Request for a study: origins of the common cycling chart

[jda]

right now some furious googling is happening for some terms I made up lol

Skip Cycle - No such thing. Nobody can skip creating a dynamic biom instantly by adding some live rock, bacterial additive or the like. You can skip step 1 of the cycle... or bumfuzzle. Maybe you got this from somebody else, but it is still made up.

New Cycle Science - biology and chemistry has not changed in our lifetime

Old Cycle Science - biology and chemistry has not changed in our lifetime

Techniques or opinions is way better, and probably accurate. A new technique might be to use some bottled bac where as it was not possible as an old technique, but science did not change at all.

 

[Garf]

if I do, we're sure to see some reports of crashed tanks any minute now

Not at all, the low levels of ammonia apparent after the timelines you suggest are not immediately harmful. More stressful and likely to invite disease, maybe. The advice to not test may be harmful, therefore. I could not get an errant reading from an API (for example) ammonia test, no matter what odd stuff I spiked the sample with.

 

[jda]

BTW - the purpose of holding a manufacturer accountable to the law and the integrity of their product is mostly a deterrent to the next person who might want do something worse. Yes, somebody can probably do worse than labeling a algaecide as a bacterial supplement. If this is a problem, then I am OK with that. I know that you like to edit posts, so using this as any negative might be a good thing to edit out.

Isn't holding manufactures accountable for their advice on how much of their bacteria products to buy one of your missions? I am all for it, if it is right to do so. If this was somebody else, then my apologies.

 

[LRT]

Surprised to see the thread take the turn that is has. Tons of great knowledge and discussion being dropped to start out with.
I kinda feel like who cares what you call what. If your tank is processing the ammonia needed to carry your planned bioload than thats what I feel is what 99% of the reefers that start those threads are referring to.
From that initial ammonia cycle and where i think the real meat and potatoes come into play is that there are many different means and methods reefers can use to get to that healthy thriving tank end point. Some way more efficient than others.

 

[brandon429]

we can get it back on track for sure. when reading MN's article I'm astounded at those guys who intuited what nitrogen was having no prior basis/mind blowing scientists

crop rotation science going back nearly 10k years so good.

 

[LRT]

Nothing wrong with a good debate as long as it can be conducted intelligently and respectfully. I see a ton of good points being made from reefers that I greatly respect in here.
We all have our own opinions based on what we have seen in our own as well as others tanks. What works for one may never work for another way to many variables but I think we can break it down so it's useful for folks.
I'd love to hear everyone's opion or definition of what a "cycle" actually is. My personal opinion is that a tank technically never stops "cycling". We go through the initial stages of "cycling" out ammonia to stock our tanks and then at least in my mind we get into the many different cycles of life in our tanks. Water column, surfaces, biome, etc.

 

[Garf]

Nothing wrong with a good debate as long as it can be conducted intelligently and respectfully. I see a ton of good points being made from reefers that I greatly respect in here.
We all have our own opinions based on what we have seen in our own as well as others tanks. What works for one may never work for another way to many variables but I think we can break it down so it's useful for folks.
I'd love to hear everyone's opion or definition of what a "cycle" actually is. My personal opinion is that a tank technically never stops "cycling". We go through the initial stages of "cycling" out ammonia to stock our tanks and then at least in my mind we get into the many different cycles of life in our tanks. Water column, surfaces, biome, etc.

A full cycle to me is a closed loop, hence cycle. Ammonia to nitrite is a straight line, not a cycle for example. I’ve heard @Lasse call the stages out as stage 1, stage 2 etc but I don’t think many of us have much of stage 3 going on at all until there’s a wealth of growth going on in the tank.

 

[jda]

It is important to get the terms right so that people can go and research for themselves, if they want. Indicating that something is done/cycled is dangerous since it can stop their minds, intents, observation, etc. Most of this in on them, but if we are here to help, then we should do the best job that we can, IMO.

For me, the cycle is a from food -> ammonia/ammonium -> nitrite -> nitrate -> nitrogen gas. Then, in 3d in a fashion where the biom is able to handle these jobs large amounts of change in any part of the cycle.... like if your wife is babysitting a dog and she finds your flake food and dumps 16 ounces of NLS flake into your tank while you are at dinner (this literally happened to me this week). ...or if you lose a fish or have some coral die, for most folks that do not watch a hungry labrador. The 2d tank that can handle the current bioload would crash if anything really bad happens and is not truly cycled, IMO. The 3d tank, that has all of the steps in multiplicity and has the ability to be dynamic.

