Teenyreef's 20g Study-kept Dustmite Biotope: IM10 Transfer

[teenyreef]

Day 9:

Ph: 7.9

Ammonia: 2

Nitrites: .25

Nitrates: 25

 

So no change. If I squint really hard and apply some wishful thinking, the ammonia might be a little lower, and the nitrites and nitrates might be a teeny bit higher.

[teenyreef]

Oops, I missed posting yesterday, sorry.

Day 10:

Ph: 7.9

Ammonia: 1.5 (maybe wishful thinking)

Nitrites: .5

Nitrates: 25

 

Day 11:

Ph: 7.9

Ammonia: 1 (I'm squinting hard here and thinking positive thoughts)

Nitrites: .25

Nitrates: 25

[teenyreef]

Day 12:

Ph: 7.9

Ammonia: 1 

Nitrites: .5

Nitrates: 30

[mipster]

 

 

 

 

[second_decimal]

Hi Teeny, had a quick question for you.. what do you keep your alk at? i am using blue bucket and dosing ATI Essentials. Dhk hangs around 8.5 or so. My Ph is always bouncing around and is chronically low. I'm not chasing numbers here, but Ph swings from 7.65 <-> 7.9... i was considering increasing the dosage of ATI #1 but one of the things highlighted by some research showed the main difference of soda ash vs sodium bicarbonate is the effect on Ph. Now I'm wondering if ATI #1 is using sodium bicarbonate to raise Alk and if, instead of increasing ATI#1 i should just dose Sodas Ash separately or through ATO... any thoughts? whats your experience with that?

[teenyreef]

I've fallen behind on daily reporting, mostly because nothing has changed.

 

Day 13:

Ph: 7.9

Ammonia: 1 

Nitrites: .5

Nitrates: 30

 

Day 14: same

Day 15: same

 

Sigh

 

[teenyreef]

On 8/6/2020 at 2:39 PM, second_decimal said:

Hi Teeny, had a quick question for you.. what do you keep your alk at? i am using blue bucket and dosing ATI Essentials. Dhk hangs around 8.5 or so. My Ph is always bouncing around and is chronically low. I'm not chasing numbers here, but Ph swings from 7.65 <-> 7.9... i was considering increasing the dosage of ATI #1 but one of the things highlighted by some research showed the main difference of soda ash vs sodium bicarbonate is the effect on Ph. Now I'm wondering if ATI #1 is using sodium bicarbonate to raise Alk and if, instead of increasing ATI#1 i should just dose Sodas Ash separately or through ATO... any thoughts? whats your experience with that?

I shoot for 7.8 alk, but I'm fine with anything between 7 and 8.5. If I overshoot, I prefer lower rather than higher since corals seem to have a much easier time with overly low, or rapid shift to lower levels, than sudden jumps to higher levels. I used to use blue bucket and liked it. I switched to Tropic Marin because it has similar parameters, but mixes cleaner and faster, with a lot less crap left in the bottom of the mixing container.

 

I have to confess I've never paid any attention to bicarb vs soda ash in dosing. I've always done liquid two part plus magnesium, and when ATI came out with the two part that included mag and trace elements I jumped on it and never looked back. The one thing I do have to watch is the gradual increase in salinity from the dosing. I end up pulling out a quart or two of water from the tank every couple weeks, and let the ATO refill it, which brings it back down a point.

 

My Ph is usually between 7.8 and 8.0 in the IM10 and the IM40. The DB30, which has a sump and a much bigger skimmer, is a little higher, between 8.1 and 8.3. But I haven't calibrated the probes in several months so I don't pay much attention to the difference from one tank to another. I just keep an eye out for changes over time. If one of the tanks that runs around 7.9 suddenly started reading higher or lower, that would be a clue to check to see if something was going on.

 

 

[teenyreef]

By the way, in case you're wondering like I was...I used the same test kit yesterday to check the water from the IM10. It showed zero ammonia and nitrites. So the test kit works 🙂

 

[Reefkid88]

Chuggin' along,slowly but surely. 

 

 I got a piece of LR myself today and hoping it hurries things up. I have been sitting at 2+ ammonia and 0 rites and trates for almost 3 weeks  😒 ... 

