Open challenge for the hobby: prove that fish-in cycles harm fish.

[brandon429]

—A few days later I do a test and there is ammonia in the tank.


Mindme: if this was Vegas I’ll put a thou in that the kit was api or Red Sea ammonia, salifert at a 5% chance.

what kind of nh4- bearing test kit told you the 30 day wait cycle didn’t work

recurring instances of positive nh4 tests being associated with misreads and false cycle stalls has really been looked at here in this thread.

did you dose bottle bac and feed at the start, plus thirty days, or was it thirty days unassisted / no bottle bac no feed ramp up


if you had feed in it at the start, I’ll bet there wasn’t free ammonia in the toxic range when you tested, I bet any rocks stewing that long are cycled. All cycling charts agree. No debates to cycling chart timing are found by owners of calibrated seneye devices.

 

[brandon429]

Bio-spira works great

I just started a new tank a little over a week ago. I started with all dry rock and new sand. I added a bottle of Bio-Spira and put fish and coral the same day. Never saw any ammonia and fish and coral seem healthy.

www.reef2reef.com

this thread here, to revisit, is the *symptom pattern* side of measurement in bottle bac + fish cycling.

we are looking for symptoms, and or actual digital measurements of ammonia in this thread. What Ike did above was pack the most life I’ve seen into day one of a dry start reef. You have three years of symptom tracking thereafter following the bottle bac quick cycle. Most cycles are only two clowns, not a full reef with $250 huge anemone on day one with multiple medium sized fish and heavy feed.


bottle bac is powerful per Ike’s symptomless huge reef startup above.

when we ask it to carry two clowns, that’s an easy task. What’s the #1 most common arrangement in fish+ bottle bac threads? Two clowns. In big dilution, with light feeding. They’re not being burned.

 

[mindme]

—A few days later I do a test and there is ammonia in the tank.


Mindme: if this was Vegas I’ll put a thou in that the kit was api or Red Sea ammonia, salifert at a 5% chance.

what kind of nh4- bearing test kit told you the 30 day wait cycle didn’t work

recurring instances of positive nh4 tests being associated with misreads and false cycle stalls has really been looked at here in this thread.

did you dose bottle bac and feed at the start, plus thirty days, or was it thirty days unassisted / no bottle bac no feed ramp up


if you had feed in it at the start, I’ll bet there wasn’t free ammonia in the toxic range when you tested, I bet any rocks stewing that long are cycled. All cycling charts agree. No debates to cycling chart timing are found by owners of calibrated seneye devices.

API tests. It was also the only time I ever tested nitrites.

My first cycle attempt was "by the book". No fish, no bacteria. I put in an ammonia source, ammonia showed up on tests. Then it turned into nitrite and then into nitrates with ammonia at 0. So I thought the tank was cycled.

But either the cycle wasn't strong enough to handle the bio load I put in, or I lost the bacteria of the cycle. No clue which, I was a total noob back then.

I put the bacteria in at that point to fix the problem. Now I just put the bacteria in to start, the old way without bacteria seemed pointless.

I also have another tank(29g) that has 2 clownfish and 3(now) RBTA. Same thing, instant dry rock cycled tank. The 2 clownfish went in on day 1 or 2. The anemones went in after 2 weeks. Over 2 years later and all are doing great. Clownfish spawn like crazy and the anemones pretty much cover the majority of the tank.

I'm in the process of setting up my old 24g all-in-one for them. I took the AIO part out of the back and drilled it for overflow and return. The hope is that with the 2 returns both having random flow nozzles I won't need powerheads, because if they keep splitting and getting bigger, at some point they are going to get on the glass and into a powerhead.

I'll be instant cycling that tank with bacteria as well. But I will likely only put in a goby/pistol shrimp pair to start. I want them to get established before I put in the clownfish(they are paired and very territorial in the 29g), and I'll probably move the anemones 1 at a time, with the clownfish going after the 2nd one gets established.

 

[brandon429]

Thank you very much for listing measures and findings and symptoms Mindme, that helps so much to add to patterns we can weigh.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

At no time in my reefing life would I personally ever own a dry rock cycled reef. Never.