The steps in the cycle do not always work in order going from 2d to 3d. You can likely be able to handle excess food long before you have a good supply of anaerobic bacteria to chew through nitrates and turn them into nitrogen gas.

One reason that it is so important to teach people about the whole cycle is that some might make different choices up from if they knew things. Even insinuating that they are done can be dangerous.

 

[brandon429]

I’m open for expanded views and content from anyone if we can keep accusations at bay just this once/right after insults hurled am aware

its nice to have a flame free thread occasionally LRT thank you for big picture input much appreciated

one thing I’ve noticed is that seasoned reefers and chemists are very confident in their take on cycling, to the point it would be an after thought in any setup handling they’ll ever attempt.

That confidence is rare, if we spend time in the new tanks forum that’s an ever-refreshing stream of old cycling science (did I mess up what water bacteria naturally do just fine in water) and it’s fascinating to study the materials they study which gave them this doubt, I find that market difference just fascinating. Money moves in cycling circles based on doubt, what to trust (is my api kit right no matter what) and with resolve comes a nearly perfect drop in expenditures related to cycling, that’s a multi million dollar market influence which is why it’s so fun to work with

 

[LRT]

A full cycle to me is a closed loop, hence cycle. Ammonia to nitrite is a straight line, not a cycle for example. I’ve heard @Lasse call the stages out as stage 1, stage 2 etc but I don’t think many of us have much of stage 3 going on at all until there’s a wealth of growth going on in the tank.

Right on. Is that old pirate still around?
Probably the best technique going out there honestly.
The only thing I'd change in Lasse entire "staged" process would be to reccomend that folks get themselves a seneye and cycle ammonia instead.
Not saying that cycling ammonia to 0 is better than cycling nitrites to 0. I think there are plenty of healthy thriving reefs out there to make a valid argument either way. I just feel like the precision you get from a seneye especially with light feedings In the range of .004-.007 back to 0 is much more efficiently accurate to base stocking decisions on in most of the smaller set-ups I see with a fish or 2. Dan showed us that a seneye could be calibrated with lab grade equipment and trusted in that range and my observations only ever solidified his findings. Opinions on what are harmful levels for anything mentioned above I think are really whats mostly so heavily debated.
To @jda point. I agree after typing all of the above out that those methods and techniques are likely not for the new reefer or anyone that not comfortable with testing but it is a more precise and effcient way to go about things especially applied to the light feeding/ initial light bioload approach.
Terminology is probably huge here and with the meat and potatoes being in the stages I'd love to see them explored, defined or explained a little better in this thread.

 

[brandon429]

in new tank forum work/ when can I start reefing posts/ I like to skip the nitrite measure steps for reasons Randy has mentioned, chemical neutrality of impact, and because api is just about the only kits we see reported for nitrite (Lasse has Hanna digital and posted neat ranges/ I didn’t know after cycling the turnover rate average for nitrite-in-conversion is .0x hundredths ppm) and nitrate is too variable to test accurately with cheap kits and might be denitrified anyway/ lots of fully cycled reefs here are zero reported nitrate and must dose for it

those introduce too many confounds for new tankers and make them doubt safety for neutral impact parameters, just my opinion

I think fish disease preps and focus is 95% of where updated cycle teaching should focus, the bottle bac engineers already worked out the ammonia controls and the live rock transfers from petco are already controlled inherently

Count the number of days to ammonia control already charted by others for the given arrangement —> skip to disease control preps is how we’ve been cycling for quite a while now

only because it hits the high points for the two factors that cause loss for new tank setups

plus in an addendum for ideal acclimation steps using jays article and in my opinion this is the grand plan for the reduction of fish losses in the hobby, which are currently unacceptably astounding


the ability to almost never mess up a cycle has created vectoring en masse/a pattern am seeing

agreed the complete picture is all three conversion/oxygen transfer steps, mainly I like to address the masses requested soonest start date.

