New Tank with Dry Rock (Marco Rock) - Is it ever going to Cycle? I Test Every Day and Ammonia is 0

[MTWiley]

We had good luck with start smart and dry rock.

 

[that Reef Guy]

If you are going to try a bottle, that and Dr tim's one and only seem to be the highest regarded ones.

What is the Difference between the 2?

Is it a different type of bacteria?

 

[MTWiley]

Not entirely sure, I just haven't used dr tim's one and only or bio-spira, but I have used start smart or smart start with success. I'd venture a guess that whichever you choose to go with would probably help move it along more quickly than a natural cycle

 

[that Reef Guy]

I added a Bottle of BIO-Spira Today.

I will post the results.

I added the Bigger Bottle (For 75 Gallon Tanks) to my 45 Gallon so I got Extra Beneficial Bacteria as well.

 

[jcdeng]

if you added the BIO spira, then you won't see the typical ammonia spike, or nitrite. If you add fish or rotten shrimp in the tank right now you should see nitrate slowly going up while ammonia remains zero.

 

[787will]

Every time i read threads like these i leave the same response, maybe i should just write a piece at some point lol anyway getting to business......

I do not believe in using fish to cycle even if its a cheap damsel, the hobby has moved beyond this to more humane methods. Yes a RAW shrimp from the grocery store will work but i find it messy and takes a little longer. So what do i preach...... Pure ammonia. I say pure because the stuff you buy from Walgreens, Walmart ect has additives in it which are a no go. Best place to buy it is from Ace Hardware Janitorial strength ammonia its only a couple of bucks and will last a lifetime of cycling tanks.

I saw earlier that 2ppm had been mentioned. I also recommend this number, well 2-3ppm for ammonia because any higher theres a chance you can 'stall' out the cycle. Be carful when dosing pure ammonia, it really doesn't take much to get it where you want it to be so you have to be careful but i roughly suggest 1ml per 10g will get you 1ppm.

Know you could let the cycle take the natural way and let it do its own thing but this can take a really long time with just dry rock, you could add 1 piece of Live rock to help with a bacteria source or use, like you have, something like Bio Spira or Dr Tims. Ive used bio Spira with great results. Ive had a good hard cycle in 2 weeks.

Ok now lets move ahead, say your tank has cycled that initial 3ppm ammonia all the way through to nitrates. Woohoo! success the cycle is complete lets get some fish in. Well yes and no, yes the tank has cycled but is it ready for livestock. IMHO no. I like to hard cycle my tanks so what i do is i'll dose ammonia again to 3ppm and let that cycle through, and then i'll do it again, and again until the tank can cycle 3ppm ammonia to 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites in less than 12 hours. The only downside to this is that by the time its done your nitrates will be exploding off the chart so you have to do a 90-95% water change. But you can cut down of the amount of water you would have to use by cycling the rock in buckets or totes or something similar.

Anyways thats the method i use and highly recommend when cycling any type of rock really. Its not messy or smelly and its really easy, and above all theres no need to torture any fish

 

[dwebb1031]

There won't be a cycle, you didn't add an ammonia source to get it started. You need to throw in a piece of jumbo shrimp from the grocery store to start your cycle.

+1 i did this with an all dry rock scape cycled in 3 weeks

 

[ReefTankRebel]

All I know is I started my tank with all dry rock and never had to go through all this.Lol I was throwing coral and fish in a week or two after setup.

 

[ReeferJohn408]

3 of our tanks are running with Marco Dry Rocks. Your tank will not cycle without any ammonia source and feeding tiny fish won't jump start the nitrogen cycle ( at least in my case ). At first I was just feeding 1 tiny fish but nothing was happening so I decided to jump start the Ammonia through other major source.

I had to cycle with dead rotting shirmp and dead snails for a few days, added nitrifying bacteria thereafter. It takes more time compare to liverocks but it's worth it. No pests.

 

[that Reef Guy]

All I know is I started my tank with all dry rock and never had to go through all this.Lol I was throwing coral and fish in a week or two after setup.

What did you do in order to add Coral within a week?

 

[ReeferJohn408]

Believe it or not I even added 25 sps frags and medium colonies after the Ammonia went down within 3-4 days of a cycle. I just started dosing Microbacter daily until everything finished cycling. Not a normal safest routine but I had no choice at that moment. I had a major leak with our major tank that needed stat action.

