Weekly Discussion: Cycle

[Pelado]

just starting my 110g and still confused about cooking the rock or using pre cured? I don´t intent to add any livestock until about a month after set up. could anyone clarify for me?

[Fat Tony]

Cooking and curing are two totally different processes. Curing rock is really just cycling the rock and removing the associated die off from shipping. Cooking rock is a process that uses bacterial process to force out the phosphates in the rock.

[saidwhat]

Hi TRT! This's the exact topic i'm looking for! please take it easy on this newbie!
So here's my understanding of cycle and please fix me if im wrong anywhere:
If I wanna start out a new tank, my first step would be adding LR, LS, and RO/DI water. when you see Ammonia go up then down, Nitrite go up then down, nitrate go up then down, until all three are at 0 the tank is cycled and i can add livestock ? So during that waiting period should i add any thing (like skimmer, filter, livestock, etc.)? should i do any wc (because i heard that the first wc should be after all three are at 0 balance)? how long should i keep the light on if any? If i cycle the tank properly, there's a good chance that i wont have to face troubles like algae in the future right?
I basically dont know anything about reef keeping yet but i wanna gather info first so i wont have trouble when i start it. Please feel free to give extra info that you think i need about cycle. Thank you!

[tdwyatt]

Most folks have a difficult time getting nitrATE down to zero detectable levels at the end of system initial cycling, just initially look for zero ammonia, nitrite, and an increase in levels of nitrATE (plan on 10-20 PPM, maybe 30 if your system is immature and has had a lot of fish or food added to the system without the benefit of anaerobic zones). Nitrate is a byproduct of decomposition of nitrogenous compounds, both proteins and amino acids that have passed through a productive cycle in animal and been converted to ammonia, as well as these same nutrients dissolved in the water column (dead fish/snails, etc, mucus, animal wastes in general, etc.) When we see nitrATE in the water column, it means that there are enough nitrifying bacteria present in the water column (actually on well-oxygenated solid substrates exposed to the water column) that ammonia resulting from decomposition, animal respirations, and bacterial bioprocessing (yes, there are some bacteria capable of converting nitrate an nitrite to ammonia under special circumstnces) can be converted into the much less toxic nitrATE form of nitrogen at relatively non-toxic levels.

This is nitrogen cycling through our aquaria in the presence of oxygen. Denitrification, the conversion of nitrate to N2 gas and it escaping to the atmosphere, occurs in the absence of oxygen. It is especially efficient when nitrate is aerobically produced in close physical proximity to anaerobic biocoenosi where it can act as either an electron acceptor or a substrate for bacteria capable of this function WITHOUT being available for nuisance algal sustenance (why we want large pieces of LR in our tanks).

When to add a skimmer, perform water changes, CUCs, etc., depend on your goals for the biotope you are attempting to emulate, as well as your goals for and the quality of your live rock.

Care to elaborate?

HTH

[saidwhat]

Originally Posted by tdwyatt

Most folks have a difficult time getting nitrATE down to zero detectable levels at the end of system initial cycling, just initially look for zero ammonia, nitrite, and an increase in levels of nitrATE (plan on 10-20 PPM, maybe 30 if your system is immature and has had a lot of fish or food added to the system without the benefit of anaerobic zones). Nitrate is a byproduct of decomposition of nitrogenous compounds, both proteins and amino acids that have passed through a productive cycle in animal and been converted to ammonia, as well as these same nutrients dissolved in the water column (dead fish/snails, etc, mucus, animal wastes in general, etc.) When we see nitrATE in the water column, it means that there are enough nitrifying bacteria present in the water column (actually on well-oxygenated solid substrates exposed to the water column) that ammonia resulting from decomposition, animal respirations, and bacterial bioprocessing (yes, there are some bacteria capable of converting nitrate an nitrite to ammonia under special circumstnces) can be converted into the much less toxic nitrATE form of nitrogen at relatively non-toxic levels.

This is nitrogen cycling through our aquaria in the presence of oxygen. Denitrification, the conversion of nitrate to N2 gas and it escaping to the atmosphere, occurs in the absence of oxygen. It is especially efficient when nitrate is aerobically produced in close physical proximity to anaerobic biocoenosi where it can act as either an electron acceptor or a substrate for bacteria capable of this function WITHOUT being available for nuisance algal sustenance (why we want large pieces of LR in our tanks).

When to add a skimmer, perform water changes, CUCs, etc., depend on your goals for the biotope you are attempting to emulate, as well as your goals for and the quality of your live rock.

Care to elaborate?

