EUREKA! Stalled cycle? Fluval Evo 13.5

[dandelion]

So if you have read my build thread you would have already known that my tank somehow lost all its nitrogen processing ability after I put my corals in. It has been bare for month and a half now, and I occasionally dose ammonia to try to get the cycle going. Sometimes ammonia dissipates in a couple three days, sometimes it just lingers on for reasons unknown. Including the original cycle time it has been almost half a year and these rocks are still bare as bones. Any idea what went wrong here? Should I chuck these rocks and buy new ones? I know my tank has lower surface area than normal, but I thought I have compensated for it by putting Seachem Matrix in the filtration chambers.

 

An older picture of the tank showing my rockscape

[SaltyBuddha]

I don't remember, but did you use any bacteria agent to start?

[1891Bro]

@brandon429

 

call in the expert. 

[Clown79]

I've never heard of this issue occuring before.

 

Did you dose ammonia and bacteria to start?

 

What kind of rock did you use?

 

Obviously you had a cycle start and complete as you added corals.

 

Was the ammonia test actually accurate and ammonia was present?

 

Continually adding ammonia after the cycle, possibly may have killed off some beneficial bacteria.

 

Are those magnets on the rocks? 

 

Personally, i use either all liverock in my tanks or a portion of dry and live. 

[brandon429]

hey this is a fun thread. hunting ammonia is fun

 

isn't it true these rocks have been underwater for months continually, at least a few right? that alone will plate them in bacteria even if you add nothing, filtration bacteria do not require our help to get in, get feed, and increase colonies these are nature bac not aquarium bacteria. they already have transportation into a body of water from natural means, and food gets in that water just the same even if we don't add any. what aquarists do is speed things up by adding more bac and more ammonia. if your tank has been underwater anywhere over sixty days you have testing inaccuracy most likely. once bacteria are set in a system, they do not downscale back to sterility if we withhold feed, they remain in place doing their natural acquisition thing as long as water hangs around, so these rocks never went uncycled unless you have used medications we didn't know about.

 

how have you verified your samples from this tank above regarding ammonia digestion

[dandelion]

22 hours ago, brandon429 said:

hey this is a fun thread. hunting ammonia is fun

 

isn't it true these rocks have been underwater for months continually, at least a few right? that alone will plate them in bacteria even if you add nothing, filtration bacteria do not require our help to get in, get feed, and increase colonies these are nature bac not aquarium bacteria. they already have transportation into a body of water from natural means, and food gets in that water just the same even if we don't add any. what aquarists do is speed things up by adding more bac and more ammonia. if your tank has been underwater anywhere over sixty days you have testing inaccuracy most likely. once bacteria are set in a system, they do not downscale back to sterility if we withhold feed, they remain in place doing their natural acquisition thing as long as water hangs around, so these rocks never went uncycled unless you have used medications we didn't know about.

 

how have you verified your samples from this tank above regarding ammonia digestion

 

Im leaning towards thinking that I do not have enough surface area. I compensated by putting seeded seachem matrix in the back chambers but that didn't seem to do much. I have not been dosing Prime for the past 4-5 weeks. I would test ammonia and nitrite daily until ammonia tests show yellow vs green (usually takes a few days.) Then I would dose ammonia to 0.5-1ppm, confirm with test, then repeat tests daily again until it shows yellow again. Time to yellow up varies between 3-5 days. The fact that I have used two different sets of reagents to confirm the readings and that it does give me a green reading after dosing makes me believe that my reagents are working correctly.

 

And clown: yes those are magnets. Was trying out an idea for easy frag placements but didn't really get to try it out because cycle is taking forever.

 

 

[Clown79]

Make sure the magnets are reef safe.

 

 

I just don't understand the issue.

If you have rocks in there, you have surface for bacteria to grow. 

 

Are you using Api tests?

 

Maybe just buy liverock and make life easier.

I'd rather take the chance with the possibility of  pest(same chance with buying corals) than go through this headache.

 

I've never had an issue with liverock

[dandelion]

33 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Make sure the magnets are reef safe.

 

 

I just don't understand the issue.

If you have rocks in there, you have surface for bacteria to grow. 

 

Are you using Api tests?

 

Maybe just buy liverock and make life easier.

I'd rather take the chance with the possibility of  pest(same chance with buying corals) than go through this headache.

 

I've never had an issue with liverock

Only reason I've been so patient was I'm too lazy to aquascape again ? I really like my minimalistic scape.

[SaltyBuddha]

How did your nitrites fair? These are known to stall a cycle of they get too high for too long. Did they ever spike?

[Nixperience]

I've heard that Prime can cause false test results sometimes. Stop the Prime for a week and test again. 

[holy carp]

Are those rocks man-made of ceramic or a natural aragonite?  If they are ceramic, they may not be very porous and could have considerably less surface area than we are assuming.  How long has the Seachem Matrix been in the back?  That might take a little time to get properly populated.

