What's a real surprise is that you consider the request for sentences and actual reasoning "escalation".



So you are making the case that the scale of the system affects the order of the nitrogen cycle? I'd really like to see some published info on that. So far, what I hear is your opinion backed up by your personal data and set against the entirety of current understanding regarding the cycling of nitrogen in the environment.



I have a better idea: since you are the one making claims that contradict what is currently known about the biogeochemistry of nitrogen, how about you pony up the evidence and make your case?



Using what testing method and what were your LODs?

So you are making the case that because many people have reported non-detect for the various nitrogen ions, that shows that the nitrogen cycle doesn't actually proceed in the established way of approx: N2 => NH3 => NO2 => NO3 => NO2 => NH3 => N2?

Have you considered that, when the order of detected compounds is apparently out of step with the order of the nitrogen cycle, it isn't that the cycle has changed but rather the populations/activities of the various microbial players is unequal?

Do you understand that "the nitrogen cycle" is a biogeochemical term and I am not using it in the same way that aquarists "cycle" their tank?



No probs.



Please define "work", since you're the first one to use that term in this discussion. Perhaps this is where you are missing the point and a definition may help clear a lot up.

So far I have seen you advocating a different method than what is laid out in the OP. The fact that I recognize that your method and intent are different does not mean that I think they are inferior. If you like systems like you set them up, there's nothing wrong with that. What I have taken issue with is your attempt to redefine what a soft cycle is in the context of the discussion in this thread.




I understand that you have a long record of results. I am sure that you are quite confidant in their validity. The real question is: so what?

What we have here isn't a question of "philosophy" or "proof in the pudding", it is a question of you entering a thread and trying to redefine key terms and making assertions about the motives of people who you don't know... And I don't mean me. Not everyone who wants to soft cycle fresh LR is impatient.



Who are "you guys"? Your posts are beginning to hint that you have come here with a chip on your shoulder and with a need to prove yourself, rather than a desire to genuinely contribute to the ongoing discussion.



You can't be helpful in a discussion like this by redefining the key term ("soft cycle") according to your own opinion. This thread was created to discuss a specific methodology that was developed for a specific purpose: to retain oceanic hitchhikers for as long as possible.



Once again, your consensus of people from this forum claiming that the nitrogen does not undergo the same oxidation/reduction reactions regardless of scale proves very little. How much of your data has been published in scientific, peer reviewed periodicals? Not that this guarantees you're right, but it certainly would put you on a similar footing to those to professionally apply the aquatic sciences.

I would love know what people on this board agree with your claim that nitrogen biogeochemistry is different depending on system scale, feel free to PM me a list of their names so I can write them and ask them myself.

I think the problem here is that you think that I am "The Man" and that I need to be challenged. The issue is that you refuse to actually deal with the substance of the very specific issues I brought up.

You can play the "you act smart but you ain't" or the "you type real purdy" games if you like. It doesn't hide the fact that you completely ignored the specific issues I took with what you said and them's the facts 'ol hoss.



Another assumption that just isn't supported by what I've seen here on the forum. The threads that I have followed where people have done soft cycles have primarily been started with Gulf coast maricultured rock. I haven't done a scientific poll and I admit that I haven't read hundreds of threads on the topic.

So, since my experience is highly subjective, I can't speak about what is more or less likely. I don't think you have the basis to speak in that way either, unless you've made it your profession to track the use of maricultured rock in marine aquaria.



Do you really mean trophic "levels" rather than "interactions"? The idea of a "trophic level" is ecological and functionally, there aren't that many. The issue is how many interactions there are between levels. This is why you don't see ecological modelers fretting about how many trophic levels they have but rather the number species within them, the number of interactions and the rates that they proceed at.

Once again, you are making assumptions about and jabbing at my level of experience or understanding. What you don't seem to realize is that you're shadow boxing. You'll pardon me if I don't boast about myself.



Your value judgement about what is "better" is interesting. What makes one system or method better than another? We need some sort of metric here before you start using relative terms.

Once again, you are missing the point. This isn't about short-cutting to get benthic communities. For all of the soft-cyclers I've followed, it is about the diversity of organisms that rides in with the rock and attempting to retain as much as possible. It doesn't matter what foods you use, you can't make a sponge or a macroalgae spring from nothing. Yes, often there are resting cells present and the proper husbandry can cause them to develop into a full-fledged organism but that isn't the point. The point is to start with a system that is already very diverse and then retain it. You advocate starting with a system that is simple and trying to diversify it.