Everything was new. Marco rock, water new mixed even the tank was new. Added Ammonia source from a rotting snails and after the Ammonia went down (3-4 days ), there goes all my corals.

Skimmer and Calcium reactor were installed on the first day as well.

Added 3 fish , medium tang sizes after a week of my Ammonia spike. Diatoms , green hair algae showed up but my sps and fish were fine. ( as you can see in the photo )

Didn't lose a single frag. Now they are all encrusted and everything was switched to zeovit.

- Now, those 3 medium tangs were transferred to our large new tank. Only small clown fish and one mimic tang is housing our 57g sps tank. Everything is doing well and zeovit is maturing day by day.

 

[that Reef Guy]

Believe it or not I even added 25 sps frags and medium colonies after the Ammonia went down within 3-4 days of a cycle. I just started dosing Microbacter daily until everything finished cycling. Not a normal safest routine but I had no choice at that moment. I had a major leak with our major tank that needed stat action.

Everything was new. Marco rock, water new mixed even the tank was new. Added Ammonia source from a rotting snails and after the Ammonia went down (3-4 days ), there goes all my corals.

Skimmer and Calcium reactor were installed on the first day as well.

Added 3 fish , medium tang sizes after a week of my Ammonia spike. Diatoms , green hair algae showed up but my sps and fish were fine. ( as you can see in the photo )

Didn't lose a single frag. Now they are all encrusted and everything was switched to zeovit.

- Now, those 3 medium tangs were transferred to our large new tank. Only small clown fish and one mimic tang is housing our 57g sps tank. Everything is doing well and zeovit is maturing day by day.

Wow. That is Impressive!

I would not have thought doing it that quickly would have worked out for you but it did.

 

[ReeferJohn408]

Wow. That is Impressive!

I would not have thought doing it that quickly would have worked out for you but it did.

Just probably got lucky in one point. I just had no choice but would not recommend otherwise. But yes, it works for me.

- Now, here's the tank. Sps are fine and thriving. Even added some rare pricey frags last week. No algae due to Zeovit methodology but I still love cleaning the glass everyday.

 

[ls2ttgto]

whorsefield summed it up. Just because a tank cycled minimally doesn't mean its ready to stock up. You want to make sure you get a good build up of nitrification bacteria, this will ensure that the system will handle the increase in bioload once you start adding livestock. As you add more and more livestock, this increases bioload and the autotrophic nitrifying bacteria will need to play catch up to the increased load.

I just helped setup 2 tanks, both 150gal. Similar setups, 1 had sun dried rock and the other had dry/live rock. 2 months in and both tanks are nice and cycled. Slowly started adding livestock, giving the whole system 48 hours to catch up on new bioload each time. Nothing rushed, nothing lost. Told the owners to have patience and just test, test, test.

My 2 cents - Nothing happens fast in this hobby. Take is slow, let nature take its course.

 

[ReeferJohn408]

whorsefield summed it up. Just because a tank cycled minimally doesn't mean its ready to stock up. You want to make sure you get a good build up of nitrification bacteria, this will ensure that the system will handle the increase in bioload once you start adding livestock. As you add more and more livestock, this increases bioload and the autotrophic nitrifying bacteria will need to play catch up to the increased load.

I just helped setup 2 tanks, both 150gal. Similar setups, 1 had sun dried rock and the other had dry/live rock. 2 months in and both tanks are nice and cycled. Slowly started adding livestock, giving the whole system 48 hours to catch up on new bioload each time. Nothing rushed, nothing lost. Told the owners to have patience and just test, test, test.

My 2 cents - Nothing happens fast in this hobby. Take is slow, let nature take its course.

AGREE. Take it slowly.

- the other reason why I moved my 3 tangs and only house small mimic and clowns in our newly cycled sps tank. Because if you keep feeding and wastes accumulate, your biological filtration would not be sufficient to support the load and other nuisance algae will show up and it may lead to uncontrollable issues.

 

[omykiss001]

Should I get this Product?

http://www.petco.com/product/116002/...-Additive.aspx

Instant Ocean BIO-Spira (Bacteria in a Bottle).

Would it help Cycle the Tank Faster?

Or is it Another "Snake-Oil" Liquid Product like Purple Up?

