A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

[MnFish1]

I’ve upgraded. And changed tanks more than I’d like to discuss but I’ve always just took what I had like my last upgrade from 60gallon to 350 gallons and used that little bit of rock and moved everything over the same day and kept going with new dry rock! Never had an algae problem I’ve never seen an ugly phase either! It’s pretty simple if you add the dry rock and use calcium carbonate “diy coral snow” add some mb7 or zeo back and let it snow in your tank it coats the surfaces and allows the good bacteria to stay put on the rocks and keeps the uglies away.. I’ve added over 150 pounds of dry rock to my tank and never saw a spec of algae and they turn solid purple in 6-8 weeks…

Same here

 

[Lasse]

Of cause both @exnisstech, @MnFish1 and @Troylee :s approach work - its already cycled - its only just moved to larger volume of water - but it has nothing with a rip clean and Skip cycle instant reef to do - its only like a huge WC in a larger tank. I have done that - hundred of times. It does not need any work threads to confirm decades of knowledge - its just common sense

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Troylee]

Of cause both @exnisstech, @MnFish1 and @Troylee :s approach work - its already cycled - its only just moved to larger volume of water - but it has nothing with a rip clean and Skip cycle instant reef to do - its only like a huge WC in a larger tank. I have done that - hundred of times. It does not need any work threads to confirm decades of knowledge - its just common sense

Sincerely Lasse

I’ve always looked at as a water change and nothing more lol.. From what I witnessed on my last upgrade turned me into a strong believer that huge water changes are better than little ones here or there.. I moved what Little Rock I had Into my new tank that was all new 300 gallons of salt water “didn’t use any old water” and my corals never looked happier! My sticks flourished and I was like wow! I see people doing daily ones they might help but from my experience and I’ve even seen Jason Fox changes like 800 gallons in one shot or something crazy! The corals don’t mind in fact love it!

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

If not related or quite on track ill remove:

While this was instantly started with bottle bacteria. My water changes were the equivalant of putting in a new tank weekly.
i will attach video. I would scrub everything. Only time I had issues is when i was unable to do my maintenance for a few weeks due to somethings going on.

This is the same as taking rock and throwing in a new tank each week. There was no issues. Same principle applies. In fact my current build I am following same principles. And this tank only has the corals skeleton to carry bacteria. Everything is doing great. But im also being appropriate with bioload.

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

On a side note as stated prior our tanks are always cycling and I believe a better term is bacteria establishment phase.

 

[exnisstech]

Of cause both @exnisstech, @MnFish1 and @Troylee :s approach work - its already cycled - its only just moved to larger volume of water - but it has nothing with a rip clean and Skip cycle instant reef to do - its only like a huge WC in a larger tank. I have done that - hundred of times. It does not need any work threads to confirm decades of knowledge - its just common sense

Sincerely Lasse

I guess thinking about it it is nothing more than a move. I should ask exactly is the definition of a skip cycle? I've cycled tanks instantly adding live rock rubble with a bunch of dry rock. Is that a skip cycle or just an instant cycle or are they the same. Question's I probably should have asked before I stepped in

 

[MnFish1]

If not related or quite on track ill remove:

While this was instantly started with bottle bacteria. My water changes were the equivalant of putting in a new tank weekly.
i will attach video. I would scrub everything. Only time I had issues is when i was unable to do my maintenance for a few weeks due to somethings going on.

This is the same as taking rock and throwing in a new tank each week. There was no issues. Same principle applies. In fact my current build I am following same principles. And this tank only has the corals skeleton to carry bacteria. Everything is doing great. But im also being appropriate with bioload.

Nice tank

 

[Lasse]

If not related or quite on track ill remove:

While this was instantly started with bottle bacteria. My water changes were the equivalant of putting in a new tank weekly.
i will attach video. I would scrub everything. Only time I had issues is when i was unable to do my maintenance for a few weeks due to somethings going on.

This is the same as taking rock and throwing in a new tank each week. There was no issues. Same principle applies. In fact my current build I am following same principles. And this tank only has the corals skeleton to carry bacteria. Everything is doing great. But im also being appropriate with bioload.