Is that wrong? No, but it isn't what we are talking about here either.



Who is assuming these things?

It is clear that you have a great deal of experience with marine aquaria and that is an asset. The problem is that it isn't helping you in this thread because you have a fundamental misunderstanding about why this method is advocated. You seem to believe that you have uncovered some new data regarding the biogeochemistry of nitrogen... Or perhaps you aren't correctly using the term "nitrogen cycle". You also have a real tough time actually dealing with the substance of questions put to you. You immediately fall back on your opinion and your extensive, non-published, dataset. You also have no problem mentioning that you have a private consensus with people here on the forum, not understanding that this really doesn't help meet your burden of proof even if it is true.

So let's have another go and see if you can actually deal with what I said, shall we?

Please confirm/correct my initial statement of your position: You disagree with 50% of the "soft cycle" idea. The waterchanges are ok, but you don't want rock that is covered in oceanic life.

Using evidence outside your own head, please show how Soft Cycling as defined and discussed in this thread is "rather impatient technique". An explicit statement about the aim that people are allegedly impatient to reach would be helpful.

Do you or do you not ascribe to one or more of these assumptions:

1) We (the general population of aquarists) misunderstand the order of the nitrogen cycle.
2) The nitrogen cycle does not occur in the same sequence in all aquaria.
3) We cannot use past evidence to predict the course of future events in aquaria.

Please define "nitrogen cycle" as you are using it. I defined how I was using it earlier in this post and you can find a much more explicit definition here.

will be more cognizant of my tone I don't think you are the man.

im getting low level ct btw to engage in six thread battles about measurable biology actually is painful lol.

If I leave out major quotes you wanted we should hit them one at a time, its easy to miss with this kind of volume.


Your high point seems that I am speaking out of context with the original poster's description about soft cycling and that may indeed be the case. I didn't see a formal link there where your published authors coined it although if that's out there Im just last to hear and would appreciate the link. the description is up for grabs in the meantime? If I pushed that with poor tact will not debate that, usually guilty. the only part Im supporting is everything I typed not that it came off nice.

When I first read it, it sounded like his subjective terming and I wanted to add the purist notion that if you ever registered ammonia you messed up compared to the balance of using less LR growth and no measurable ammonia. if you don't like my opinion on this that's no problem to me neither of us have nano reef formality to list because its not there lol

most of our upcoming thread links will regard large tanks and that's bunk for us in many ways Id like to discuss if you want.

the term soft cycle was too broad for my liking if it allowed for water parameters indicating ammonia or nitrite at any stage in the design or function. what you and I debate about collegiate terminology simply has no bearing on this fact, and the fact you feel like I hijacked the thread, that's a really valid opinion to consider. sidenote just guessing>is your trade in a technical science like environmental testing, applied chemistry or engineering? If so thats neat man it resounds in what you write. Mine's in microbiology from a meatpacking plant lol, both of us are taking our craft and cross applying it as best we can to nanoreefing (and the huge void of published material within it) its neat to see those details in our anecdote wars lol

if you have never worked in a tecnical trade +10 to you for writing like tha
maybe this back and forth will inspire someone to setup a huge test of it all, please post back it will be nice to watch you do all that work. I have some scant nano reef formality I'll post up if this thread gets back to productive, promise.

My only reference Fos are my videos, nothing else. for those tanks to work, everything I have typed other than some notable misspellings and gramm errors lol has to work, or something so rediculous would not exist. In my opinion its the redneck phd man

all my experience is with gallon reef tanks there is no published work in that range, none, ever, at all, and the published work I could take time citing for you is for larger tanks, and they show nitrites don't pop up in an established tank in the face of consistent zero ammonia and nitrate readings. They also denounce denitirification in the nano reef specifically when compared to the environmental differences supported by larger reefs, namely collective anoxic zones relative to bioloading. There are so many differences in nano reefs and environmental studies or larger reefs its not worth it to list them all right now, will save that up in case our thread starts to soften up.

So I just wanted to modify the OP definition even though that may not have been invited if that offended you no problem--people don't like a lot of elbowing in a crowd they tend to push back~no harm done.