This stuff works well within limits. I had to get a fish into hospital tank that was not up and going and didn't have any sponges cycled in my sump. I was chasing ammonia in the hospital tank with a sick fish and was frustrated. Ammonia was around 0.2 in the tank and was doing daily water changes to keep it down. I added a 8 oz bottle of the stuff to a 30 gallon tank and next day ammonia was 0 nitrite was 0.2 and nitrates were around 5. Note nitrites and nitrates were undetectable the day before. All parameters stayed cycled after that. If you add this to a large tank with ammonia between 2-5 ppm it will be much slower as there is lot's of ammonia to break down and lower concentration of bacteria to handle it at the start, I think this is the result often reported by folks who add it to larger tanks with high ammonia level and say it did not speed the cycle by more than a week and then often say it did not work.

Also be sure to check the sell by date on the bottom. Even though they are stabilized bacteria they are viable for only so long and will suffer lower viability if shipped on very hot days or in freezing conditions. I can say this stuff probably saved that fish's life by removing the added stress from me messing in the tank all the time doing water changes and the small amount of ammonia that was building up each day. I was able to start the medication sooner and keep the level steady as I was not removing and adding water all the time. It works if used in the correct amount and with the initial level of ammonia considered.

Looks like you are starting to see a cycle. I have seen both nitrites and nitrates near the same time. What happens is often at low levels before you can detect with your test kits there is nitrite production from initial bacteria that eat the ammonia, and a small population of bacteria that convert the nitrite to nitrate often get seeded at the same time so you have bacteria that use the ammonia and nitrite colonize the tank at the same time so you'll start to see the full conversion occur at the same time. Often however, the ones that use the ammonia grow quicker and often have a larger food source and the boom of the nitrite bacteria follows after, it all about luck and which and how many bacteria made it the the tank initially and if there is enough food to stimulate their rapid growth.

 

[that Reef Guy]

So after adding the Bottle of BIO-Spira I tested the Water a Day Later.

Ammonia Dropped from 1 to 0.5
Nitrites shot up to 5+ from 0
Nitrates went from 0 to 5/10

A Day after that

Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 5+
Nitrates - 20

I had Ammonia for quite a while so I cannot be sure if it would have done that anyways or if the BIO-Spira actually helped.

If my Nitrites Drop to Zero whithin a couple of days I will thank the BIO-Spira.

I wish I would have added this Day 1 instead of Day 18 so I could have reported better results.

I will add it Day 1 for my Next Build though for sure.

 

[Harold Green]

There are so many ways to cycle a reef tank that work well and a lot of ways that don't work well. Everyone seems to be in such a hurry yet it can easily take six or more weeks to cycle a tank if you do it without additives. The fastest way is to use cured live rock or even better in my opinion fresh live rock that's fresh enough that there's little or no die off. I see little wrong with starting a tank with uncured live rock and allowing it to jump start the cycle as die off occurs since it already has some bacteria in the rock. If you want to avoid the critters that come in on live rock then use dead rock and an ammonia source. Tank is not cycled until ammonia and nitrite can be reduced in a day or less and nitrates have climbed. At this point the tank is not cycled as most assume but rather ready for a small bio load that you can increase after allowing the bacteria a chance to catch up to each addition. You can add enough ammonia to get to full cycling in a short period of time feeding larger colonies of bacteria but I really don't see any advantage over just ramping up the livestock over time. For reef guy the problem with starting with fish, aside from making the fish very uncomfortable or dead, is that you often have to do a water change to keep the fish alive and doing that while cycling slows down the cycling of the tank. It happens best if you do no water changes and don't run a skimmer or any other reactors that might affect the bacteria.

 

[that Reef Guy]

So I do not think that the BIO-Spira did anything.

I had 9 Days of Ammonia and 7 Days of Nitrite.

Now I did add it late (Day 18) instead of on the First Day.

Also, maybe it sat on the shelf too long at the LFS?

I checked the Date and it was Not Expired.

Next time I will buy Dr. Tim's because everyone claims it is better and see how that works and post my findings as well.

So anyways it is now Day 29

I just did a 70 Percent Water Change.

I will retest everything in an hour when it is less cloudy.

If everything checks out then I will start adding Coral (Finally).

 

[markalan]

If you new to the hobby and reading this you don't need to use live fish to cycle your tank, just saying.