One very small fish - which - an do you feed it?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Nice tank

It is an old one I tore down when I moved. But miss it. Most the coral was transferred to different one but had to take most to lfs since new build didnt have room.

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

One very small fish - which - an do you feed it?

Sincerely Lasse

Actually i had quite a few at different times. But took me a while to learn to get a lid... a few trimma gobies flaming prawn and catalina. Were my main ones. Kept others.. benepets powder would be all I fed. About every 2 to 3 days roughly. I have another taking now but dont know if ill put fish in this one. If I do it will probably be flaming prawn goby. But more thinking of a small shrimp size and looks of peterson or blue coralbanded.

 

[Lasse]

It means that you have no or a verry verry small nitrogen load. It will not be any toxic NH3 concentrations build up during a week or so. It does not matter if that aquarium is cycled or not.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I agree - except perhaps for the 'years' part. I.e. that even after years there would be an adequate bio load. However, I only say that because of my own experiments with this as well as various scientific articles. In my case, After a month of 'no ammonia', the recovery not delayed (i.e. the time to process 2 ppm ammonia in 24 hours) and If I remember correctly, it was delayed only by a matter of 12-24 hours when the experiment was repeated after 2 months. As I said in that other thread, of course, there are other heterotrophs that can go dormant, etc - that can process ammonia - there is no 'proof' that only obligate autotrophs can 'do the job'.

Yeah, I don’t think after years there would be adequate nitrifying population to process 2ppm NH3 either. That’s what I was talking about with K being in response to the amount of the limiting factor (in this case, NH3) available.

What I’m saying is that maybe the overall concentration of NH3 in the water column might read zero after a long time of no inputs, but there will probably be pockets somewhere in the tank where there is some NH3 being produced (eg bristleworms within the rock work), and some small isolated bacteria will manage to hang on.

In other words, I don’t think it’s possible without an intervention like a heavy dose of bleach to completely rid a tank of bacteria simply by taking the fish and inverts out.

But like you said, if K drops way, way down, there will be some lag time for the population to respond to the limiting factor increase. That said, ecologically, the tank is still cycling even with a low K of nitrifiers. If somebody were to add fish suddenly, the NH3 would shoot up before the nitrifiers caught up.

But here is why it would probably not be a terribly unsafe move to add fish to such a tank. In your trials, you added 2ppm NH3 all at once. In a situation where fish were added to that same system, the increase in [NH3] would be far more gradual (unless you dumped in an huge biomass of fish), and that lag time in shift in K would not be so noticeable. There would be a lag, for sure, but almost as soon as that [NH3] started to increase, the nitrifiers in the tank would respond. So I don’t think your [NH3] would ever make it anywhere near 2ppm in a scenario of adding fish. compared to just dumping NH3 in to get to [NH3] of 2ppm.

It’s maybe a minor distinction, but it’s what I would lean on when deciding if I should add something like 8 damsels to a tank that has been running but fishless for a couple of years. I personally wouldn’t give it a 2nd thought. There will be some bacteria in there somewhere.

 

[MnFish1]

Yeah, I don’t think after years there would be adequate nitrifying population to process 2ppm NH3 either. That’s what I was talking about with K being in response to the amount of the limiting factor (in this case, NH3) available.

What I’m saying is that maybe the overall concentration of NH3 in the water column might read zero after a long time of no inputs, but there will probably be pockets somewhere in the tank where there is some NH3 being produced (eg bristleworms within the rock work), and some small isolated bacteria will manage to hang on.

In other words, I don’t think it’s possible without an intervention like a heavy dose of bleach to completely rid a tank of bacteria simply by taking the fish and inverts out.

But like you said, if K drops way, way down, there will be some lag time for the population to respond to the limiting factor increase. That said, ecologically, the tank is still cycling even with a low K of nitrifiers. If somebody were to add fish suddenly, the NH3 would shoot up before the nitrifiers caught up.

