any job if possible, because we are teaching reefers/readers that moving live rocks system to system does not restart the cycle: many in our community don't understand that rule and feel that any tank being setup simply...

www.reef2reef.com

*nothing good happens fast in reefing. is that collection of fast wins, or fast fails above

is that not 100 instant start reefs, tracked out to full sps and lps inclusion?

 

[Reefer Matt]

I would let your tank run without adding or doing anything for a couple more weeks. There is a huge difference between a cycled tank, and an established tank. Depending on your goals, you will want to exercise more patience. Nothing good happens fast in reefing.

 

[taricha]

My current parameters are ph 8, nitrite 0.5-1, ammonia from 8ppm to 2ppm,

NO2 production tells you that in fact things are going correctly. You just have high ammonia so it's hard to track the decrease on the test kit. It'll take longer to see it drop from that high, like Brandon said.


you can do a water change if you want to bring ammonia in range of your test kit, but it'll have no effect on your cycling time whether you do or don't do a water change.