Cycling Concerns

[Rowan Savage]

Hey Guys,

I've been cycling my 15 gallon tank now for just over two weeks now. I starting with dry rock and sand and decided to try using red seas reef mature kit to speed up the cycle. I added the ammonia source and the bacterial supplement at the specified intervals. I also added a small piece of live rock from my LFS to seed the tank. The issue is my ammonia and nitrite were elevated for almost two weeks with no noticeable decrease, NH3 ~ 2ppm and NO2 >1ppm and NO3 ~30ppm. I did ~60% water change as I suspected my nitrite could have been too high. After the water change the NH3, NO2 and NO3 are now sitting around 0.2ppm, 0.5ppm and 5ppm respectively but have not changed over the past few days.

I suspect I'm being impatient but also find it unusual that the ammonia did not start to decrease over the first two weeks and is not decreasing now. I'm using Red Sea test kits and there is also diatom and green algae growth in the tank.

Thanks in advance.

 

[boacvh]

Just be patient. Don't do water changes. Let it all happen

 

[taricha]

Patience is never the wrong answer, but there are other bacterial products that can work reliably faster than that.
Adding biospira or Fritz would be fine to do.

 

[Rowan Savage]

Unfortunately I live in Australia and those products haven't made their way over here yet. My ammonia is still sitting at 0.2ppm and my nitrites >1ppm. I now believe that the constant ammonia reading is a false positive caused by Prime residue I used while bleach curing my dry rocks from a previous tank. Hopefully the nitrites come down soon.

 

[taricha]

My ammonia is still sitting at 0.2ppm

Sorry. I missed that. 0.2ppm on a total ammonia test should be interpreted as zero. You are right to conclude it's not a real ammonia measurement.

 

[Rowan Savage]

As I've been looking in other forums for similar issues I've noticed people saying nitrite doesn't really matter, is there any truth to this or is it more of an opinion?

 

[brandon429]

-and there is also diatom and green algae growth in the tank-


That means cycled. There’s no time that secondary growths occur where the primary ones (filter bac) haven’t already implanted first. Rule of visual benthic growth cues

That alone confirms your cycle even if you were reporting 2 ppm ammonia, your test levels have no bearing on the assessment because Red Sea causes hundreds of misreads a year that I collect in other threads. Post your tank pic

 

[RockBox13]

As I've been looking in other forums for similar issues I've noticed people saying nitrite doesn't really matter, is there any truth to this or is it more of an opinion?

Nitrite matters, but you’re cycling and establishing the bacteria for that process is what cycling is about. Adding a bacterial supplement that will help seed the dry rock would help very much. Once you go with a bacterial product stick to the same one.

Seachem Stability

Rapidly and safely establish the aquarium biofilter in freshwater and marine.

www.petbarn.com.au

Pisces Laboratories Establish Startup Bacteria 100mL

An outstanding solution for all new aquariums containing a specially selected fermented bacteria which breaks down harmful ammonia, nitrogen sulphide and nitrite.

www.petbarn.com.au

 

[brandon429]

No, he’s been done a while already. He was cycled before the growths showed up. There isn’t cycling action still needed, time to select a disease protocol for the fish.

There isn’t any more cycle testing needed at all for this tank.

I had hoped for a tank pic from the original poster for the thread.

 

[RockBox13]

No, he’s been done a while already. He was cycled before the growths showed up. There isn’t cycling action still needed, time to select a disease protocol for the fish.

There isn’t any more cycle testing needed at all for this tank.

My mistake. I must have gotten confused with the post about the bleach cure instead of the two weeks cycling. Which was literally the first thing said. Attention to detail is my specialty!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

As I've been looking in other forums for similar issues I've noticed people saying nitrite doesn't really matter, is there any truth to this or is it more of an opinion?

The myth that nitrite was significantly toxic comes from the freshwater hobby where it is very toxic. But in seawater, the hugely high chloride level (19,000 ppm) successfully competes with nitrite for binding sites on the organisms and it doesn't get in well. It's obviously fine to measure it for fun, or to be sure it isn't interfering with a nitrate test (which is a big issue), but it never needs to be measured for toxicity reasons.

I discuss all of these issues in the article below, and give all of the published toxicity data that was available when I wrote the article:

Nitrite and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

 

[Rowan Savage]

Sorry for the late reply and thank you everyone for the input. Here are some pics of my tank with a close up on the diatoms which were all over the place about a week ago but seem to have run their course. still getting a nitrite reading of ~1ppm.

Would adding the rest of my bottle bac be of any benefit or should I just let it play out?

 

[Rowan Savage]

Also noticed heaps of copepods today, I think that confirms it’s cycled.

 

[brandon429]

In-cycle algea questions

Hi reefers . A Short bit of information first . Started since 12 march with my first reef , coming off a 15 year fresh water story . Tech as followed . - red sea reefer 300 v2 - 2 red sea 90's ( 11 hours at 60blue/10white but still in acclimation atm ) - jebao DCP 3500 ( running at 75% ) -...

www.reef2reef.com

same visual id troubleshoot ran there. similar threads pretty cool.

 

[PharmrJohn]

Whatever you decide to do, just do it slowly. Randy et.al. really knows what he (they) is (are) talking about so I'll not override ANY of their suggestions. My first thought was that you might have had a false reading with your ammonia, but I am flat out unsure of the chance of that happening. I would have expected that to go up after the WC to previous levels. But you do have a small tank, so it may have already cycled with the additives and live rock you put in.

 

[brandon429]

updates/ are you reefing in it