Abnormal tank cycle question???

rhymechizel · Sep 18, 2014

To understand my tank I'll give some background. I purchased everything to get my tank going in April of 2013. However, didn't get everything up and running until 2 weeks ago. During that time the live rock sat in a garbage can with salt water and a circulator pump for 4-5 months and then in the tank with salt water and a circulator pump for the rest of the time. It may be important to note that one side of the tank is a foot away from an east facing window. When I was ready to get the tank going I drained it completely and took out all of the rock. The rock that was close to the window had some algae growing so I manually pulled most of it off. The rock was out of the tank for about an hour. I filled the tank half way with new salt water, opened the new bags of live sand and dumped them in. Put the live rock in and positioned them and then filled the tank with salt water and turned on the pumps and lights. I also put in ATM Colony (nitrifying bacteria). I added snails one week after I started the tank and they have all appeared happy.

It has been two weeks and my ammonia nitrate and nitrite have been undetectable the whole time with my Red Sea test kits. There is some hair algae that has been there since the start. The hair algae was browner when I started but it is now green and appears to be thinning out. This cycle is a lot different that my tank I set up 7years ago (I've been out of the hobby for 4 yrs) I have not seen my whole tank go brown or any changes really. I'm not sure when I can add fish or how long I should wait. Any suggestions-comments would be appreciated.

vikubz · Sep 18, 2014

Before you drained the tank it was already cycled. When you drained it and took the rock out it was not out long enough to kill off all the bacteria, so you may have had a mini cycle but after a couple weeks I'd guess it is past. I would think you could add a couple fish now. You could also get some sort of backing to put on the side of the tank that's against the window. That would help with your algae.

rhymechizel · Sep 18, 2014

Thanks for the response. Maybe I'm a little further ahead than I thought. I'll try a couple fish.

Bud · Sep 19, 2014

My favorite link (go to #15): http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/eb/

Pulling all of the rock out and re-positioning it would normally, IME, result in a dino outbreak about 6 weeks later. So watch for that. This is due to the re-arrangement of the rock, which can mess with bacterial colony establishment (changing flow patterns can do this too). But this may not be a big concern as you didn't have any bioload in the tank prior to that.

Bacteria in a bottle might have helped jump-start things but I think the bigger factor was 1 year + in the tank and like vikubz said, not out of water long enough to kill off all of the bacteria (esp not what is deep in the rock) but the 100% PWC probably had an effect as well.

One way to test this is to dose the tank with ammonia. Get the janitorial strength ammonia from True Value (it has no surfactants) and calculate the dose you would need to get the ammonia level up to a level that is definitely detectable in your tank. This would depend on your water volume and the concentration, I figured this out once for a 225 tat I cycled via ammonia dosing.

So you run the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate tests first so you have a baseline, then dose the tank (I think for a 225 it was 1/4 cup raised the ammonia by 2ppm, so it's way strong) then wait 15 minutes and run the test again. Then wait 24 hours and test the tank again, if all the ammonia is gone then test for Nitrite and Nitrate. You should see full conversion of all ammonia all the way to nitrate in 24 hours. In the 225 I was cycling, the last dose I did was up to 1ppm and that cycled out in 24 hrs to nitrate.

The only thing you need to be concerned of here is that you have live rock that is mature, and you don't want to smoke that. That's why I said to dose so that it is only detectable, but not so little that you can't tell.

And before you do that even I would wait for a few others to chime in and verify that this won't cause any other problems. There might be a better way to test, like putting a chunk of shrimp in the tank and watching for nitrate to rise without ever seeing ammonia or nitrite spike

