cycling with live sand and rocks

[Pjanssen]

8 hours ago, Milky Way said:

Now I'm more confused 

Haha! Brandon has a way of causing that (No offense Brandon, you know I love you (you changed your avatar!)). I like to compare him to my junior high science teacher. He is a wealth of information though, and usually pretty spot on with his advise. My BC29 is almost 5 years old now and started basically the same as yours. I never had a cycle in the beginning, but I have had my share of ups and lots of downs. Mostly from going too fast at the start, not doing proper research on livestock (never just take your lfs's word for it), and spurts of poor husbandry/maintenence. Scape looks great. Happy reefing!

[Weetabix7]

You can use either shrimp or straight ammonia, both will work. 

 

Skip cycling is different and uses rock that is already heavily colonized with bacteria and coralline algae. 

 

The rock you have can be visually deceptive in that it looks like it is already heavily colonized with coralline, but it's actually artificial coralline. 

Your rock probably does have bacteria, but also probably less than it needs to sustain safe additions of livestock, so it's a good idea to use either shrimp or the addition of ammonia to be sure it has enough bacteria to break it down. 

Keep testing and watch results. 

[reef-luva]

patience grasshoppa', patience......sounds like you'll be fine

[Weetabix7]

"I forget that Real Reef Rock is man made but then put in a green house to grow bacteria.

I still recommend adding an ammonia source to verify that the bacteria that shipped with the rock is still functioning. If everything is working well you should never see ammonia but should start seeing Nitrates. Ideally, you would be ready for fish almost immediately when using a product like this."

 

The above quote from one of the threads Brandon linked is helpful. 

The only way to know if there is adequate bacteria in the rock is to see if it breaks down & processes ammonia. 

If you have nitrate in the aquarium, that means that ammonia has been processed and converted. 

If no nitrate, then the only way to tell is to introduce some ammonia (even if a small amount) and see what happens. 

[Clown79]

If you use live rock thats cured(cycled)

You won't have a cycle, if you did it would be minute.

 

Thats why you aren't seeing any level changes.

 

You should just add a small cuc and monitor.

 

Or add some food to see if there is a spike in ammonia.

[Milky Way]

good afternoon my friends!!!! Looks like the shrimp method is working. should i take the shrimp out now or wait?????????

Nitrates - 0

[Milky Way]

19 hours ago, Milky Way said:

It's  been 2 weeks now since i started cycling my nano 12 gall tank.

I have aragonite live sand. it came in with water inside of the package. it said on the package :  "contains live marina bacteria"

Its been 2 weeks now ammonia , nitrate, nitrite are 0.

Do i need to throw shrimp in my tank? or can i start adding some livestock?????

Please give me advice. 

 

 

 

ADDING UPDATES

 

In less than 24 hours AMMONIA level is reading  2, nitrates 0

 

Should i take the shrimp out now or wait for a little longer????

[Weetabix7]

Take the shrimp out. 

Continue testing ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. 

It'll be interesting to see how quickly the ammonia is broken down. 

[Milky Way]

1 minute ago, Weetabix7 said:

Take the shrimp out. 

Continue testing ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. 

It'll be interesting to see how quickly the ammonia is broken down. 

when should i do my first water change ??? 

[holy carp]

That ammonia came up fast, which leads me to believe the rocks weren't 'very' live.  Did you get a nitrite result?  

 

As long as the ammonia looks less than the 4.0 mark, I think you're OK.  If it exceeds that color, I'd change some water, since too much ammonia will actually inhibit the bacteria's population growth.

 

I believe the same is true for nitrite, so as long as both ammonia and nitrite are less than ~4-5ppm, you don't need to do extra water changes, but you optionally could to bring it back to around 2ppm if they do get high.

 

Don't worry too much about nitrate for the time being.

[RotaryReef]

Just now, Milky Way said:

when should i do my first water change ??? 

No water change yet! You need to wait until ammonia is 0 on its own as well as nitrite.

[Milky Way]

2 minutes ago, holy carp said:

That ammonia came up fast, which leads me to believe the rocks weren't 'very' live.  Did you get a nitrite result?  

 

As long as the ammonia looks less than the 4.0 mark, I think you're OK.  If it exceeds that color, I'd change some water, since too much ammonia will actually inhibit the bacteria's population growth.

 

I believe the same is true for nitrite, so as long as both ammonia and nitrite are less than ~4-5ppm, you don't need to do extra water changes, but you optionally could to bring it back to around 2ppm if they do get high.

 

Don't worry too much about nitrate for the time being.

nitrite is showing 0. 

[Weetabix7]

Nitrite will begin to go up as ammonia goes down. 

Then nitrite will begin to go down as nitrate rises. 

The tank is cycled when both ammonia and nitrite are back at 0 again. 

That is the point where you would typically do a water change and add your first livestock, including a clean up crew (CUC). 

[RotaryReef]

Just now, Milky Way said:

nitrite is showing 0. 

 

You need to wait until both Nitrite and Ammonia are 0. You will see your Nitrates go up.