The next time I want to make a reef it will be a trip to the best looking pet store display and I will begin offering them cash for a few pounds of their actual live rock from the best display. eventually they’ll break and sell me some and then I would take it home and not cycle. That is the only way I’ve ever cycled my jar reefs


Just because bottle bac sellers are routinely inspected and found able to sell us working water bacteria in water doesn’t mean a new host of risks hasn’t emerged from speeding up bioload carry. There are new risks, but not in ammonia control.

entering the hobby: a wave of eight month delayed disease wipeouts, where even those who complete a legit 30 day wait cycle don’t gain any disease prevention % ability. Per any page of the disease forum help posts...

The classic cycles waited to full zero ammonia on api, comprise the bulk of all disease help posts…fact. Bottle bac cyclers aren’t causing increased rates of disease vs those who buy live rock from a tank of mixed pet store fish and not fallow it. Disease is the new trend to watch out for, ammonia control has been here the whole time of the hobby. the delay in getting cheap digital nh3 meters is causing us to not know true change rates and true nh3 trending rates in both cycled and mature display setups.


someone buy the $59 nh3 tester and run it on a working reef to calibrate it as a baseline known safe level constant

then run cheap bucket cycling test proofs with it referencing that known working safe baseline

and post those measures

do it bro, show us how its done. Thats literally what most of us are asking for. Prove it yourself instead of begging people who you will ignore anyway..

 

[JCM]

I only read the first 2 pages, so my apologies if this has been discussed.

With the real live rock and bacterial additive options available today, it is entirely possible to put fish in a new tank pretty much immediately. I fully agree.

That said, I dont like the implication that "work threads" (regardless of how large) are in any way scientific or peer reviewed. They are not. Anecdotal evidence has its place, but passing it off as scientific is detrimental to the hobby.

 

[brandon429]

Ok that’s agreeable thank you for posting JCM. Rough patterns are all we have here




agreed live rock skip cycles work and have been tested on digital nh3 meters to skip cycle and resume all common ammonia uptake in the new tank, without delay. Reef conventions use this mode primarily to care for the million+ in animals for sale where movement both to and from the convention must be done without recycling, the best most expensive show animals the sellers have to sell.


and in any digital measurements we can find, so far, bottle bac pulls it off just the same. I’ll accept any peer-reviewed links that confirm or deny claims here and symptoms linked to ammonia levels in play.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Agreed. I wish someone with seneye would just do the new tank dry sand dry rocks + ammonium chloride + any bottle bac and render the data.

I bet it doesnt say the magic numbers: .25 free ammonia for days.

Im going to estimate this site has seen one thousand fish in cycle posts in the last 3 years. I cannot recall one instance of the fish acting harmed in any way, any brand used. I cant recall on other forums any fish-in cycles that showed harm or dead fish other than they live long enough to get eaten up by crypto or brook, long past cycle timeframes.

In 2020 when we place vehicles in outerspace orbiting the sun forever, it turns out we can harness bacteria that live in water by placing water+ bac in bottles and then selling them to each other, and they work. not surprised.

Hey Brandon I did that experiment. Remember seneye gifted me 5 units to test my experiments for bacteria in bottle studies.
Unfortunately due to time and covid and other daily life matters I was not able to post all my studies and results of experiments.

In a nut shell. Bottle bacteria DID NOT let ammonia build up to a level where it was harmful to fish.

Seneye unit monitors the deadly type of ammonia NH3.

NH3 chart (according to Seneye)

Safe from 0.001 to 0.02
Alert from o.o2 to 0.05
Alarm from 0.05 to 0.2
Toxic from 0.2 to 0.5
Deadly 0.5+

In my several studies and experiments, I dosed Fritz Turbostart 900 as recommended in a 5 gal tank with a pair of clown fish.
Ammonia levels reached as high as alert 0.05.

In same setup when I dosed Fritz Turbostart 900 upto 5 x the recommended dose ( bottle say in emergency you can use 5 x)
I never saw Ammonia rise at all.