 

I agree not to use Prime if you don't have any livestock in the tank.  Let the bacteria do its thing.

[dandelion]

1 hour ago, SaltyBuddha said:

How did your nitrites fair? These are known to stall a cycle of they get too high for too long. Did they ever spike?

Theyre at about 20ppm. Not super high but you can see something is working just partially. 

 

1 hour ago, Nixperience said:

I've heard that Prime can cause false test results sometimes. Stop the Prime for a week and test again. 

I havent dosed Prime for a month or more. 

 

1 hour ago, holy carp said:

Are those rocks man-made of ceramic or a natural aragonite?  If they are ceramic, they may not be very porous and could have considerably less surface area than we are assuming.  How long has the Seachem Matrix been in the back?  That might take a little time to get properly populated.

 

I agree not to use Prime if you don't have any livestock in the tank.  Let the bacteria do its thing.

They're aragonite rocks. The matrix in the back one bag was added in maybe March. The other bag has been in my other established tank for about 2 months and I transferred them over.

[brandon429]

this is api testing correct? so to verify, you are using two api tests? the ppm levels of ammonia you spike to shouldn't be above 1 ppm

 

are you using food or liquid ammonia to assess your ammonia oxidation

 

we need to know how you are spiking ammonia and to what original levels, nothing above 1 ppm for the types of rocks you show. can you post pictures of your verification readings: one set of pictures is two test kits showing 1 ppm ammonia earned in that tank

 

the second set is 24 hours later, both sets of ammonia readings. disregard all others, nitrite and nitrate don't have to be assessed here only what ammonia does matters.

[dandelion]

3 minutes ago, brandon429 said:

this is api testing correct? so to verify, you are using two api tests? the ppm levels of ammonia you spike to shouldn't be above 1 ppm

 

are you using food or liquid ammonia to assess your ammonia oxidation

Yes they're API test. I opened a new kit o confirm the results. I use liquid ammonia for the ammonia dosing, and it's the same bottle I've used for my other tanks when I first cycled them.  When I get a 0ppm reading, I'd dose enough so test would read 0.5-1ppm so I do think the tests are working as intended. I also have a seachem ammonia badge that sort of confirms the reading but it only detects free ammonia vs ammonia + ammonium.

[brandon429]

and after 24 hours you are saying your api shows no decline in ammonia levels, or does it show some movement just not all the way to zero?

[dandelion]

It probably shows a little movement but I couldn't determine with my naked eye. It'll be green for a few days then about 4-5 days later yellow (0).

[SaltyBuddha]

In my cycling experience, I had a large ammonia spike that created a lot of nitrites (not nitrates). The ammonia could process well, but it took a long time for my tank to build up the necessary bacteria to go from nitrites to nitrates.

 

I also had a huge nitrate spike but Then it took another week to get that kind of production going again. My hypothesis is that the bottled bacteria did it's work but they were not able to take hold for some reason.

 

Here is a graph of my cycle. Nitrates are scaled down do 1/2.

 

 

As you can see, I had a large ammonia spike that led to a high nitrite spike that kind of made my cycle reset. If you have been adding a lot of ammonia to the tank (not a lot in one dose but a lot over a long period of time) you may have an excess amount of nitrites. This will increase the time it takes for the bacteria to populate and convert efficiently to nitrates.

 

Brandon has a lot more experience in this, but that is my two cents. It is also recommended to dose up to 2 or 3 ppm of ammonia during a fishless cycle.  Bacteria growth is exponential as well but ammonia or nitrite above 5ppm is harmful to the bacteria growth. As long as it stays under that, your bacteria will keep growing at a good rate.

 

[brandon429]

what kind of test kit were you using to assess ammonia/trite levels

hey your graph does something amazing

 

it corroborates every other cycling graph online, if im reading yours correctly, nitrite followed ammonia behavior by day 30 correct?  heck it looks by day 15 they were linked (ammonia and nitrite oxidation) sure it had ups and downs till about day 15+ but being generous wouldn't it be accurate to say that by day 30 your tank fully complied?  that's a darn good post above

 

in our cycling thread where we press for ammonia-only measures, we always try and collect proofs of how by day 30 nitrite never fails to comply. we already know its a biological fact, but finding API verifications of it is the real gold... people will hold to what their test kits say long before they'll hold to established rules for bacterial contamination.  Dandelions rocks are fully cycled and can filter quite a bit of waste.

 

The generalized readings of 2 ppm API can easily be a real reading of 3-4, so if these barren rocks have trouble digesting several ppm that's not the same as trouble digesting true 1 ppm off a Seneye calibrated ammonia probe or by salifert testing which our cycling thread accepts for measures. API is ballparking and they're better used to identify a dead fish vs any form of low level application for cycling.

 

That doesn't mean all API are problematic, it just means that 100% of every stalled cycle thread ever made is using api and that presents a pattern we can work with by exclusion testing.