[Stoops718]

On 5/2/2020 at 1:25 PM, teenyreef said:

Another thing to think about is what I will transfer from the IM10. I don't want to bring any pests over, so most likely I'll just transfer frags, and corals that are on their own small rocks. But the big rocks definitely won't come over.

 

But that means I need to cycle this tank with new rocks. And that means I have to keep the IM10 running until that's done. Or I need to temporarily put whatever gets transferred into another tank (probably the 30g frag tank) while I get things going.

Or you can send them all to me. LOL. Good luck with the new build. Looks awesome so far.

[teenyreef]

On 8/9/2020 at 12:10 AM, Reefkid88 said:

Chuggin' along,slowly but surely. 

 

 I got a piece of LR myself today and hoping it hurries things up. I have been sitting at 2+ ammonia and 0 rites and trates for almost 3 weeks  😒 ... 

I'm soooo tempted to just stick some LR from one of the other tanks in the sump and let it roll. It would be so much better for bacterial diversity and as soon as I start putting in frags from other tanks I'll probably be bringing in "stuff" from the other tanks anyway. 

 

But I've gone this far with the dry rock cycle, and I'm still feeling stubborn. If I hit the one month mark without completing the cycle, then I'll give in. If I haven't already by then. 

 

Btw...no changes yet, other than nitrates are higher. So at least something is still happening...

Day 16:

Ph: 7.9

Ammonia: 1 

Nitrites: .5

Nitrates: 30

 

Day 17:

Ph: 7.9

Ammonia: 1 

Nitrites: .5

Nitrates: 50

 

My best guess at what's going on at this point is that I overdosed ammonia on Day 1 when I had trouble with the old Salifert test kit and thought the initial dose was too low. I have heard that too much ammonia in the beginning can derail and even significantly delay the cycle.

 

The other interesting thing about this cycle is the extended presence of nitrites. Every cycle I've ever done had nitrites for a day at most. And some never showed any nitrites. There have been some people that have posted over the years about extended nitrites, and most of them ended up taking the better part of a month before their nitrites finally hit zero.

 

[debbeach13]

46 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

My best guess at what's going on at this point is that I overdosed ammonia on Day 1 when I had trouble with the old Salifert test kit and thought the initial dose was too low.

This sounds like it might be what is happening. I do not blame you for considering the addition of a pc. of live rock.

[Reefkid88]

 I unfortunately have no made any cycling progress after 2 days with LR. I know its only been 2 days. Which I don't expect it to happen instantly. 

 

 Seems like cycles used to happen so much faster back in the day lol. 

[debbeach13]

I always planned on 2 months even with all live rock. Are either of you trying some of Dr, Tim's recommendations.  Up the Temp to 84, lower the SG to 18-20 PPT, keep the lights off, and no GFO or carbon. 

[teenyreef]

Sorry for not updating lately! This week was vacation, and I got really busy at work trying to get ready to go on vacation, and then, well, I was on vacation 

 

Before I left, I did some research on stalled cycles, and I installed a new slide in my old Seneye monitor. Both seem to indicate I should go ahead and try introducing some life and some food. In particular, the Seney monitor showed free ammonia to be about .02, below Seneye's high limit of .03. So I did a 25% water change and moved a small snail out of the 10g and put him in the tank as test.

 

24 hours later, he was doing fine, moving all over the tank.

 

So I did another 25% water change the next day, put in a couple larger snails, and fed a little bit of frozen food when I fed the rest of the tanks. The next day, the new guys made it to the top of the rocks (and each other )

 

Later, the big guy was still on top, but you can where the other guy got the algae of the top of him:

 

It's been another five days now. The snails are still doing fine. Ammonia is definitely lower, close to zero, if not at zero (it's hard to tell with the API test kit). Nitrites are still detectable at .25. 

But the Seneye says free ammonia is .016, which is good, and Ammonium (not harmful) has gone down from 15 to 11 ppb. 

 

I'm going to do a 50% water change this weekend, and then move in some more snails and maybe a crab if I can catch one out of the 10g. I'm not quite ready for test corals yet as I'd like to leave the light off a little longer just to avoid algae growth while the biological filtration capacity grows a little more.