So I concluded even with Nh3 rising to alert levels is not harmful or deadly to fish. I even doubt that it burns or hurts fish at these low levels. How can I say that?
I am in business of qtying fish and selling them online. I watch and observe fish day in and day out. There is a normal behavior and abnormal behavior pattern that fish follow.
When they are irritated you can see a different body movements and behavior.
So knowing fish as I do, I never noticed any signs of stress at alert levels.
I have seen fish twitch and act loopy in Nitrites at levels of 5 to 10ppm but never in Nh3 0.02 to 0.05.

 

[JCM]

Ok that’s agreeable thank you for posting JCM. Rough patterns are all we have here




agreed live rock skip cycles work and have been tested on digital nh3 meters to skip cycle and resume all common ammonia uptake in the new tank, without delay. Reef conventions use this mode primarily to care for the million+ in animals for sale where movement both to and from the convention must be done without recycling.


and in any digital measurements we can find, so far, bottle bac pulls it off just the same. I’ll accept any peer-reviewed links that confirm or deny claims here and symptoms linked to ammonia levels in play.

I certainly won't call it scientific but my experiences back that up. My current tank was started with ocean direct rock and fish were in within a few days. No ammonia concerns whatsoever. I think bottled bacteria would've accomplished the same thing, but I firmly believe real live rock has enough other benefits to warrant its use.

 

[brandon429]

Thank you friend Dr. Reef


Dr. Reef can you remind me of something, I was about to kick up your bottle bac thread and ask you anyway.


I recall one of the standout characters of the non-seneye bottle bac thread was the full water change move… to export any suspended bacteria, then load test only the surfaces after the 100% water change. We got to see from that move how fast implantation occurs across mixes, on average. The true initial cycle closure, where ammonia control can’t be robbed or unstuck by a full water change…


in your findings above you’re saying the bioload carry of the suspended bottle bac was just as good as the implanted bacteria ability? surface area is maximizing wastewater presentation on active surfaces for those retested ones. But you also saw on multiple test seneyes an initial ability to carry bioload before implantation takes place. The bacteria were so active, merely swarming in solution was enough?



I must say, that lines up with every single fish tank cycle I’ve ever seen in my life. That and Im going to try and make aquashella Dallas again

 

[Cell]

Well nobody is really funding these studies in an academic setting so absent that, crowdsourcing is the next best thing. You don't need a lab or even peers to do science!

 

[rtparty]

In 17 years and well over 3-4 dozen tanks setup, I've never once tested ammonia. Don't even own a kit.

I've never tested nitrite. I rarely test nitrate. I have found no difference knowing my tank was at 0, 5 or 50ppm nitrate. My corals don't seem to change between those numbers either.

I have phosphates to be far more important for coral. But that's all off topic since we're talking about fish here.

My current 250 was started with ~20lbs of 5 year old live rock. It was all dry when I started with it back in the day. The rest was Real Reef (that was bone dry) and Marco rock. A week after setup I had corals in and a week after that I added 4 fish (Two Spot Bristletooth Tang, Foxface Lo, Golden Lined Rabbitfish, and a Convict Tang.)

No clue what any of my levels were at but I knew it was good to go. 1) because I used live rock to help get it going. 2) I used Ocean Direct sand. 3) I was ghost feeding from day one.

I have done this same method with dry rock and no sand as well. Just throw in bottles bacteria and you're good.

People make this hobby so much harder than it needs to be.

 

[JCM]

Well nobody is really funding these studies in an academic setting so absent that, crowdsourcing is the next best thing. You don't need a lab or even peers to do science!

Someone dumping a bottle of bacteria and some clownfish into a tank is not scientific. Regardless of labs or peers. They are individual experiences, mine included.

That's not to say those experiences should be discounted, they are still valuable. Like I said, I agree with Brandon's hypothesis.

 

[MnFish1]

I recall one of the standout characters of the non-seneye bottle bac thread was the full water change move… to export any suspended bacteria, then load test only the surfaces after the 100% water change. We got to see from that move how fast implantation occurs across mixes, on average. The true initial cycle closure, where ammonia control can’t be robbed or unstuck by a full water change…

I believe this might have been one of my experiments - and changing the entire water volume had no effect on nitrification.

 

[Cell]

Someone dumping a bottle of bacteria and some clownfish into a tank is not scientific. Regardless of labs or peers. They are individual experiences, mine included.