Justin S. · Sep 19, 2014

Here's a story of getting my 30 gallon started earlier this year. I had kept saltwater before but never had such trouble getting it going. I didn't see a full cycle until the two month mark. I had a fish die while I was on vacation in July, the fish decomposing in the tank shot up the ammonia and triggered a cycle. If I went back and did it again I'd take it really slow and go with the method Bud mentioned above, dosing ammonia. It might also help to get some established water & sand from somebody else's system. What size is your tank? If your ever up in the Ames area I can set you up with 5-15 gallons of cycled water and 5 pounds of aragonite sand for no charge. If you want to establish macro algae, and reduce your micro / nuisance algae, you might consider Nualgi. Nualgi worked fantastic for me, it shot my micro down quick and I "noticed" more Macro. My corals love it too!
Here is what not to do:
May 1 - New Tank Setup (Live Sand & Dissolving Bacteria Pellets Added)
May 4 - Water Cleared Up (Sand Settled) - Salinity Set at 1.021 & Temp at 76
May 5 -Fish Added (1 Clownfish, 3 Damsels, 1 Snail)
May 6 - DAY - Rock Arranged Some Bonded (Instant Ocean Hold-Fast)
May 6 - EVENING - FISH STRESSED, Fast Breathing (REMOVED FROM TANK)
May 8 - Rock Bonding Complete (Instant Ocean Hold-Fast & Fluval Bonding Used)
May 8 -Taotronics LED Light Hung Centered above tank
May 9 - Fish Return to Tank (2 Seahorse, 2 Clownfish, 1 Chocolate Starfish, snail, damsel)
May 15 - EARLY AM - SEAHORSES STRESSED (All fish removed to a friends tank)
MAY 15 - JUNE 4 - ** NO FISH IN TANK, ONLY STARFISH & SNAIL **
JUNE 4 - ONE CLOWNFISH PLACED IN TANK
JUNE 5 - 10 Snails (2 Turbo) Added to Tank
JUNE 7 - Added 10 lbs of quality Live Rock
JUNE 8 - AM - Clown Passed Away (Sal: 1.021 pH: 7.4 Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0)
JUNE 9 - AM - Brittle Stars laid out all across bottom, slow added buffer & concent. saltwater.
JUNE 9 - Evening - Some Stars slowly moving toward rocks, others not moving. (Did not test)
JUNE 10 - Test: (Sal: 1.023 pH: 7.8 | Ammonia: 0 | Nitrite: 0 | Nitrate: 0 | Alk: 180~300)
JUNE 10 - Afternoon: Lowered light to 12" from water line
JUNE 10 - Late PM: Made first notes of signigicant algae growth since start of tank.
MID JUNE: ADDED THREE STRIPED DAMSEL AND TOMATO CLOWN
EARLY JULY: CLOWN DIED & DECOMPOSED IN TANK
MID JULY: TANK CYCLED
Present: Amazing

Bud · Sep 19, 2014

Remember though, he had the tank set up with rock in saltwater for well over a year, so it's highly likely that any bacterial colony he had is still there, which is why he may never see the nitrogen cycle.

The saltwater tank cycle is the thing that most people don't think about - that's why i like that RK article.

Justin S. · Sep 19, 2014

I'm just curious: was the LR acclimated as you moved into new water, have you been monitoring salinity? Even if it wasn't acclimated you'd still have the bacteria residing well inside the rock as Bud said, which may be why you don't notice a cycle. I'd try dosing a minimal amount of ammonia so that you can read ammonia in a water test, then see how that affects your test results (exactly as bud said) before you go down the fish route.

rhymechizel · Sep 20, 2014

Bud thanks for the article. There's a lot of good info. And Justin thanks for sharing your experience and for the sand offer; I live far from everything so I probably wont be making it your way anytime soon. I forgot how long it takes to get a tank going. I was hoping to get some corals at the fall fest but I guess we'll see how things go. BTW the tank is 150g tall.

Justin, When I filled the tank with salt water over a year ago the salinity was around 1.023. I did not monitor it after that. I would add RO/DI when the circ pump started sucking air which was 2-3 inches below the surface so there was some fluctuation in salinity. The tank has now been up for 3 weeks and for the last 4 days or so there has been a slight white cloudiness to my tank, so maybe something I cant measure is still balancing out. I think the big difference is I added the lights. Even though it was by a window, I think I may need some time to let what ever changes the light brought with it to balance out. Do you guys think I should do a water change or just let it ride and see if the cloudiness goes away.

I'm going to research ammonia dosing as I have never done this. I just don't want to mess up the dosing.

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