 

[brandon429]

I found it amazing the average conversion rates post-cycle for reef displays that use common surface area constants (rocks stacked in the middle of the display) are thousandths ppm nh3 form ammonia, hundredths ppm nitrite in conversion, and 0-+ ppm nitrate. Fascinating stair stepping

 

[brandon429]

One aspect of cycling science I’m positive about is how all the reading is centered around # of bacterial cells to get readiness. you can sell and bottle bacteria…it helps to focus on it

Hyper focus on bac, low to no focus on how their real estate works leads to doubt and purchases and redundancy just to be safe am seeing

Our hobby is nearly devoid of discussion on surface area true dynamics and we get a LOT of jobs ran in unique ways using rules that govern surface area controls


for example, old cycling science on surface area rules: *all* bacteria in a system are inherently linked to ammonia control stability. Removal of any bacteria leads to system instability if a close tipping point is exceeded and these # of cells must be replaced before the crash. Must must replace lost colonies or a crash is a real risk


new cycling science on surface area: I’ve never seen a reef display using so little rock surface area that carrying its bioload was a concern, even with negative aquascape approaches. —> removing surface area surrounding the core contact area has a 0% impact on stability, opposite of what old cycling science said. The risk is in the waste upwell of detritus and mixed bacterial states of decay as complexed to waste organics: there is no risk from the removal of a massive amount of bacterial cells in a system if you do it cloudlessly. Don’t kick up detritus waste clouds and you’ll never recycle your reef display during moves, upgrades, or bed swaps and removals

Any rip cleaner knows this to be true.

application of core surface area rules where bad science can kill someone’s reef: instant removal of a giant repository of sand from the flow path of a reef tank. A five gallon bucket half full of sand as a remote dsb is innumerable # of bac cells situated and active in the system. Instantly robbing the system of one trillion bacterial cells should cause instability, but it never does


we do bulk removal of cycling bacteria across jobs and I *never* have them add the bacteria back from a bottle:

Removing remote deep sand bed

I setup a removable deep sand bed in my sump 9 months ago but now I’d like to remove it to give me more room in the sump. What do you think the impact to tank chemistry might be and how to mitigate any negatives?

www.reef2reef.com

the sand rinse thread/big rip clean collection/ is roughly nine years and sixty pages of this type of work above to show it works on any reef display - we concern over controlling detritus waste upwelling, we never concern over back flushing an entire reef display using tap water.


old cycling science on surface area and bacteria: of course you can’t rinse your display sandbed out with tap water. You’ll kill the whole setup.


new cycling science: here’s three hundred jobs of rinsing the sandbed in reef displays, any tank someone wants to post, in tap water:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

a few of those were $30K sps and clam reefs, big bucks on the line

notice how old cycling science and new/updated cycling science are completely mutually exclusive/can’t occupy the same space

everything old cycling science says can’t be done we make it a point to do, excessively. In my opinion this is evolution in cycling


where’s the training articles for new reefers discussing distinctions between new and old paradigms? Where’s the macna talks on them?

 

[BeanAnimal]

I have never tested my cycling tanks.

I never saw the need. You would be hard pressed to prevent the process from occurring. Thread after thread of minutia just complicates a rather inevitable progression for no reason. The obsession with barfing the science, information and nonsense all over every newbie in the hobby baffles me. It is pointless and confusing for people new to the hobby.

What is more baffling is that the nitrogen cycle is not a mystery - why is it treated like one?

 

[brandon429]

Additional use of surface area science in posted reef tank help jobs: how can I clean my canister filters without recycling my tank

answer=it doesn’t matter, as long as you don’t pump a lot of rotting detritus into your tank. Bleach the media, boil it, then dry it nine days in the hot summer sun: it doesn’t matter, your reef never needed that extra surface area and old cycling science made you think it was critical/required surface area.

Hook up ten canister filters to your reef if you like. Instantly remove them one day, along with your entire sandbed and a third of your reef rock while hooked up to a seneye, your nh3 won’t budge from thousandths ppm if you don’t kick up waste. This is new cycling science. We did lots of ending live rock % reductions in the sand rinse thread/made new space for fish hiding

LRT’s 80 gallon reef setup doesn’t have hardly any live rock yet his active surface area in the form of craggy jagged corals and mount surfaces beaded in coralline carry the same fish load a two hundred pound saxby reef wall will carry within the dimensions of that tank = fascinating


orange county chopper Bros on old vs new cycling science

 

[LRT]

Additional use of surface area science in posted reef tank help jobs: how can I clean my canister filters without recycling my tank

answer=it doesn’t matter, as long as you don’t pump a lot of rotting detritus into your tank. Bleach the media, boil it, then dry it nine days in the hot summer sun: it doesn’t matter, your reef never needed that extra surface area and old cycling science made you think it was critical/required surface area.

