Well, I've made it this far. I'm FINALLY about to start the cycling process. While thinking about it, I raised a question and in curious to know your thoughts or exprience. I understand that there's an initial cycle period and your system will continuesly go through mini cycles thereafter. I've read that there are several ways to start the initial cycle and ways to speed it up to reduce the waiting period. So my question is, if I use a piece of shrimp to begin the cycle process and by the end of that process if done successfully, I'll have raised an amount of "benificial" bacteria. At this time a fish or two is added and the bio-load is increased and off we go with another mini cycle and so on and so fourth. Could I add say, 5 shrimp to start my cycle and by the end of that cycle in theory, would I have generated a much larger substantial amount of benificial bacteria (given I could wait that long as I'm sure it would take a lot longer to cycle)???
Cycling question
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well you're mostly right. the nitrogen cycle is something that is always going on in your tank but it isnt something that is starts and then finishes and starts over. think of your tank as a pizza place and the cycle is the pizza making process and the oven is your biological filter aka the bacteria needed for the tank to work. the way youre thinking of it is like making a pizza with a regular oven where you stick one or two pizzas in and wait till they finish but it dosent work like that its more like one of those ovens with a conveyerbelt going through it theres always a pizza going in and theres always a pizza coming out. now when you increase the size of your oven (add a fish to increase the bioload and therefore the amount of bacteria) you can handel more pizzas (you can add more fish).
now to answer your question you have to keep those pizzas coming and slowly increase the bioload, you cant just shove a bunch of pizzas in the oven and expect it to get bigger. you have to sell a lot of pizza wait for your business to grow and when you can afford a bigger oven then you buy it. if you start out with a huge oven and only make a few pizzas the cost of the oven will put you out of business(if you start with a huge biofilter and dont maintain the ammonia supply the biofilter will shrink to whatever size the load will allow and your right back at square one).
i know that was probably a terrible analogy but its the best i could come up with lol
now to answer your question you have to keep those pizzas coming and slowly increase the bioload, you cant just shove a bunch of pizzas in the oven and expect it to get bigger. you have to sell a lot of pizza wait for your business to grow and when you can afford a bigger oven then you buy it. if you start out with a huge oven and only make a few pizzas the cost of the oven will put you out of business(if you start with a huge biofilter and dont maintain the ammonia supply the biofilter will shrink to whatever size the load will allow and your right back at square one).
i know that was probably a terrible analogy but its the best i could come up with lol
Jake, there are a number of ways to cycle. You have to determine which best suits your application. One method is to get seed sand from a running system. Another is to use a liquid product. I've used both of these methods with success. In both cases, I've used damsels/chromis as part of the cycle process. There are many other methods including the one you mentioned. Pick the one that best suits you. Just don't rush it.
Very good analogy. I would add one thing. Crushed red peppers. Oh sorry got off track. 
Seriously I would add that waiting on your tank to cycle is like waiting on the baby when your wife is pregnant. It not only allows the baby to develop but teaches the parents the patients needed to raise a child. Only bad things happen quickly.
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Seriously I would add that waiting on your tank to cycle is like waiting on the baby when your wife is pregnant. It not only allows the baby to develop but teaches the parents the patients needed to raise a child. Only bad things happen quickly.
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rdnelson99;891509 wrote: Very good analogy. I would add one thing. Crushed red peppers. Oh sorry got off track.
Seriously I would add that waiting on your tank to cycle is like waiting on the baby when your wife is pregnant. It not only allows the baby to develop but teaches the parents the patients needed to raise a child. Only bad things happen quickly.
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+1 id bet that 90% of the time something went wrong it was because i was rushing some step in the process
Pico- EXECELLANT analogy. That made a lot of sense.
Jeff- do I run any risks using "seeded sand" in regards to pests?
Rich- LMAO would you like some truffle oil with that?!?
I want to insure I do the right thing as I've had no choice but to be patient. Seeing there's many ways to essentially achieve the same goal, would any of you say there is a "best practice" method with the cycling process? Often times I've seen things get recommended but the consequences are often times left out.
Jeff- do I run any risks using "seeded sand" in regards to pests?
Rich- LMAO would you like some truffle oil with that?!?
I want to insure I do the right thing as I've had no choice but to be patient. Seeing there's many ways to essentially achieve the same goal, would any of you say there is a "best practice" method with the cycling process? Often times I've seen things get recommended but the consequences are often times left out.
and
Edit:
rdnelson99;891509 wrote: Very good analogy. I would add one thing. Crushed red peppers. Oh sorry got off track.
Seriously I would add that waiting on your tank to cycle is like waiting on the baby when your wife is pregnant. It not only allows the baby to develop but teaches the parents the patients needed to raise a child. Only bad things happen quickly.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - http://tapatalk.com/m/">now Free</a>[/QUOTE]
Both have something in common.......there is something in the oven. :lol2:
Jake...as long as the sand is from a tank you trust...then no.
ichthyoid;891595 wrote: I've used several methods, including damsels, live sand and bacterial additives. In my experience the Fritz company product #9 worked best (7-10 days). You should add enough ammonia (ammonium hydroxide, available at ACE Hardware) or ammonium chloride (available from Fritz Industries) to get your level of ammonium up to 3-4 ppm. Then add the Fritzzyme #9. There are specific instructions and a lot of info on their web site. They have a more concentrated product now, but life span of the product is important, so have it shipped direct for freshness, if used.
