Nitrite won't go to zero using Dr Tim's One and Only

[brandon429]

heres my take

post nitrate measures if I havent missed them

[cap032]

Originally Posted by keithhays

That's awesome, that would put you at about a month. What's the maximum nitrites you read?

2.5-3ppm

[FTDelta]

Don't use Tetra test strips or any strips of any kind!!!!!!!!! They're unreliable and garbage!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah - stop adding addditives to 'speed up' the cycling process. Cycle it as nature intended to cycle - on it's own.

[cap032]

Originally Posted by Deinonych

I started cycling my QT about 3 weeks ago. I dosed with ammonium chloride to 3ppm at the beginning, saw ammonia drop to ~0.5 after a few days, then dosed up to 3ppm again. It took about 2 weeks for ammonia to drop to 0 again (not sure why). Now I'm seeing my nitrites spike, but I'm hesitant to add more ammonium chloride at this point, as I don't want my nitrites to go over 5ppm (they are around 3-4ppm currently). I think I'm going to wait until nitrites fall off a bit before I dose more ammonia. Does this make sense?

Seeing the same pattern with my DT, but at a more rapid rate (assuming because it has more surface area for bacteria to grow).

Edit: I used Dr. Tim's One and Only to dose both tanks at the beginning.

Definately wait until nitrites are 0.5ppm before dosing again. You are doing the right thing.

[cap032]

Originally Posted by FTDelta

Don't use Tetra test strips or any strips of any kind!!!!!!!!! They're unreliable and garbage!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah - stop adding addditives to 'speed up' the cycling process. Cycle it as nature intended to cycle - on it's own.

You have to put something in to feed and grow the bacteria. They wont magically multiply on their own with no food present. You either use a shrimp, ghost feed, use ammonia, or ammonium chloride. If you just add water,sand, and rocks, the tank can run for a year and wont be cycled. Dead rock tanks wont have any decay to feed bacteria "naturally", fwiw.

[Deinonych]

Originally Posted by brandon429

heres my take

post nitrate measures if I havent missed them

No point measuring nitrates with nitrite levels still detectable. My understanding is that having nitrites in the tank will cause a false reading with nitrate tests.

[keithhays]

Originally Posted by FTDelta

Don't use Tetra test strips or any strips of any kind!!!!!!!!! They're unreliable and garbage!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah - stop adding addditives to 'speed up' the cycling process. Cycle it as nature intended to cycle - on it's own.

While I take your point. We are generally setting up a reef with living coral and tropical marine fish in cubes of water we keep warm with heaters, filter with all sorts of contraptions and continuously dose with 100 million year old crushed rock in places like Boise, Idaho. I think we passed natural a long time ago. Theses additives are just as alive as any other animal we put into the cubes of water.

[Patrick Cox]

Another question for everyone - long story but my old tank is now running with no live rock and the biological is being handled by some bio balls that I seeded first in my sump before removing the live rock. The reason for removing the LR was the pests I mentioned above. So, last night I decided to transfer a few bio balls from my old tank to the filter sock in my new tank (sump.) Question is - will the water flow through the bio balls spread the bacteria to the rock in my DT?

Thanks!

[keithhays]

yes, but it will be slow going...the more bioballs the better to transfer. You will still need to feed them or hey will go dormant and not proliferate through the rock.

[Patrick Cox]

Originally Posted by keithhays

yes, but it will be slow going...the more bioballs the better to transfer. You will still need to feed them or hey will go dormant and not proliferate through the rock.

Thanks for your reply! I guess the "proof will be in the pudding." I will test ammonia and nitrite again tonight and see if my nitrite gets to zero. If so, I may just transfer all of my bio balls to my sump and then move my 2 fish and BTA over and then gradually remove the bio balls after a few weeks.

[sponger0]

Originally Posted by MuldoonJT

Good lord. The amount of time, effort and chemicals people spend to hurry something. Spend a few extra bucks and buy live rock that is actually ALIVE. instead of rock covered in dead and dieing garbage. Then dumping piles of miricle cures into the tank and trying voodoo.

My personal rant is live rock should be live. Not rock covered in dieing crap. You are better off buying live sand, dead dry rock for a base and then a few really NICE established rocks. This whole dead "live rock" ordered off the internet thing is weird to me. Why buy "live rock" to kill it then put it in a tank?

What if someone doesnt want the chance of hitchhikers? You dont want the type of rock locally that is live and highly over priced?