[teenyreef]

On 8/11/2020 at 8:23 AM, debbeach13 said:

I always planned on 2 months even with all live rock. Are either of you trying some of Dr, Tim's recommendations.  Up the Temp to 84, lower the SG to 18-20 PPT, keep the lights off, and no GFO or carbon. 

I agree, for me, two months is a good target for considering a tank mature enough for more than a test coral or two. 

 

I have kept the lights off, and there's no gfo or carbon (and no skimming). I've been following the instruction that came with the Brightwell dry rock cycling kit which didn't call for either lowered salinity or raised temps, so I didn't try either of those. But I may try that on the next tank 🙂

 

[debbeach13]

I saw those suggestions in a Dr. Tim's video and I am also going to try all of them if and when next tank is set up.

[da1001]

Good to see you are past the stalled cycle.  I thought mine had stalled a few weeks ago when I was doing mine, but my best guess is the recommended dosage of ammonia is higher than it is supposed to be and since my tests only go to 2.0 ammonia for testing it wasnt picking up that it was probably closer to 3.0 or 4.0.  It was a Dr Tims test, everything else worked ok but instead of the 9 day cycle it said, it ended up being 19.  If I remember right, you used Microbacter on yours?  So 2 strikeouts on relatively popular cycling products it sounds like.  Looking forward to more critters in the tank!

[teenyreef]

On 8/21/2020 at 8:00 AM, da1001 said:

Good to see you are past the stalled cycle.  I thought mine had stalled a few weeks ago when I was doing mine, but my best guess is the recommended dosage of ammonia is higher than it is supposed to be and since my tests only go to 2.0 ammonia for testing it wasnt picking up that it was probably closer to 3.0 or 4.0.  It was a Dr Tims test, everything else worked ok but instead of the 9 day cycle it said, it ended up being 19.  If I remember right, you used Microbacter on yours?  So 2 strikeouts on relatively popular cycling products it sounds like.  Looking forward to more critters in the tank!

I suspect my problem was that I overdosed ammonia at the beginning because of test kit problems. In defense of the Brightwell/Microbacter kit, the instructions were very clear that putting in too much ammonia would result in Bad Things happening. 

[teenyreef]

I put in a tiny hermit crab over the weekend after a 50% water change and he's been doing great. Parameters are unchanged - ammonia pretty much at zero, nitrites staying at .25. Nitrates are at 25 after the water change. I'll do another 10g change this weekend to bring them down further.

 

I've been feeding the tank, very lightly, ever two or three days. There's stuff starting to grow on the tank walls and detritus is starting to appear, so everything is going very well.

 

Today I turned the light on and installed the first test coral, a frag of the Evil Favites I had in the frag tank. This is one of the oldest and most bulletproof corals I have. I got it when I started my very first reef tank, the 4g pico, about 4 years ago. If this guy doesn't do well, I know for sure I need to wait before putting in any more corals.

 

I would like to move a fish or two over from the 10g, but the only way to get them out is to pull all the rocks out, and I don't want to do that until I'm ready for more corals.

 

So, just for the record, here's a one month FTS:

2020-08-26 FTS: 

 

 

And a closer view of the Evil Favites:

 

 

[debbeach13]

Nice test coral plus adds some coralline algae. 

[teenyreef]

13 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Nice test coral plus adds some coralline algae. 

Yep! I did notice the algae after I took the picture, so I took it back over to the frag tank and scrubbed it really well.

[jack1978]

How does Mrs Teeny not kill you in your sleep?

-Tell us your secret? 

[teenyreef]

20 hours ago, jack1978 said:

How does Mrs Teeny not kill you in your sleep?

-Tell us your secret? 

I never sleep 

[teenyreef]

Since the last post, I've added a few more test corals and some more snails, and I've been feeding the corals with some of the frozen food I put in the other tanks. I've also started a weekly dose of Microbacter Clean (part of the Brightwell dry rock cycling kit).

 

Things are really moving now. Free ammonia as reported by the Seneye has dropped steadily. It was at .015 when I started feeding the tank, and as of today is down to .001. Best news of all, we have diatoms all over the rocks and glass. Ugly, but a sure sign of good progress.