Now where do we go. try doing one quote at a time instead of a deluge (guilty too) and this will be easier to read.
B

in rereading the original post yes I do still feel the same way.

What I should add is that I don't really have a debate about what he wrote with liverock, its not like it will just dieoff instantly and wreck everything if you use top live rock, that's great it will make your tank look better if you can sustain it. I like the fact his intention is to sustain the best quality live rock from the start thats revolutionary I actually just disagree with you and not the OP lol thats funny. The only divergence intended was that if these experiments ever yield ammonia, then turbo live rock isn't the best starting point, lesser is. The fact the original poster joined in 2001 and has been practicing his theory that long means a lot to me in finding a midpoint in the two modes of thought.

It seemed in a few posts that reading ammonia in small quantities may be expected and to me it sounded like adding something you already knew would degrade...ie why add it.


All the live rock I have used in nano and pico reefs has been of high coralline, medium to low density growth of sabellids, sponges, calcareous plants, etc. and that always means no ammonia, it sets a predictability for it where testing is not required. by not importing the single strongest premium live rock you could attain into the smaller reef tank where some population shifting has to occur, you were saving money on the live rock you bought and in the eyes of a purist really just proving (by no measurable ammonia) you could handle all that diversity we are downscaling like mad people.

I concede that the most formal definition you will find is in this thread. The full meaning of the term may certainly be debated... However, it's best if we can get that out front right away.



It is somewhat arbitrary, if you want to call it that but I'm not sure I'd call it subjective. The definition of "soft cycle" was given in the OP, which makes it a little more firm. To my knowledge, it was coined by one or more members here on NR.com as a way to describe the idea of buying very fresh LR and employing a variety of methods to retain as much of the livestock as possible. Greenstar started this thread to put the definition down in a somewhat explicit fashion so we didn't have to type it out several times a week. You seem to grasp and concede this point in your initial post:





I certainly won't disagree that large tanks go not generally behave like small tanks.



I follow you here and I think you made your point fairly clear in your inital post. I don't have a problem with your methods and I believe that you have plenty of basis for it. It's totally cool to argue that any cycle that shows up detectable NH3 can't be very "soft", however when you start arguing that using fresh rock is certainly wild-collected and it's a short-cut for impatient people you are moving away from meaningful discussion of the methods at hand.

For the record, I totally agree that many of the organisms that ride in on fresh LR won't make it long in a tank because we just don't have the suspended particulates to support them. We don't have phytoplankton for crying out loud! And when we get it, we spend a lot of time trying to do away with the green water.



I'm trying valiantly to finish my PhD and currently work in an estuarine system on the coast of SC. I'm working on the relationship(s) between aerobic heterotrophic bacteria and the benthic microalgae. I've got a series of hypotheses that I've been collecting data on for the last couple years and I'm finally starting to write some of it up... Hopefully I'll get done in the next 18 months, but you never know.



I think I like where you're going here and I think I agree with you. Let me restate it and you tell me if I'm saying the same thing you are: If buying high-quality fresh LR is yielding some detectable NH3, then it would be better to start the system with a bit of lower-quality rock. The lower quality rock establishes the system and gives you a larger catchers mit to handle what comes in with the high-quality rock.

If this is what you are saying, I have advocated the very same thing in other threads.

that was really neat to know about you Fosi and for the first time in a long time I believe what someone is telling me about the combination of their backround and what that brings to the nano reef discussion specifically. Really neat how things turn about-- burning calories in this manner is fun and the point/counterpoint is better reading than harlequin romance novels at least

Just because cured rock lacks ammonia doesn't mean live rock magically appears at your LFS with zero ammonia. Ammonia is present because of the stressful conditions of shipping rock (i.e. usually out of water and long transport times). It's not the "fault" of the reefer, period. Why don't you try getting uncured rock and measuring ammonia? Oh wait, your dogmatic method forbids it.



It's unlikely mr. fosi is going to say that what applies to large tanks is automatically disqualified for nano tanks. The burden of proof is on you, brandon, to show that a nano tank and a large tank with identical amounts/types of rock and maintenance procedures (like your 50-100% water changes) are going to have significant differences in biological processes.



