Please help! New to cycling a tank

[brandon429]

that's a new one, hadn't had that come up before not sure.

Bac are pretty forgiving, we always operate on the premise that they're 30 times tougher than given credit for. However, online studies show the bacteria that do nitrification differ starkly between fw and sw, so, if someone is selling a retail bottle Id like to hope its the sw version for sw etc.

That's really neat to ponder, Id love to see a simple side by side cycle test done between the two so we can track outcomes. I don't recall any post on that matter to have been able to see the outcomes.


one last funny confound....cycles require literally nothing from us to cycle other than basic hydration. Nature has reserves of both fw and sw strains that we contaminate into our tanks anyway, and given enough time, the right strains fix in place and compete the others out

Nature has all the bac reserves to seed brackish, sw and fw, if a keeper of that type of biome simply fills the right type of water and waits a good few months.

natural ammonia gets in (that gnat that flew in last nite you didn't see) our ***** hands input all kinds of non filtration bac during setup...when those hydrate then die, they release ammonia etc

nature does cycling fine, its only us that are in a rush so we add that stuff to hurry up!

where im heading is, given enough time, your tank will cycle no matter what you add to it (shy of meds of course) though I don't know if the fw strains can perform the 30 day trick in sw, we'd have to test to know. Even if you added the wrong strains, the right ones are vectoring into the tank anyway as we speak.

 

[Tryndle]

Nope, it shouldn't.

Ok this is crazy, I just tested my water today and I’m pretty sure it’s the API test kit or something. I have about .5 ppm nitrite and 0 nitrates. Doesn’t make any sense. So should I add more ammonia today? It’s at 0 I did add a lot more fresh water to my tank, I did test the salinity and it was at 1.026 after I added the water so that was fine, but do you think that’s what changed my levels so much?

 

[tankstudy]

Did you do a large water change?

A new tank, generally, can't consume 80 ppm nitrate that fast.

 

[Homelander]

It looks like everyone else has your cycling problem pretty well covered so i'll just say

Welcome to R2R!!

 

[Tryndle]

Did you do a large water change?

A new tank, generally, can't consume 80 ppm nitrate that fast.

No water change yet, I only added water to my tank last night because a lot was evaporating

 

[Tryndle]

Did you do a large water change?

A new tank, generally, can't consume 80 ppm nitrate that fast.

Also I mis informed you, I didn’t wait long enough for the test to kick in for nitrates. My nitrates are actually at 5.0 ppm. I don’t know how I got 80ppm yesterday..

 

[tankstudy]

Okay, so your at 5 ppm nitrates and 0.5 ppm nitrites?

 

[Tryndle]

Okay, so your at 5 ppm nitrates and 0.5 ppm nitrites?

Correct, and 0 ammonia

 

[tankstudy]

Alright if those are your numbers, what you want to do now is just wait.

Let 0.5 ppm nitrites go all the way down to 0 ppm.

Once nitrites hit 0, add enough ammonia to equal 2 ppm in your system. Do not add and test to see if you have 2 ppm ammonia once you add, cause it will not show up on your test kit properly. If your using a known concentration of ammonia, most of the times, it'll tell you that X amount of drops in X gallons will equate to a certain amount of ppm of ammonia.

Once you add, wait 24 hours, test your water parameters again. At this point 2 things can happen.

• If ammonia and nitrites both hit 0 in 24 hours, your tank is cycled.
• If they are not zero in 24 hours, wait for them to both hit zero again. Now repeat the 2 ppm again, once they are both zero, and test in 24 hours to see if your tank can process it 24 hours. If your system can, it is cycled, if it isn't, repeat again.

 

[Tryndle]

Alright if those are your numbers, what you want to do now is just wait.

Let 0.5 ppm nitrites go all the way down to 0 ppm.

Once nitrites hit 0, add enough ammonia to equal 2 ppm in your system. Do not add and test to see if you have 2 ppm ammonia once you add, cause it will not show up on your test kit properly. If your using a known concentration of ammonia, most of the times, it'll tell you that X amount of drops in X gallons will equate to a certain amount of ppm of ammonia.

Once you add, wait 24 hours, test your water parameters again. At this point 2 things can happen.

• If ammonia and nitrites both hit 0 in 24 hours, your tank is cycled.
• If they are not zero in 24 hours, wait for them to both hit zero again. Now repeat the 2 ppm again, once they are both zero, and test in 24 hours to see if your tank can process it 24 hours. If your system can, it is cycled, if it isn't, repeat again.

Ok thank you for this information il definitely let you know how it goes!

 

[Tryndle]

Alright if those are your numbers, what you want to do now is just wait.

Let 0.5 ppm nitrites go all the way down to 0 ppm.

Once nitrites hit 0, add enough ammonia to equal 2 ppm in your system. Do not add and test to see if you have 2 ppm ammonia once you add, cause it will not show up on your test kit properly. If your using a known concentration of ammonia, most of the times, it'll tell you that X amount of drops in X gallons will equate to a certain amount of ppm of ammonia.

Once you add, wait 24 hours, test your water parameters again. At this point 2 things can happen.

• If ammonia and nitrites both hit 0 in 24 hours, your tank is cycled.
• If they are not zero in 24 hours, wait for them to both hit zero again. Now repeat the 2 ppm again, once they are both zero, and test in 24 hours to see if your tank can process it 24 hours. If your system can, it is cycled, if it isn't, repeat again.

Hey another question, when my tank is done cycling, would it be ok to add two clowns right away? And maybe a snail? And if I get clown fish, are food pellets ok to feed them? Or should I buy live food?

 

[Brew12]

Hey another question, when my tank is done cycling, would it be ok to add two clowns right away? And maybe a snail? And if I get clown fish, are food pellets ok to feed them? Or should I buy live food?

Yup, 2 clowns are a great first addition to a tank. You will want to add a group of snails (CuC for Clean Up Crew) as soon as you start seeing algae growth. Pellets and flake are ok, just go with high quality. I do recommend frozen at least occasionally.

Some things on your cycle I wanted to comment on.

The 5ppm limit on ammonia and nitrite isn't that it will hurt the existing bacteria. Dr Tim was involved in a study that shows different strains of nitrifying bacteria process high ammonia/nitrite levels than do at lower levels. You don't have to do a water change if you don't want to, it will just slow down the growth of the desired bacteria strains.

I also want to let you know you will never be able to get an accurate nitrate test if you have nitrites in your water. Nitrate tests work by breaking the nitrates down into nitrites which can be measured. It is common to get large swings and crazy results if you have any nitrites in your system.

 

[sdcosta]

I'd wait until you have algae or something in there for those snails to eat before adding them, otherwise they will just starve.

 

[Tryndle]

Hey, so is there another way to get rid of nitrate besides water changes?

 

[Brew12]

Hey, so is there another way to get rid of nitrate besides water changes?

Water changes are typically the fastest and easiest but there are other ways.
Growing algae in a refugium or auto turf scrubber is a great way to remove nitrates.
Skimmers remove nitrates.
You can get a brick of bio media and put it in a low flow area of your sump to create an anaerobic zone. The last part of the nitrogen cycle, which rarely gets talked about, is converting nitrates to nitrogen gas. This happens naturally deep within live rock but the man made media bricks are a little more effective.
You can also dose carbon (such as vodka or vinegar) to reduce nitrates. This feeds bacteria and the rapid bacteria growth consumes nitrates.

Lots of other options!