But here is why it would probably not be a terribly unsafe move to add fish to such a tank. In your trials, you added 2ppm NH3 all at once. In a situation where fish were added to that same system, the increase in [NH3] would be far more gradual (unless you dumped in an huge biomass of fish), and that lag time in shift in K would not be so noticeable. There would be a lag, for sure, but almost as soon as that [NH3] started to increase, the nitrifiers in the tank would respond. So I don’t think your [NH3] would ever make it anywhere near 2ppm in a scenario of adding fish. compared to just dumping NH3 in to get to [NH3] of 2ppm.

It’s maybe a minor distinction, but it’s what I would lean on when deciding if I should add something like 8 damsels to a tank that has been running but fishless for a couple of years. I personally wouldn’t give it a 2nd thought. There will be some bacteria in there somewhere.

Yes that was the idea

 

[Lasse]

And in a fishless tank poor in nutrients and with lightings - there is probably some cyanobacteria that can fixate NH3/NH4 from N2 too

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Macbalacano]

4 Month Update: See my Tank Thread/Journal for more details.

Latest tank shots below. In short, I ended up getting dinos for a couple of weeks because I let my nutrients bottom out by accident. I was away from home for a few days and my nitrates and phosphates both hit 0ppm. I ended up beating the dinos and then got cyano afterwards. I am now keeping my nutrients stable.

I just wanted to share that while I got dinos and cyano, they were fairly easy to beat, only around for a short period of time (2-3 weeks), and had no livestock losses. I believe this is due to the great level of biodiversity that was present in the tank due to the live rock.

 

[MnFish1]

Nice looking tank.

 

[brandon429]

I agree it’s so sharp. He’s been guiding it so well since day one, a perfect example for our thread for sure.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

This is all anybody needs to understand about cycling a tank. This is a classic sigmoid growth curve, applied to bacterial populations here:

Let’s say you have a brand new 300 gal tank. One handful of sand or rubble out of an established tank puts you at the area circled in red. If you add several fish, you will fairly quickly be in the yellow (exponential) phase. The limiting factors of [NH3] and available space are in abundance, so population growth will be exponential.

@Lasse has probably forgotten more about nitrifying bacteria than I know, so I’ll let him chime in on how long it would take to get from early exponential phase (red) to transitional phase (green), but in my experience, it is probably less than a week.

Once at plateau, do whatever you want…tank is fully cycling with bacteria close to carrying capacity (or able to reach K within a day or two as [NH3] increases from fish load)

Where I prefer handful of sand/rubble/live rock from existing system over bottled bacteria:
a) it’s free
b) you are more likely to get the a more biodiverse bacterial community that has already existed in the exact environment you’re adding them to. Does anybody really know exactly what’s in those bottles?

 

[Macbalacano]

@MnFish1 @brandon429 thank you both for your very kind words. But more importantly, thank you for your contributions to the community - it’s how I’ve been able to do this well so far!

 

[MnFish1]

This is all anybody needs to understand about cycling a tank. This is a classic sigmoid growth curve, applied to bacterial populations here:

Let’s say you have a brand new 300 gal tank. One handful of sand or rubble out of an established tank puts you at the area circled in red. If you add several fish, you will fairly quickly be in the yellow (exponential) phase. The limiting factors of [NH3] and available space are in abundance, so population growth will be exponential.

@Lasse has probably forgotten more about nitrifying bacteria than I know, so I’ll let him chime in on how long it would take to get from early exponential phase (red) to transitional phase (green), but in my experience, it is probably less than a week.

Once at plateau, do whatever you want…tank is fully cycling with bacteria close to carrying capacity (or able to reach K within a day or two as [NH3] increases from fish load)

Where I prefer handful of sand/rubble/live rock from existing system over bottled bacteria:
a) it’s free
b) you are more likely to get the a more biodiverse bacterial community that has already existed in the exact environment you’re adding them to. Does anybody really know exactly what’s in those bottles?

I think people know pretty well based on experimentation that Fritz 9000 has obligate autotrophic bacteria. There is not any convincing evidence that biodiversity is similar in one tank vs another - and that biodiversity actually declines with time. That said - adding some sand or rock from another tank can obviously help start a cycle (If given a food source - like ammonia or a fish, etc). Though I've done it - another reason that putting in sand, etc from another tank - is that depending on how that tank was managed, you can also add parasites, etc to the tank