 

Helpful link to read through to help clear up the cycle for you a bit Click Here

[Milky Way]

17 minutes ago, NanoSteve said:

 

You need to wait until both Nitrite and Ammonia are 0. You will see your Nitrates go up.

 

Helpful link to read through to help clear up the cycle for you a bit Click Here

would you take the shrimp out now??? or you would wait??? 

[holy carp]

Take the shrimp out for the time being - bringing ammonia higher before it starts to convert to nitrite will not help anything.

 

In a day or two, once ammonia starts to decrease and nitrite starts to increase, you could put it back in.

[Hirsh]

The water changes are to relieve the system of Nitrates, which is the by product of the ammonia and nitrite.

[RotaryReef]

@Milky Way Take the shrimp out for the time being as holy carp mentioned

[yungKitten]

@brandon429 If the tank is cycled, dosing a known quantity of ammonia before there is any livestock then testing the nitrite and nitrate levels 24 hours later will do no harm and definitely confirm that there is a sufficient amount of nitrifying bacteria to start adding livestock. Not that it's even relevant anymore.

@Milky Way Let us know how it goes!  

 

[BOSKO777]

Hello, I judged set up a tank with Real Reef Rock. Also used live sand. It's been 5 weeks now and still o's across the board on tests. I have tons of pods, a few snails and a lot of Madura hydroids. My rock did come delivered the proper way and that is wet. A lot of vendors are sale dry Real Reef Rock with is not the same if it is dry.

[reef-luva]

You'll want your lid, if any, off during this time, allowing the nitrogen gas to escape, keeping it closed with prolong the cycle of ammonia.

Also, make sure there is sufficient surface current to help promote a positive gas exchange, which is vital to any reef tank, imo. Cool rocks btw!

[Clown79]

There's no way that was cured liverock you were sold. Ammonia wouldn't rise that high with cured liverock.

 

Real reef rock is an eco friendly rock, as far as i know, sold dry.

 

If it was dry when you got it, not cured. 

 

Take the shrimp out.

As ammonia processes into nitrites it will be 0. Then your nitrites will increase and process. 

Once both are 0 you can do a waterchange

[Milky Way]

38 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

There's no way that was cured liverock you were sold. Ammonia wouldn't rise that high with cured liverock.

 

Real reef rock is an eco friendly rock, as far as i know, sold dry.

 

If it was dry when you got it, not cured. 

 

Take the shrimp out.

As ammonia processes into nitrites it will be 0. Then your nitrites will increase and process. 

Once both are 0 you can do a waterchange

idk, it was submerged in the water in a huge tub in lfs.

 

than u very much for your advice

[Clown79]

Did you have it out of water and for how long?

 

Its not something you see with cured liverock to go through such an ammonia spike. 

[brandon429]

Its not something you see with cured liverock to go through such an ammonia spike. 

 

Sure we do

 

 

in any post on any forum when a fish dies in someone's rockwork. It doesn't mean the tank lost all bac, it means they were overwhelmed. We have countless examples of the event when people dose ammonia to live rock systems using dead shrimp. A spike is reported every time and the ammonia was never required lol.

 

 

 

The algae coming within a few mos w be a real test for the system. The masses will tell her to leave it in, that it's part of a cycle, many purposefully grow algae in new systems due to that practice but I would again go against the grain and say not to

 

Raw ammonium chloride should be used here so a max of 1 ppm can be had, we are likely above that level and everything is working as predicted in a system where group b rocks are spiked with ammonia in great excess

 

 

 

 

 

 

this tank is being cycled in the wrong way and a reference thread for what to do with live rock was posted.  

 

its good to challenge any claim in reefing, that's our evolution. detractors should post up some work in real reef rock threads that they posted in

 

  even though rotting shrimp isn't the correct cycling mode for real reef rock setups, this tank will be fine anyway so long as a custom algae plan is in place.  the bacteria on the rocks that came in wet will not be killed with the redundant cycling approach, its very common in fact. our big thread is just a time saver and the grand design is to give the keeper control over algae though they wouldn't think that would be the greater intent of a six page thread on cycling. Everything that is currently happening in Milky Way's cycle will bring on algae challenges, soon. have a plan ready

 

my new recommend if we are going to spike ammonia to live rock here is to keep the lights off while doing so.

 

 

 

-look for pods in the container these rocks came from at the pet store. look for pods on your own glass before blasting these with ammonia...before lights on at 6 am using a flashlight angled up on the tank walls is a fine technique to asses life forms who don't want to be blasted with rot. I posted real work from a thread just like this one, which had the pods, and we began reefing because that link and this thread are the same setups.

 

 

 if we brought home wet rock, enjoy the quick purple aged look and the skip cycle rock we and our chain of command has paid for.

- don't ever farm algae or cyano in your tank, though fifty reasons to do so will be posted

 

at no place on the real reef rock website does it say to do what is being done here. In fact, they have links to 30 aquaria that used this rock as skip cycle rocks for a marine convention. polar opposite of what is happening here~