I am using completely dry cause of the type of rock I want and the look I want to keep. So no reason to jump on people's back cause they chose to start dry. The fact is the only thing that needs to be done is have patience. It may take a little longer to cycle, but to some of us, it's worth it in the longrun.

IMO, the best thing to do is get what is going to make you happy. Whether it means saving a buck or looking for a particular look.

[Deinonych]

Originally Posted by sponger0

What if someone doesnt want the chance of hitchhikers? You dont want the type of rock locally that is live and highly over priced?

I am using completely dry cause of the type of rock I want and the look I want to keep. So no reason to jump on people's back cause they chose to start dry. The fact is the only thing that needs to be done is have patience. It may take a little longer to cycle, but to some of us, it's worth it in the longrun.

IMO, the best thing to do is get what is going to make you happy. Whether it means saving a buck or looking for a particular look.

This. I didn't like the selection or price of local LR, and I really didn't want the potential for pests (being my first SW tank and all). I'm really happy with the BRS dry rock I purchased. It allowed me to build the reefscape that I wanted without hassle. I don't mind waiting a little longer for my tank to get going.

[Patrick Cox]

OK, after two days from adding ammonium chloride, nitrite is down is 0.025 - 0.5. Something I also noticed is that my PH is down to 7.6 whereas it was at 8.3 before I started adding the ammonia. Any idea about why the PH is down? I will add ammonium chloride again today and see where I end up tomorrow.

Thanks.

[keithhays]

Originally Posted by Patrick Cox

OK, after two days from adding ammonium chloride, nitrite is down is 0.025 - 0.5. Something I also noticed is that my PH is down to 7.6 whereas it was at 8.3 before I started adding the ammonia. Any idea about why the PH is down? I will add ammonium chloride again today and see where I end up tomorrow.

Thanks.

yes, both the ammonia itself as well the the cycling of it causes the PH to drop. When it hits 7.0, you will stall the cycle. You will likely end up below 7.0, so I would do a 25% water change before you dose again.

[sponger0]

Ill be honest about this whole thread. It seems like you are trying to make things go fast. It takes a long while before dry becomes live. And being this thread just started a few days ago, Id say just let your tank do its thing. Instead of daily, I would be checking the water once a week.

This is one of those reason why I chose nature over magic cycle in a bottle.

[keithhays]

Originally Posted by sponger0

Ill be honest about this whole thread. It seems like you are trying to make things go fast. It takes a long while before dry becomes live. And being this thread just started a few days ago, Id say just let your tank do its thing. Instead of daily, I would be checking the water once a week.

This is one of those reason why I chose nature over magic cycle in a bottle.

This issue becomes once you are dosing ammonia you have to monitor it pretty much everyday or my case every other day. In the natural way quite frequently you are dealing much lower doses of ammonia because later you will more gradually add fish than with this method. The more gradual additions later are still building the bacteria count where as this method attempts to raise them during the initial cycle. Not that one should start putting in all of their planned fish in the aquarium, but you do start out at the end of the cycle having had a much stronger cycle in most cases. Also this tends to put you in touch directly with what will be happening in the aquarium later when the fish are directly adding ammonia to the tank.

In this particular case suddenly the PH is dropping because of the ammonia and nitrogen cycle and it is happening quickly enough to measure and there are no other distractions about what the potential causes are. This means that later when the tank experiences a similar drop with a tank full of fish, the OP will have some idea why that might be happening.

[Patrick Cox]

Originally Posted by sponger0

Ill be honest about this whole thread. It seems like you are trying to make things go fast. It takes a long while before dry becomes live. And being this thread just started a few days ago, Id say just let your tank do its thing. Instead of daily, I would be checking the water once a week.

This is one of those reason why I chose nature over magic cycle in a bottle.

Well, I actually tried to cycle my rocks in a tub in my garage over a roughly 6 week period and I expected that when I added my rocks to my tank that it would be a short period from there - I obviously didn't manage the cycle well enough in the tub - thus my current situation. So to answer your specific comment, yes, I am trying to make things go fast because I believed I had already taken care of the process - obviously I did not. The other issue I have relates to my old tank and I have a need to move my coral and fish over to my new tank sooner rather than later - we will see if I make it. Thanks for your comments.

[sponger0]

Originally Posted by keithhays

This issue becomes once you are dosing ammonia you have to monitor it pretty much everyday or my case every other day. In the natural way quite frequently you are dealing much lower doses of ammonia because later you will more gradually add fish than with this method. The more gradual additions later are still building the bacteria count where as this method attempts to raise them during the initial cycle. Not that one should start putting in all of their planned fish in the aquarium, but you do start out at the end of the cycle having had a much stronger cycle in most cases. Also this tends to put you in touch directly with what will be happening in the aquarium later when the fish are directly adding ammonia to the tank.

