Cycle advice please

[Wes1984]

Okay so I've had many tanks in the past but this is the first time I'm cycling with dry rock and can't quite get my head around it. 

 

Started 3 weeks ago with Dr Tim's one and only, added ammonia 24hrs later but only half the recommended dose as wanted to be a bit cautious as I read that the live sand could add ammonia as well before cycling it to nitrite. Couple days later I tested ammonia and it was 0.25. So I added the next ammonia as recommended by Dr Tim's, this time full dose and then left it for a just over a week. On Saturday I tested for ammonia and it came back at 0.25 again.

Long story short I purchased a nitrate test kit instead of nitrite so I tested nitrates and that came back at a whopping 100. This made me panic a little so I did about a 15% water change to see if I could get this down a little. Left the tank be for a few days and tested yesterday again, still waiting on nitrite test to be delivered, but again Ammonia came back at 0.25 and nitrates are still 100. So did some more researching and seems that if nitrites are present then nitrate test will be incorrect as it picks up nitrites as well as nitrates.

 

Sorry for the long story but can anyone reassure me or point out if somethings wrong or does all this seem okay and just carry on waiting? Obvs I need my nitrite test to check that  as well but is it usual for the nitrates to be so high? or is the nitrite nitrate thing correct and chances are that the nitrite is spiking?

[brandon429]

this is exactly where you stand 

 

if you do a fifty percent water change, and add fish, they'll live equal to you waiting another 5 months and then adding fish. Dr. Tims takes ten days maximum to seat in, I haven't come across any dead/nonfunctioning bottles of it in ten straight years of making follow ups on online cycles. Its that simple, you're cycled. 

 

why does it not appear this way?

 

old cycling science vs new.

 

old cycling science has you factor in nitrate and nitrite, new cycling science does not because of Randy's article on nitrite in the reef tank (not a salesman, a chemist, that's a big deal in where you get cycling information if it comes from salespersons or not)

 

we don't expect your nitrate to read correctly this early in a cycle due to nitrite interference as you mentioned. We don't care about nitrite due to Randy's non sales no-scare tactics article on nitrite in the reef tank. ammonia control is what matters, and they've engineered the bottle bac meant for cycling to handle ammonia right out the bottle, seneye cycling studies show over and over. 

 

this means don't own a nitrite test kit, don't run one in display tank reefing. save yourself the nitrite headache. 

 

 

old cycling science constantly, at every turn, paints the picture your cycle might not be able to carry fish (handle raw ammonia) safely, new cycling science hasn't seen one single failed cycle in ten years. its that simple. you'll have to choose which ruleset you want but I'll tell you this off post trending: your specific fish disease protocol selected or skipped + feed quality and water care quality will determine your fish longevity as of right now, given all decent hardware controls in place. If you had a seneye, you'd show ammonia control three weeks after dosing Dr. Tims and feeding it, simple as that, in every case. (you'd show ammonia control within the hour you added the bottle bac, and it would continue as long as the tank stays wet actually)

 

you don't need to buy a seneye, that's just what it takes to get closure on cycle challenges if you won't buy the patterns I've established below. 

 

old cycling science is so well-seated to scare us, into buying more fixes, or increasing temps or adjusting salinity or waiting longer/always something

 

that the chances you'll believe what I'm saying is .04% 🙂 I realize this lol. 

 

as a final reinforcement to my odd-sounding claims, how well did we test every single aspect of what I wrote above right here, its about 150 reef tanks cycled with final updates:

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-unstick-any-seemingly-stuck-cycle.742202/

 

 

it is very hard to forego all we've been taught about how cycling works because we were trained by fear vs inspectable patterns by peer tanks. Next time you attend a reef convention or see a podcast or video about a reef convention, notice all the hundreds of instant tanks that never missed the start date, had no stalls, and never ever ever lost animals because they do NOT use the same rule set for cycling that the buyers use. Reef conventions have both live rock skip cycle transfer tanks, and full dry start tanks meant to demo the ability of bottle bac (I hung out at the fritz booth at aquashella dallas in '18, ten clownfish packed into a ten gallon reef doing fine, eating fine, clear water, fritz dosed)

 

sellers use updated cycling science

 

 

buyers use old cycling science, that keeps the dollars flowing. 

 

you aren't doing a 50% water change because there's ammonia in the water, its to start with as clean of water as possible because soon it'll start compiling waste with fish and feed in tow, and starting off with some waste in there isn't harmful but a clean start is the universal cycle equalizer, we show for 29 straight pages with more live time jobs coming weekly. 

 

If you are using a common degree of rock then its all coated in cycling bacteria by now, your issue was literally 100% of every issue above when they posted and we did literally nothing to fix their cycle other than assess if they were past day ten or not, and what brand of bottle bac they used. for 29 straight pages without a loss. Notice how we made everyone (most everyone) quit posting their non digital test readings? that's how we got such consistent outcome from the thread. 

 

 

*every poster there, all of them, got a specific start date assessed for the fish-in date and we can see how that is working. if cycles didn't have a terminable, pre-known date, no seller could make a reef convention on time. Buyers are trained for hesitancy, never ever ever the sellers. 

[brandon429]

One last detail

 

that proof link above is rarely read after being linked, tldr scares off nearly all readers except for the determined. so, parsing from post#1 here is a very short 5 minute read we use for examples like yours

 

symptoms of the stuck cycle: my api hasn't moved for days it seems pegged.

 

action: change water, make a reef, track it out to its second year now and see Alex's updates. Its the shortest clearest proof on file using one tank that cycles don't stall when non digital test kits say they do. 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/100-water-change.752693/page-2

 

 

*if we can get your cycle fixed here live-time by doing the water change, and adding fish, and watching everything for a week like we do above, we'll have some nano-reef specific cycle fixes and won't need the lengthy RtR ones. Id rather transition over to all nano-reef specific works going forward anyway.

 

 

*acclimate your fish carefully, they can die from poor acclimation if they're shipped etc so be sure you are prepped to acclimate the selections correctly before going into your tank. We track out dry rock setups using Dr. Tims, a seneye, and fish on day one  and the bioload is carried long before bacterial implantation takes place. At three weeks, they're implanted and no degree of water change will unseat them.

 

we chose 50% vs 100% because unlike Alex you didn't spike a massive load of ammonia into the system. The thread above also proves that high doses of ammonia don't stall a cycle or prevent implantation. 

 

preps for worst case scenario: what if this cycle right here today is the first dead bottle of Dr. Tim's we've ever come across in a cycling thread in a display tank, how will we know if we're not tediously re-proving the cycle over and over as old cycling science has us do?

 

consult any cycling chart. basic ammonia control is established by day ten with any form of feeding, water and inoculation and your home environ counts as very light free inoculation even if the bottle is dead. Nobody should be adding ten fish up front to any system regardless of ability (disease risk) so the one or two clownfish you are likely considering will be fine among your dilutions after you change out some water to ensure a clean start. stuck to the slime coat of any fish or animals added is a massive mix of bacteria including cycling bac from the holding system they came from, and the process speeds up anyway and you'll never notice an issue. any system that sat three weeks with water, heated and circulated, and feed would show a very light ammonia control on a seneye so there's padding in place even if your bottle is dead, which I do not expect it to be. I expect none of them to be. 

 

cycling charts are time-based waits, they don't factor in what kind of bac used or not. knowing the # of days in wait allows us to cross-reference the params in play, and across all books and cycling charts ever made the times don't vary much more than a day at most. the consistency is well-known. the #1 falsehood from old cycling science is it takes a known timeframe activity and breaks it up into arbitrary waits, some lasting up to 90 days you'll see by help posts in the big link before Alex's.