Hook up ten canister filters to your reef if you like. Instantly remove them one day, along with your entire sandbed and a third of your reef rock while hooked up to a seneye, your nh3 won’t budge from thousandths ppm if you don’t kick up waste. This is new cycling science. We did lots of ending live rock % reductions in the sand rinse thread/made new space for fish hiding

LRT’s 80 gallon reef setup doesn’t have hardly any live rock yet his active surface area in the form of craggy jagged corals and mount surfaces beaded in coralline carry the same fish load a two hundred pound saxby reef wall will carry within the dimensions of that tank = fascinating


orange county chopper Bros on old vs new cycling science

Hey Brandon what was most amazing to me is how quickly the "goodies" from my cured rock and corals spread all over my new ceramic tiles in the new tank transfer. But my total system is sitting around 1lb/gallon of real gulf ocean rock. Maybe 75lbs up top and 30 on the bottom in sump- give or take

 

[jda]

I have been doing this since 1992 and I have never heard anybody credible say any of this stuff. This seems like just solving problems that do not exist, or was from message board posters that don't know what they are talking about. Not likely to get a MACNA talk on any of that. The old and new cannot be mutually exclusive since biology and chemistry have not changed and they were the same along... it was peoples understanding that was different.

 

[brandon429]

Ok ha the sequestered approach gotcha

well my lfs frag tank is display only surface area / test it it’ll work

Solid tank transfer just completed

 

[Lasse]

Right on. Is that old pirate still around?

Yes I´m - but I´m also so old that I know when It is meaningless to debate . The nitrification process (ammonia oxidation (stage 1) and nitrite oxidation (stage 2)) is well know and scientifically explained since the 1960s. The AOO (Ammonium Oxidation Organism) - stage 1 - includes today - in addition to AOB (Ammonia Oxidation Bacteria) also AOA (Ammonium Oxidation Archaea). The NOO (Nitrite Oxidation Organism) is still only seen as NOB (Nitrite Oxidation Bacteria) mainly from the genera of nitrobacter and nitrospira.

There is no need to debate that any longer. In saltwater - you do not kill your fish with NO2 build up (however you do it in freshwater) but that does not change the scientifically explanation of the nitrification process that will take place in every aquarium. Right started aquarium (like described in my 15 step) - its no problem - you will not notice the process - wrong start - you will have a upbuild of NO2 - toxic or not - but still an upbuild

The third stage in the nitrogen cycle - removing of NO3 from a system - has more explanations today than in the 1960s when the anaerobic denitrification was seen as the only way - today its include the anammox process, "classic" anaerobic denitrification, sulphur denitrification, dissimilatory nitrate reduction and even some example of aerobic denitrification has been discovered. Which process that´s dominate in our aquariums is not well-known and probably differ between aquariums

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

Nitrification is not only a thing for newly started aquaria - its also very important in old established aquarium. In my own aquarium - I can switch on and off my nitrate reduction (probably denitrification in my case) with help of DOC dosing below my reversed flow DSB. In a test that I run for the moment - I have shout off my DOC dosing the last couple of days and I following both NO2 and NO3 day for day with Hanna Checkers. Since yesterday at this time (11:30 local time) my nitrification process has process around 1.3 mg NH4 into NO3 without any NO2 build up. NO3 has increase with 4.6 mg/L NO3 since yesterday - it means that at least 1.3 mg/L NH4 is converted. My system has during these 24 hours produced at least 1.3 mg NH4/L (as demonstrated in NO3 increase).

The real production of NH4 during this time is probably much, much larger as some has gone to my corals, algae and other photosynthetic organism, some has been reduced by bacterial processes that not demand DOC and some has been aerated out as NH3 through my skimmer.

My aquarium is today around 7 years old.

Red - stop dosing DOC

NO2

NO3

Sincerely Lasse