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Question about starting my cycle


Bsilb

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I recently set up my new 20 gallon waterbox. Im using about 15 pounds of life rock (not live rock) and i put in a 20 pound bag of caribsea Agra-Alive special grade sand. 

My question is, is that enough to really get the cycle kick started? The tank has been running for 4 days now and i'm only seeing 0.25ppm of ammonia. Is that enough? I just thought i would maybe see a higher amount. Thanks for the feedback in advance. 

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There’s nothing provided to die off and raise the ammonia so that’s the max you’ll see

 

You need a testless way to cycle or that api kit is going to drive you crazy. 
 

here’s four ways to cycle that tank using zero tests, only timelines, and it works 100% of the time and not 99%:

 

1. add the recommended dose from a bottle of Fritz, biospira, or Dr Tims cycling bacteria. Pick one of those three, not the others. Add in one ground up pinch of flake food you ground up in the palm of your hand, wait ten days, you’re cycled and can’t not be. The wait is for implantation time onto surfaces, out of the bottle those mixes will carry a bioload/ fish.

 

2. add two pinches of ground up flake feed to your system as is, wait 20 days, no bottle bac, you’re still cycled. This is where people sub in cocktail shrimp etc, the food source doesn’t matter.


see how the timeframe for waiting shifts in regard to the loading of bac and or feed, that’s key.

 

3. go get one large rock already cured with coralline on it from a pet store, set it in the middle of your current scape, your tank is now instant cycled as that one live rock if it’s large can handle the complete bioload the tank will ever see, not even counting the dry surfaces about to catch up.

 

4. you can use time alone to cycle your system as it sits. Leave it stewing for four months, then it’s cycled.

 

 

if you try and use that test kit to proof your cycle, expect the wait times to vary from 30-90+ days, but that doesn’t mean that’s how long cycling actually takes. Above are the known timelines.

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21 minutes ago, brandon429 said:

There’s nothing provided to die off and raise the ammonia so that’s the max you’ll see

 

You need a testless way to cycle or that api kit is going to drive you crazy. 
 

here’s four ways to cycle that tank using zero tests, only timelines, and it works 100% of the time and not 99%:

 

1. add the recommended dose from a bottle of Fritz, biospira, or Dr Tims cycling bacteria. Pick one of those three, not the others. Add in one ground up pinch of flake food you ground up in the palm of your hand, wait ten days, you’re cycled and can’t not be. The wait is for implantation time onto surfaces, out of the bottle those mixes will carry a bioload/ fish.

 

2. add two pinches of ground up flake feed to your system as is, wait 20 days, no bottle bac, you’re still cycled. This is where people sub in cocktail shrimp etc, the food source doesn’t matter.


see how the timeframe for waiting shifts in regard to the loading of bac and or feed, that’s key.

 

3. go get one large rock already cured with coralline on it from a pet store, set it in the middle of your current scape, your tank is now instant cycled as that one live rock if it’s large can handle the complete bioload the tank will ever see, not even counting the dry surfaces about to catch up.

 

4. you can use time alone to cycle your system as it sits. Leave it stewing for four months, then it’s cycled.

 

 

if you try and use that test kit to proof your cycle, expect the wait times to vary from 30-90+ days, but that doesn’t mean that’s how long cycling actually takes. Above are the known timelines.

Thank you so much! Going with biospira and flake. I've got time. But i don't want to wait four months. haha

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Biospira might be the best there is agreed. Fritz won the implantation time race from Dr Reefs 100 page bottle bac thread on reef2reef but it has picky refrigeration storage needs, ‘spira sits on a shelf and I’ve never seen it fail not one time not ever. My friend Dan P is a scientist that does constant bacteria studies on rtr and posts them, he’s respected bigtime among reef chemists. He says it’s his favorite too.

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When you see people buying one of those brands of bottle bac and adding fish on day one, that’s ethical it’s not unethical. Their risk is fish disease from skipping fallow and quarantine preps, there isn’t a waste burning issue or the fish would show it hurting them

 

or one of the 1000 seneye owners would post one single log showing an incomplete cycle. 

 

 

there is no cycling procedure that takes the place of fallow and quarantine options for fish disease control.

 

It’d be unethical if the fish from day one died in a horrible cloudy stinky mess of uncycled water, they don’t. They live normally because bottle bac in suspension can carry two fish bioload just fine. 
 

but if you set up a tank like that and do a big water change, you’re exporting the floating bac doing the waste handling. By waiting ten days (the universal control date for ammonia off every cycle chart ever written) you attain the implantation date for the bacteria, no degree of 100% water changes will unstick them from the surfaces, tank cleaning cannot undo the cycle then. It’s sooner than ten days, more like three, but we are doing no test so that’s the safe zone.

 

the fish food (carbon) is a direct speed boost for the type of bacteria they sell us in bottles. It’s not the real cycling bacteria that one day take over our reefs, but they’re the initial workhorses we buy so we don’t have to wait four months for the real tenants to show up naturally.

 

new cycling science knows that cycles don’t stall, any seneye owner knows this. Api and Red Sea owners are in doubt about cycle completion- that’s why measurement hardware makes such a difference in how we advise others on cycling. Above we are using the mode that water bacteria in water *will* set up shop, without fail, we merely pick the ready date and it’s known before the tank is built. 
 

a cycle is specifically not something that ranges in dates all randomly tank to tank. The reason if you started a poll and asked respondents the question they would disagree 100% is because they aren’t factoring seneye and pre-charted ammonia control dates they are using old cycling science to make the response and that mode always, always doubts what water bacteria do in water.

 

it’s not necessary to own a seneye, what ammonia does is fully predictable in any setup. I will never pay to own one, but by studying the post data we can discern valuable new details that separates old cycling science from new.
 

we specifically did not add 2 ppm ammonia and wait for a drop, that’s old science and causes pure problems for reefers because non digital kits take up to two weeks to report truth in ammonia that seneye registers in ten minutes. When you add fish to the chosen setup above, the fish and their daily waste and feeding will be handled and the water will stay clear. How long the fish lives is determined by the disease protocol you choose or not choose primarily, and then secondary factors like heater consistency / hardware consistency are in play as well.

 

**acclimation is big. Probably among the biggest loss causes for new fish, so if they are shipped be sure and don’t float the open bag that’s ammonia issues in the bag, not the tank. If from a lfs just get the salinity matched in the holding bag in a decent timeframe and move them via net over.

 

don’t think the skipping 2 ppm is heretical 🙂 it’s simply progression of science on the heels that at no time has any seneye owner reported a stalled, slow, or incomplete cycle. 2ppm drops are the dial up equivalent to today’s fiber cycles. Though I have never seen a dead bottle of cycling bac the ten days + fish food wait is designed to handle even that. Two fish and your dilution levels and six live cells in the bottle among one million lol would still pull it off, there is no digital nh3 ammonia noncontrol by day ten I’ve ever seen in ten thousand cycles done and logged on web posts.

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You should really have at least one good reference book on hand to answer basic questions like this.  🙂 

 

Your tank is essentially ready for critters with the "life rock" and sand, but you should start stocking small (e.g. snails) and build up the tank's bio-load s-l-o-w-l-y.  For a rule of thumb, I would try to add no more than 1-2 critters every 2-4 weeks.

 

If you do it right (which is not that hard) then you'll never see an ammonia spike.

 

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