My saltwater tank Nitrogen Cycle ! Confused !

[NicolaAtta]

Dear Mates,

I setup an innovative marine Novu Fusion 30 Galons 30 Days ago.. i am using RODI water with a accurate mix of red sea coral pro salt, the water parameters looks great since that time.. i am planning for mix reef tank with 4-5 small size fishes..

To cycle the tank, i used the fish-less mode by adding some live fiji rocks from my local LFS .. only live rocks without ghost feeding or adding any ammonia dozing..
I bought some live filter bacteria from NT Labs and use it weekly as per the instructions..

I was monitoring my nitrogen cycle very carefully in the last 3 weeks to ensure that my tank is setup in the right way .. now i am very confused if my tank is cycled or no.. i have different readings..

Ammonia spiked twice and now reading is almost zero...
The Nitrites spiked once but not a high value, the peak was 0.25. now it is 0.. readings used to be between 0-0.25 PPM.. the weird thing is nitrite spike is not very much noticeable..
The nitrate spiked once and reached 30 PPM.. Now is it stable at 8 PPM ! i didn't do any water changes.. only tops ups on weekly basis..

I got many copods swimming in the tank 10 days ago..
I started to get some diatom bloom on the live rocks 5 days days ago.. it is very annoying.. but noting on the sand bed.. only on live rocks.. with brown hairy things !

So guys ! where am i now?
Shall i start adding livestock?

i added a diagram for the reading..please let me know your thoughts guys !

 

[brandon429]

Post pics of your rock

If they line up with your description here’s where you are: live rock brings in all the bac you need, and the tank is already cycled, the living organisms indicate the presence of bacteria even though you can’t see bacteria because of the time it takes underwater for those substrates to pick up and house that life. Your tank likely needs simple cleaning to guide out the early algae phase so it doesn’t get worse later

Post pics of the rock we are looking for coloration on them as final proof of bacteria, interestingly. 99% chance you had a skip cycle setup. Moving live rocks among tanks never kills their bac, even if out of water for a little while. We want to see the proportion of live rocks in the tank. I have never cycled any reef I’ve put online, they are all set up the way you did

 

[NicolaAtta]

Thank you very much Brandon for your support.. here we go.. i enclosed some pictures for your reference..
The color of the live rocks has changed significantly since i brought them.. from light color to more dark intense rich one..

 

[brandon429]

Fine setup there for sure

Nowadays there's painted coralline rocks which makes picture discernment harder than five yrs ago, but along with obviously fine coloration you've listed nitrate, animals, and tank growths that a pure white dry rock system will not display in short order so you've got a skip cycle tank even if that is liferock...it's been submerged long enough I bet due to those supporting factors

do a nice large water change for good practice, while siphoning be cleaning and guiding out early diatom and algae growths, change a large percent, and throw in some starter corals

On fish, be sure and consider the fallow method, see that in the fish forum.

That 76 day wait after you've stocked with some corals and clean up crews is perfect timing for fish addition and it allows last couple months of tank maturity to set in. You can change water add corals and start light reefing here nice job, fish come after fallow and quarantine completion ideally.


All that assessment comes from our collected stuff here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

 

[NicolaAtta]

Thank you very much brandon.. i appreciate a lot your support and time you spent to read my post..
Actually i was planning for large water change but i wasnt sure if i should do!!

Actually my LFS has kept these rocks in his tank for more than 8 months, i have now 25 Lbs of Live rocks which should be fine to hold 30 galons.. this is what i got through my readings..

I was wondering if major water change will remove my bacteria? is it true? what about if i brush the live rocks on RO/DI Water? to clean the brown hair on it?

I will add my carbon reactor now.. if you have any recommendations for Media i will be happy to listen to !
I will start with Clown fish, yellow tang and Blue Tang.. with some cleaning crews.. what do you think?

 

[brandon429]

The bacteria aspect shown in the thread allows for water changes which won't harm any stability

On the fish, make sure to only use the fallow approach from the fish forum, i can't recommend any certain combo of fish but just the tank setup portion

On rock cleaning and other options there's too many varied choices to recommend, we just show in the various links in the thread how other tank keeper kept theirs clean. They rinsed live rock in saltwater not too much brushing, keep cleaning focused not as broad strokes across the rock, we are trying to add life contours to the rock and brushing lessens them

 

[NicolaAtta]

The bacteria aspect shown in the thread allows for water changes which won't harm any stability

On the fish, make sure to only use the fallow approach from the fish forum, i can't recommend any certain combo of fish but just the tank setup portion

On rock cleaning and other options there's too many varied choices to recommend, we just show in the various links in the thread how other tank keeper kept theirs clean. They rinsed live rock in saltwater not too much brushing, keep cleaning focused not as broad strokes across the rock, we are trying to add life contours to the rock and brushing lessens them

Hi Brandon,

I did a major water change yesterday, almost 95 %.. i refilled the tank with new RODI Water with Right salt mix..
I didnt do anything to the LR except some simple rinsing in a saltwater..
I was planning to add some starter corals today but before that i did some final testing for the water parameters.. and guess what !!
I am still reading ammonia and Niitrite!! thats weird.. i changes the water yesterday
The readings are noticeable and in the mid range of the scale !

What should i do?

 

[brandon429]

lets wait it out then and see how params fare when we test tonite and tomorrow. The big water change wont hurt bacteria, ive done hundreds and hundreds of them and many more to come (its easy for small tanks to change large volumes)

also lets try and see the actual test kit readings for ammonia in a pic if you can, I want to see how pronounced they are. only the ammonia matters, not the nitrite. we're in no rush so that's nice, I bet the high levels wont hold for long but lets see a recent test to look at the color/brand of the test kit
B

Id be curious to see if the high ammonia reading holds for 24 hours, or if its already gone down a bit since you posted.

 

[NicolaAtta]

Hi Brandon,

You are Master : ) this is what you have to be called from now and on )

I did a test an hour ago.. and guess what.. ammonia is 0 ! Zero )) yes zero ) and I also tested the nitrites and it was ok.. not zero but still can be tolerated.. the nitrates are zero )

I also tested all the other parameters such as PH, Mg,Ca,Kh,Cu.. and all perfect readings.. I can say ideal )

I need to raise the salinity since it is only 30 PPT and I am planning for 34.. what do you say?

I will follow your approach .. I really wanna thank you for all your support.. very much appreciated ..

I believe the tank is cycled now.. do you agree?
Btw, I use JBL marine test kit.. the one that come in suitcase with all needed test tools.. do you have any recommendations? Is it a good one?
Tomorrow am going to the LFS to shop some corals )) and some media for the reactor.. what is your recommendations for media? Carbon and GHO?

 

[brandon429]

hey so glad we wrestled a seeming noncompliant into compliance ha! ive started some threads lately to try and understand why transient ammonia shows up occasionally, but then goes away well before a non-cycled setup would register...in the meantime in all the threads I run we just go off the biology. its safe to state you have nitrifiers, and that's a lot of rock with dilution, so as long as you wait on fish/do the fallow thing after you stock up, and hand kill algae of course vs letting it take over in some kind of uglies phase, that's all we collectively do to grow corals in jars and such, your larger tank w be no problem and can take fish soon

I don't have any problem if that was my tank buying a few starter corals and rolling like that a week or so in next-step evaluation, yep. ready for zoanthids and candy canes n such, they're low command for sure. feed em a zip of food right in the mouth once or twice a week, just a bit, and that cast off feed helps feed live rock animals too.