I am not an advocate of using putrid shrimp to cycle a tank (pathogens is a primary reason). You will get many opinions on this. Mine is based on scientific fact & principles, and will be happy to discuss that off-line if you like. Not looking to poison your thread with that debate.
As to your idea of 'turbocharging' the bacterial colony, it is feasible. You will need to supplement with both extra sources of nitrogen (I use Brightwell amino acids) and an organic carbon source (I use calcium acetate, & I make it myself) to maintain the extra bacteria. Otherwise they will run out of food and drop down to a population able to be supported by just the fish you have, as mentioned in a previous post.
You can look up 'Redfield ratio' for more information on the ratio's of Nitrogen to carbon, but it's about 12:1 in a reef tank.
FWIW-
Not understanding this is why so many screw up when trying 'carbon dosing'. You should know the N:Cratio requirements, otherwise phosphate will be a lingering problem. You also need to know that getting nutrients too low will cause harm just as too high will.
-My $0.02
Excellent information. You've given me a weeks worth of research and reading material to say the least, but this is the type of information I seek. Kudos to you and thanks for sharing.
Do you feel as though "turbocharging" the bacterial count is only benificial or are there too many risks associated to make it worth while? It would seem, that this is a key goal for any reefer to understand and achieve to aquire above average results?!?
Amen to several points by Ich! Some say using a live fish is cruel. Maybe, but I wouldn't do it due to not wanting to catch the dang things when done. Stinky shrimp in my house? No way! My wife would have my stinky corpse floating next to the stinky shrimp. And yep to the potential pathogens that can come with using any grocery store seafood additions.
Bacterial additives can speed things up but you can get away with the cycling for pretty much nothing but a little waiting. Ammonia additives are great and cheap, but so is a pinch of fish food. I have a friend that urinated in a cup and dumped it in the tank (okay that was me after losing a bet while drinking) and it worked fine.
As long as you get a good initial cycle and dont leave the tank for a long time with no additional ammonia sources being added you will be fine. Just don't add a lot of stuff at once. Even if you do just feed lightly for a week or so. Bacteria, with a good food supply, multiply at an exponential rate very very quickly. So basically, I don't believe there is really a need to have or try to manage a huge amount of "extra" bacteria.
Use the cycling time to relax, learn some more basics, and plan what livestock you eventually want in the tank. Don't overcomplicate a very simple natural process. Adequate planning now can save you all kinds of mind numbing pain later. After cycling, forget about carbon dosing for a while. That's stuff for down the road when you are more comfortable and have better husbandry techniques/higher bioload. And please do yourself a favor and read objective information about how it works before starting. Stay away from overly opinionated sources that gripe about how it sucks and doesn't work (they just dont understand it and proceed incorrectly). Ich and others here can steer you right on the subject when the time comes. Good luck and sorry for the long post.
Bacterial additives can speed things up but you can get away with the cycling for pretty much nothing but a little waiting. Ammonia additives are great and cheap, but so is a pinch of fish food. I have a friend that urinated in a cup and dumped it in the tank (okay that was me after losing a bet while drinking) and it worked fine.
As long as you get a good initial cycle and dont leave the tank for a long time with no additional ammonia sources being added you will be fine. Just don't add a lot of stuff at once. Even if you do just feed lightly for a week or so. Bacteria, with a good food supply, multiply at an exponential rate very very quickly. So basically, I don't believe there is really a need to have or try to manage a huge amount of "extra" bacteria.
Use the cycling time to relax, learn some more basics, and plan what livestock you eventually want in the tank. Don't overcomplicate a very simple natural process. Adequate planning now can save you all kinds of mind numbing pain later. After cycling, forget about carbon dosing for a while. That's stuff for down the road when you are more comfortable and have better husbandry techniques/higher bioload. And please do yourself a favor and read objective information about how it works before starting. Stay away from overly opinionated sources that gripe about how it sucks and doesn't work (they just dont understand it and proceed incorrectly). Ich and others here can steer you right on the subject when the time comes. Good luck and sorry for the long post.
One more thing to consider. Say you supercharge your bacteria colony. You have to feed it to keep it that way right? So all that bacteria is converting ammonia to nitrite and the nitrite to nitrate. Now what, you have nitrate building up in your system that you have to export. That means more or larger water changes. Why get into that from the get go. It is hard enough keeping the nitrates low once you get the fish you want.
I would seed with rock from another tank. I also use Seachem stability. Anyway, you are close to me, I'll give you an indestructible domino damsel (pair if you like). I'd prefer that you buy the stability and dose for a week first
Edit: I'll give you some LR as well.
Edit: I'll give you some LR as well.
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its almost pointless to run the skimmer durring the cycle because there will be very little to actually skim out. the only reason to do it would be if its a brand new skimmer. then you could go ahead and run it to break it in
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