Just because a term is too broad for you doesn't make it wrong or not "saving money" (last time I checked cured rock cost much more than uncured at a LFS). You have a specific method of setting up a tank that relies on multiple points (cured rock vs. uncured, large water changes, and later on dosing) for you to always claim "success". Putting on such restrictions also means that you only have limited experience in explaining why other methods are "wrong". This is clearly shown in your dismissal of the presence of ammonia because you personally have never measured it with cured rock.



You can't worm your way out of saying greenstar is somewhat right and mr. fosi (who is arguing for the same method) is wrong. It will not help your case to try and compare yourself to greenstar based on joining dates; there are often many early members that post "newbie" threads (i.e. an experienced reefer would have been able to find their information on their own) years after they joined. This is more ironic to style yourself as a wise older reefer when you bash old large tank reefers for having outdated information. This kind of self-aggrandizement is useless except as a marketing ploy.

Live rock producing ammonia is not the death knell for soft cycling that you wish it to be. Sure, it would be a problem with your method of adding fish on day one and corals on day two, but most reefers are prudent enough to understand that they can always wait before stocking with no long-term problems.



Previously, you were harping on avoiding "heavily encrusted" live rock, and now you have carefully tried to explain how your cured rock has everything that a reefer needs. Also, you left out the important point of going to a local LFS to get your cured live rock.


See the problem with your experience is that your trying to extend that to proving things outside your experience. If you have never had an ammonia spike, it does not follow that such a spike is automatically a sign of bad reefkeeping. It's even more remarkable considering you were suggesting to a newbie in another thread about adding fish so quickly. I don't understand your nitrites point. It seems pretty clear that if ammonia is consistently zero, it's unlikely nitrites would "pop up". Like wise for denitrification, anoxic zones are not mandatory for it to occur and you have no proof that such zones (or anaerobic zones) are not present even in your pico tanks. Notice that I didn't use any examples of nano or large tanks. And yet, when I showed proof in the sand bed article I linked to, which discussed 3 gallon tanks, you were unwilling to accept that.

So, why don't you humor us with your prophetic knowledge of what makes nano tanks so different. A new thread would be useful...

You read harlequin romance novels Lak



and are a smart opponent as always. Goodnite you guys without you the type world would be slanted, boring and without challenge/flair. I have been doing this for three days straight and am in pain although Ill dream about responding to you alas. call it the stamina of the middle aged but I do believe some jams in the hottub are calling me tonite I simply can't go another round w anyone online lol its been real

Sigh. Who said the goal was to set up a "microbiologically balanced system"? The original post was very clear in stating that one of the goals during a "soft cycle" was to keep ammonia as close to zero as possible. What I stated does that quite effectively. Since it is outside your experience it probably sounds very scary and complicated, but it really isn't.

Yes, the bacterial populations will be in flux. The same thing happens every time you add a fish, do a water change, feed, etc. in an established tank.

Please. Let's not try to rewrite history. People have been trying to get the freshest live rock possible and then keep it in low ammonia conditions for at least a couple decades now. The only thing new about this is the labeling of it as a "soft cycle".

I got my rock from my LFS its been running for 8 days, I see plenty of life and it was sitting for a month or more since the shipment got to them. The lights werent even being run... just a holding tank with flow. Everything is reading O except that the salt level is oddly low and PH is super low, any suggestions? Im pretty sure you can cycle a tank just as complete without doing a "soft cycle ". LOL sounds like you have to be rich and have no job to do a soft cycle! Sand, Rock, Water... run for a week start doing water changes = will be cycled soon. Why complicate anything? Its just a fish tank... the idea is cool though but unrealistic for most working class guys and gals...

you just described a soft cycle to the t good descrip
the point of the thread as I saw it was that soft cycling further defines the balances inside a captive reef tank with keener observation than just the old school rule of all reef tanks should be fifty gallons to be stable, all reef tanks must wait 8 mos to grow sps, etc

its about reducing limitations...the old limitations for stocking a reef tank, ie cycling, said wait two months. after two months my reef was full lol and a thousand pics were online heh

Research from Seabass on cycling:
Part 1: Water changes during the cycle
Part 2: Water changes during the cycle

he did good with that work. I thought his work focused more on regular tank cycling though, not soft cycling? will re read

Trying to get a soft cycle on a big tank is a PITA. Best to put the live rock in a smaller holding tank and letting that cycle as you will do smaller volume water changes.