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why fishless cycle?


filefishfinatic

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2 minutes ago, brandon429 said:

Hey that system looks great! How fun to get to reef with her for sure and show her how fun the hobby is

 

 

you were much, much nicer than most bottle bac cycles, that was a good month of prep time lead in, clearly works excellent 

Yeah was real fun. Now only issue is she wants more animals..... Bigger tank on its way I suspect!!! 

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I think I'd have to vote for FileFishFanatic's first summary as directly matching cycles we can try and pattern out from google, or any other site for that matter/forum

 

in 2021 things have sped up, there's a Moore's law for cycling just like there is for processor speed. the meter is nh3 control, as a valid ethical start date marker, even if that's on day 1 vs day 30.

 

nitrite doesn't count, we simply don't care about it in reefing. *this is a massive source of contention online, but just not by actual marine chemists as folks don't typically disagree with Randy Holmes Farley and look successful in the exchange. His article right here shows us why we skip nitrite measurement in today's cycling (actually since 2006 lol, reefers don't listen well they make up false nitrite worries that run opposite to this article, and everything Randy posts if you speak to him at r2r.)

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php

 

so, for me, the jury isn't out on nitrite the jury left the courthouse fifteen years ago, nitrite is a non issue, it mattered in 1962 when we knew less chemistry than today.

 

*there is a risk: the risk is a totally small nano, no dilution, someone buys the rare truly dead bottle of bac and inputs three clowns and really load tests the small dilution. if the bac are dead, that'll burn and kill the system

*but try and find just one. as a numbers game, if I had these odds in vegas...

 

proving ammonia control is wise, Randy advises us to do that if we read his posts. *BUT* just because API doesn't budge doesnt mean you have dead bottle bac 🙂 it means literally nothing lol, that's why the prior constraints are set around seneye patterning because those never show .25 as the running baseline. There are specific ways to proof ANY cycle prep with API, but its not the way we're used to reading and we for sure do not test spike the system to 2 ppm, that's way too much for api and red sea to handle, we'd change up the proofing if anyone is interested in the details those can be relayed. I'll save that post till inquired, and we have examples with pics too anyone can read. 

 

 

 

 

FileFishFanatic was correct in this thread, based on numbers and constraints that eliminate gross mis testing, unstated confounds and always report levels as nh3 vs nh4 to determine fair bioload carry ability.

The patterns others show online is just about exactly how any reef on this site is going to cycle, that helps to fill in gaps when mis testing or too much ammonia test loading has occurred. You can unstall any stuck cycle in reefing by just changing out all the water for new...what's left adhered to the rocks and surfaces is the functioning filter slicks that water changes can't remove, and the system will then resume as normal. 

@filefishfinatic

nice post.

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