 

By excluding API readings in our cycling thread at r2r you can't imagine how streamlined it all became. Id have to see salifert + non-API readings to know we started at true 1 ppm for Dandelions challenge here. what this tank is doing makes sense for API cycling testing more than one param. we got all cycles to streamline in our cycling thread by doing literally the opposite. Smart call above people made about less surface area on this kind of live rock. not very porous agreed but at least a little texturing/better than nothing. can't wait to see how it would do at 1 ppm max using another kit.

[holy carp]

Nice charting, @SaltyBuddha.  What did you use to track/log/chart your data?

 

I've actually been cycling some pukani rocks in a bucket for the last 4 months.  I add a bit of ammonia every few days just to keep the bacteria fed.  Surprisingly, I'll still get high nitrites occasionally.  

 

BTW, does anyone know the relationship of 1ppm ammonia breaks down into Xppm nitrite?  I've had similar experience that even though my ammonia never gets very high, nitrites can go off the (ATI) charts quickly.

(And IMO, MB7 is utter garbage and only seeds the ammonia consuming bacteria, not nitrite consuming, else it wouldn't have taken 3 months and a bottle and a half of the stuff for nitrite to get back down to 0 - I really don't know why so many people on this forum sing its praises, but hey, that's a topic for a new thread)

[dandelion]

23 minutes ago, SaltyBuddha said:

In my cycling experience, I had a large ammonia spike that created a lot of nitrites (not nitrates). The ammonia could process well, but it took a long time for my tank to build up the necessary bacteria to go from nitrites to nitrates.

 

I also had a huge nitrate spike but Then it took another week to get that kind of production going again. My hypothesis is that the bottled bacteria did it's work but they were not able to take hold for some reason.

 

Here is a graph of my cycle. Nitrates are scaled down do 1/2.

 

 

As you can see, I had a large ammonia spike that led to a high nitrite spike that kind of made my cycle reset. If you have been adding a lot of ammonia to the tank (not a lot in one dose but a lot over a long period of time) you may have an excess amount of nitrites. This will increase the time it takes for the bacteria to populate and convert efficiently to nitrates.

 

Brandon has a lot more experience in this, but that is my two cents. It is also recommended to dose up to 2 or 3 ppm of ammonia during a fishless cycle.  Bacteria growth is exponential as well but ammonia or nitrite above 5ppm is harmful to the bacteria growth. As long as it stays under that, your bacteria will keep growing at a good rate.

 

I do test my nitrite everyday along with ammonia. I didn't graph it out or anything but most often the nitrIte would read 0, though I have a low reading once in a few days, which dissipates back to zero the next day. Chances are what little ammonia that got digested into nitrITE is rapidly digested into nitrATE. Kind of backward and I really cannot explain why.

7 minutes ago, holy carp said:

Nice charting, @SaltyBuddha.  What did you use to track/log/chart your data?

 

I've actually been cycling some pukani rocks in a bucket for the last 4 months.  I add a bit of ammonia every few days just to keep the bacteria fed.  Surprisingly, I'll still get high nitrites occasionally.  

 

BTW, does anyone know the relationship of 1ppm ammonia breaks down into Xppm nitrite?  I've had similar experience that even though my ammonia never gets very high, nitrites can go off the (ATI) charts quickly.

(And IMO, MB7 is utter garbage and only seeds the ammonia consuming bacteria, not nitrite consuming, else it wouldn't have taken 3 months and a bottle and a half of the stuff for nitrite to get back down to 0 - I really don't know why so many people on this forum sing its praises, but hey, that's a topic for a new thread)

I agree with you on MB7, except that it didn't seem to do anything for me with my cycle.

[SaltyBuddha]

@brandon429 API test kits through the whole cycle. I was getting a kick out of graphing the cycle. It was a lot of fun and was a great way to keep involved in the tank during the "boring" part. By day 15 the ammonia and nitrite conversions were linked and I was getting consists results. At that point, it just took more time to build up the bacteria. I was confident my cycle was completed by day 28 if I remember correctly. Awesome that it correlates to what you have seen happens. I did do water changes to help it out and reduce nitrites though. After my big WC is when I saw the big difference in day 10.

 

@holy carp I used excel to track the data. Divided the nitrates in half so you could actually see the relative ammonia and nitrite levels. I soaked and scrubbed my dry rocks for 4 weeks before starting the cycle. I've had no phosphates or algae problems since I started it in late March (knock on wood)

[dandelion]

Just dosed another 1ppm. Will report back.

[1891Bro]

Glad @brandon429 saw the bat signal. 

 

I had had no issues at all with MB7. But I didn't test for trite or trate, just no need. 

[dandelion]

Today's test ammonia still around 1. Nitrite edged up a little.

[dandelion]

About 72 hours later and I have trace ammonia and about 0.25ppm of nitrite. I believe it is a lack of surface for bacterial colonization. I gave in and tossed in another piece of dry rock. I managed to hide it behind my left mass so the front view isn't altered too much. The back view however is a bit too heavy to my taste, but the flip side is I have another platform to place corals on.

 

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