Reed tank in under a week?

[Kingy]

So I have lived my life setting up tanks the old fashioned way by adding bacteria and waiting for the nitrate spike after a few weeks / months.

However recently my parents set their saltwater tank up in less than a few days using “Nano start prodibio vials”. They have used live sand, rock and natural seawater. They are now 3 weeks in with Clownfish, Algae Blenny, Fire shrimp, hermit crabs and corals. Their tank is around 123 litres.

It looks to me as the tank itself is running pretty smooth, i might even say smoother than mine and i waited months before adding fish. The only thing they have mentioned which i cannot explain is that they have 0 ppm nitrates.

I know we’re now living in 2020 and these products exist to speed up the cycling process but I was curious are there any negatives to starting a tank this way, for around £6 it seems a no brainer to just use the vials if it has no negative repercussions.

 

[vetteguy53081]

You have 0 readings mainly because you have nothing producing waste. You could add a small piece of shrimp and allow to decay. Each day test until you see a reading and pull shrimp and see if filter/bactria brings it down. If it does- Good sign

 

[Kingy]

You have 0 readings mainly because you have nothing producing waste. You could add a small piece of shrimp and allow to decay. Each day test until you see a reading and pull shrimp and see if filter/bactria brings it down. If it does- Good sign

Hi, they have “Clownfish, Algae Blenny, Fire shrimp, hermit crabs and corals” (also forgot to mention pyjamas Cardinal, few turbo snails, royal grammar ) which all produce waste.

 

[brandon429]

There is no problem, with ammonia control.

it’s fish disease as the risk.


heres a one day all dry start reef.

Bio-spira works great

I just started a new tank a little over a week ago. I started with all dry rock and new sand. I added a bottle of Bio-Spira and put fish and coral the same day. Never saw any ammonia and fish and coral seem healthy.

www.reef2reef.com

here’s a skip cycle zero days delay live rock purchased then moved home reef:

Nano Build - Octo High End SPS Skip Cycle Build....

Amazing tank and growth. Curious if you see more copepods or sponges since using easy booster? Also if you noticed anything else using easybooster? Thanks! I have a refugium that I stock twice a month with amphipods and copepods so always have an abundance even with a scooter Blenny eating...

www.reef2reef.com

it isn’t illegal to skip wait times when the preps are exacting. The staunchest critics of quick starting set an important bar for verification before we just add life and something from a bottle. People advocate pre verifying substrate ammonia control before proceeding, when dealing in dry start preps.

live rocks don’t need to be verified they just move, keep them wet when moving they’ll transfer just fine.

but dry rock systems, when we feel it’s ready after bacteria and feed time, we need to be able to dose liquid ammonium chloride into the system, register a small spike on a test kit, then a third test next day shows the ammonia back down.

that movement is how we pre verify dry cycle readiness in quick starts, so we don’t have to guess.

not all bottle bac strains allow for fish-in cycling some are slow to activate.

fritz, biospira, and dr tims are commonly used for fish-in cycling and I don’t recall a single time it didnt work.

one of the new rules in cycle calling involves not waiting for zero on a common ammonia test kit, we know the .25 trick nowadays...we look for that up down motion. It’s the movement up/down vs sticking in place as a boosted reading that shows readiness, not a hard zero ammonia like the old rules.

if after moving systemic free ammonia up just a little still won’t move back down to .25 or some low amount, the bacteria you added aren’t ready for fish.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi, they have “Clownfish, Algae Blenny, Fire shrimp, hermit crabs and corals” (also forgot to mention pyjamas Cardinal, few turbo snails, royal grammar ) which all produce waste.

What test kits are you using and agents not expired?

 

[Kingy]

There is no problem, with ammonia control.

it’s fish disease as the risk.

I Probably should have mentioned the other params,

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 0ppm
Ph 8.2
Salinity 1.026
Phos ~0.5

I dont know the other reading off the top of my head but they dont raise any alarms.

 

[Kingy]

What test kits are you using and agents not expired?

My parents bought some weird test kits off amazon aha, I tested their water using salifert test kits and posted above the results.

The agent i believe expires after 2 weeks.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I Probably should have mentioned the other params,

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 0ppm
Ph 8.2
Salinity 1.026
Phos ~0.5

I dont know the other reading off the top of my head but they dont raise any alarms.

What is unusual is with the amount of fish,,,,, zero readings are impossible unless they are changing water daily.

 

[brandon429]

I believe those readings. Today’s bottle bac is strong, able my first link shows his ammonia never hit tenths ppm even though we didn’t test for ammonia


if his free nh3 ever hit the tenths, thats ammonia non control/ crash imminent and his stuff would be dead. Nh3 non control is so consequential, death must follow it. his ammonia ran in the hundredths ppm max, because a huge anemone existed from day one and didn’t die.
the whole reef is proof of what his bottle bac allows for nh3 upper floor.

we get consistent updates there for a year.

 

[Kingy]

What is unusual is with the amount of fish,,,,, zero readings are impossible unless they are changing water daily.

That is exactly what i was thinking, i just cannot get my head around it, i have roughly the same amount of fish in a 400 litre and i have 5ppm nitrates, with sump, skimmer, macro algae.