That's not to say those experiences should be discounted, they are still valuable. Like I said, I agree with Brandon's hypothesis.

A 5 year old can perform a science experiment. Not everything needs to be published to be true or "scientific".

 

[MnFish1]

if someone had some clownfish in that huge cycled display, on that api reading, every cycle umpire posting here would agree (Except Cell, you can't trip him up, nor DBurr) that the fish is in impending pain though it is acting normal everyday and feeding, swimming normally.

Actually, no.
1. An ammonia of 0.25 in a pH 8 tank will not have a dangerous level of 'free ammonia'. So only someone without any knowledge would say that.
2. An ammonia level of .25 at 4PM - can turn into an ammonia of 1. - at 4AM - so pictures and instant measures are meaningless - you have to either follow them or not.
3. API tests are not 'bad' IMHO - they are poorly done and mistakenly read - but a lot of people - bad light, not the right orientation, etc. The instructions are not followed. And people's vision can be bad. The tests themselves - are not 'flawed' - or inaccurate - they are designed to do what they do - and they do it (again IMHO) when done correctly.
4. I am not sure where the point is - is it don't believe API tests? Is it if fish are swimming - no problems? etc?

 

[MnFish1]

A 5 year old can perform a science experiment. Not everything needs to be published to be true or "scientific".

technically a 5 year old can do an experiment - but there are lots of 50 year olds that have no clue how to do one. Not sure about your point either

 

[JCM]

A 5 year old can perform a science experiment. Not everything needs to be published to be true or "scientific".

I never claimed that it needed to be published to be true, quite the opposite in fact. "I agree with Brandon's hypothesis", despite the lack of publication, which I wouldn't expect.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

A 5 year old can perform a science experiment. Not everything needs to be published to be true or "scientific".

Agreed but at least try to limit the variables. A new person performing the same experiment in a different way every time does not make it accurate at all. What people seem to be saying here is that I can buy a 125 gallon aquarium and fully stock it with fish tomorrow and it’ll be fine if I use some turbostart. My personal experience disagrees with that. Bottled bac works but it’s not a miracle and just making a blanket statement like if you use bottled bac you are cycled prove me wrong is just not reasonable.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Agreed but at least try to limit the variables. A new person performing the same experiment in a different way every time does not make it accurate at all. What people seem to be saying here is that I can buy a 125 gallon aquarium and fully stock it with fish tomorrow and it’ll be fine if I use some turbostart. My personal experience disagrees with that. Bottled bac works but it’s not a miracle and just making a blanket statement like if you use bottled bac you are cycled prove me wrong is just not reasonable.

I disagree with that statement just on basis on my study and personal experience on a daily basis.
As i said before I sell qted fish online. been doing so for 5 years commercially now.
I have 4 x 50 gal tanks with a sump as 1 system. a total of 200-250 gal of water in 1 system and i have 40 systems like that. Anyways, when we have ich or velvet in a system, we dont have time to wait 75 days to reuse the system.
We take these fish out and put them in temp hospital tanks and run copper there.
While we bleach the system and drain and dry it over 24 hrs and re set it with barely a dusting of new sand and new bio creamic media and fill it up with water and dose 5-10 x fritz turbostart 900 and and dump many fish in there and likely more than a normal 125 gal tank for sure.
Never had 1 die on me. If bio load is heavier to my taste i keep dosing bacteria for 3-5 days.

If some of you remember the TV show Tanked. They used to setup a new tank and put full load of fish in clients tanks right after setup. They have their own brand of bacteria they used to sell and use themselves. I tested that bottle as well in my study.

We have to undertand what is a cycle and what do we mean by it. All you are doing is giving tank enough time to have beneficial bacteri to colonize for it to be able to handle the ammonia being produced.
There are many ways to accomplish that.
Bottle bacteria is one of them. You are dosing enough bacteria in your tank that will colonize and immediately start converting ammonia and nitrotes to nitrates.
Or you can keep doing water changes daily like in qt tanks to keep ammonia from harming fish.
End of the day you just need to keep ammonia out of the tank. how ever you do it is your choice. But all these methods work and you can even use ammonia sludge remover bacteria till nitrifying bacteria gets hold of it.