In this particular case suddenly the PH is dropping because of the ammonia and nitrogen cycle and it is happening quickly enough to measure and there are no other distractions about what the potential causes are. This means that later when the tank experiences a similar drop with a tank full of fish, the OP will have some idea why that might be happening.

Even if so.....my last tank I started with completely dry rock. Stuck the rock in a bin with saltwater and dropped a table shrimp in and worried about building my tank for the next month. I didnt test any of the water until 2 weeks later. It did just fine and when the tank was setup, it had a cycle after 9 days that lasted 2 days. I had no issues adding any livestock.

[sponger0]

Originally Posted by Patrick Cox

Well, I actually tried to cycle my rocks in a tub in my garage over a roughly 6 week period and I expected that when I added my rocks to my tank that it would be a short period from there - I obviously didn't manage the cycle well enough in the tub - thus my current situation. So to answer your specific comment, yes, I am trying to make things go fast because I believed I had already taken care of the process - obviously I did not. The other issue I have relates to my old tank and I have a need to move my coral and fish over to my new tank sooner rather than later - we will see if I make it. Thanks for your comments.

Whats the issues your having?

Best of luck

[Patrick Cox]

Originally Posted by sponger0

Whats the issues your having?

Best of luck

Well, it is a long story but I will try to get to the point quickly.

Basically, as I have alluded to above, my previous tank had many issues -

red planaria flat worms in plague proportions (see pictures below)
aiptasia
a killer bristleworm

All from the "Live Rock" I bought.

So I knew I needed to replace my rock and then treat all of my corals before moving to my new tank. So, I decided to seed some bio balls in my old tank and then remove the rock and operate it really as if it was a QT. So the bio balls would take care of the biological and then I would treat the water and the corals to ensure all pests were gone. Well, the biological worked well and I got rid of the flatworms but I ended up with an Alk crash - not sure why. One day I noticed that my corals didn't look good so I tested and my alk was something like 4-5 dKH. So I brought the alk back to where it needed to be but in the process I lost a couple of SPS corals and my LPS corals still don't look great, but they seem to be hanging on. So I am wanting to get my corals into a better environment. Then on top of that, I am going out of town for a few days and I only have one ATO - so I can't continue to run two tanks while I am away.

So that is my situation in a nut shell. Here is a picture of my flatworms to give you an idea of the problem I was dealing with...





Thanks for your concern and well wishes.

[keithhays]

Originally Posted by sponger0

Even if so.....my last tank I started with completely dry rock. Stuck the rock in a bin with saltwater and dropped a table shrimp in and worried about building my tank for the next month. I didnt test any of the water until 2 weeks later. It did just fine and when the tank was setup, it had a cycle after 9 days that lasted 2 days. I had no issues adding any livestock.

This is exactly the process that I have used until my current tank and my last tank. It looks like overall you had roughly a two month cycle which is in line with the timing I usually get. There are ways in which some people will use the live bacteria to start their aquariums quicker, I see them do it on tv all the time on the various aquarium reality shows. I am however not a fan of doing it quicker. I am a fan of known quantities and massive full on cycles, hence my use of live bacteria and ammonium chloride.

[ZiggyBuster]

I used Dr. Tims, Live rock, and live sand during my cycle on my 46 gal. and ammonia took 12 days to go away but then Nitrite portion of the cycle only took 3 days... Kinda weird..

[neuro]

Wow, that's the craziest flatworm problem I have, by far, ever seen. Wow.

[keithhays]

Originally Posted by ZiggyBuster

I used Dr. Tims, Live rock, and live sand during my cycle on my 46 gal. and ammonia took 12 days to go away but then Nitrite portion of the cycle only took 3 days... Kinda weird..

Not really, this would be the quickest way because if your starting with live rock and that is ok you, you have half the bacteria battle won, you would then just be using the doctor tims to kick start the ammonia reducing bacteria and you are off to the races. The live rock would still have the vast majority of the nitrite reducing bacteria so you wouldn't have to wait for this bacteria to grow which normally takes the longest to get going. It wasn't worth the risk to me, but if you are good with it, it saves time.

[Patrick Cox]

Originally Posted by neuro

Wow, that's the craziest flatworm problem I have, by far, ever seen. Wow.

Thus my decision to buy dry rock this time instead of Live Rock!