HTH

English please ? lol jk! i read thru that several times and still not fully get it! So are you saying i dont need to get the Nitrate to be zero before adding livestock?

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by saidwhat

English please ? lol jk! i read thru that several times and still not fully get it! So are you saying I don’t need to get the Nitrate to be zero before adding livestock?

Yes.

Many established marine systems run with non-toxic levels of nitrATE in the 15-20 PPM range, even as high a 40 PPM or more. However, under these conditions, stony corals tend to "brown" as the zooxanthellae are fertilized inside the holobiont ( like putting chemical fertilizer on your lawn to get it to "green" up), making the coloration of your coral golden brown (the color of healthy zooxanthellae is golden brown for the most part, most of the vivid coloration in stony corals is from the photo-protective GFPs from the host coral). There is nothing wrong with this, and the golden brown corals are, for the most part, perfectly healthy. Octocorals are a little different, as they employ a mechanism where they absorb nitrate as a nutrient transdermally, and many of them use this as their primary acquisition mechanism for nitrogen (octocorals from lagoonal biotopes mostly). You can usually use the appearance of nitrate in accumulating levels and the disappearance of ammonia and nitrite at detectable levels (via hobbyists’ test kits) as a good clinical sign that your nitrogen cycling has established and begun to mature. Full maturation to include denitrification will depend on the presence of significant anaerobic environments (either the interior of large pieces of live rock or DSBs with more than 10 cm depth) and the availability of nitrate (usually takes another 3-6 weeks depending on conditions).


HTH

[cutietwo]

To make sure your tank is ready for new inhabitants. That there enough bacteria (good) in the system to support these new inhabitants. ..it's a very SLOW process that is very hard to have the patience for

[umakemekissu]

bump.. this's a good subject to discuss IMO

[saidwhat]

ok gotcha! when i establish the tank i will let it cycle as long as possible!
But what would happen if the tank is already fully cycled and i dont add any livestock and keep just run it with LR, LS, and water? is it better or wouldnt do anything?
I know adding a large amount of fishes and LR at once after the cycle can produce another cycle.. how about adding coral?
Should I do the first water change after the tank is cycled?
Do i need to keep the light on during the cycle?

Thanks a lot

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by saidwhat

ok gotcha! when i establish the tank i will let it cycle as long as possible!
But what would happen if the tank is already fully cycled and i dont add any livestock and keep just run it with LR, LS, and water? is it better or wouldnt do anything?
I know adding a large amount of fishes and LR at once after the cycle can produce another cycle.. how about adding coral?
Should I do the first water change after the tank is cycled?
Do i need to keep the light on during the cycle?

Thanks a lot

The general consensus is that letting it run empty it will continue to mature. What does mature mean? I am of the opinion that it has to do with lots of little critter populations reaching equilibrium and stabalizing.

Cycle should not be viewed as on/off phenomenon. If you cycled (built up bacteria) with a teaspoon of ammonia, you have enough bacteria to process about a teaspoon of ammonia. You are basically culturing a starter population of the various bacteria you will need. Suddenly dumpin a gallon of ammonia in will take some time for populations to catch up. Luckily for us bacteria respond very quickly to changes in the carrying capacity of an enviroment.

[tdwyatt]

Alice once told me that the only limit to how many and how soon you could add corals to your tank was based on what your Visa limit is...

[fchidsey]

This is a Great topic. I would like to touch on curing live rock the the processes and what kind of cycles take place during this advernture.

Currently I am cooking 100 lbs of base. It is running in a 30 gal blue tbu with a 1200 gph pump. the temp is probably around 85 and smelled pretty bad, yesterday I changed the water (all of it) after getting out the scrubbrush (w/o soap) and scrubbbed the rocks down. what else should I be checking for during the curing process. (the rocks are covered the whole time also.)

[jenglish]

Curing and cooking are similar.... but different IMO. At it's most basic level. In curing we are looking at removing rotting or dead material from the and cooking we are wanting the bacteria to run out of easy food and start pulling nutrients that have bound into the rock. They are both about geting the rock to be bacterially driven.

If you had a skimmer to pull out organics it may would help the cooking process IMO. I have even wondered what effect carbon dosing would have.

[Rofib]

how long does it takes for nitrites to convert into nitrates ????

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by Rofib

how long does it takes for nitrites to convert into nitrates ????

You may start to see them in a few weeks or maybe over a month. I generally say about a month to six weeks from the addition of ammonia to the nitrogen cycle being essentially completed at least on a small scale. Of course it has been a long time since I set up a tank without something to start the bacterial population with. Temp also plays a part. The best thing to do is to test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and watch the nitrogen cycle unfold. If you are not going to test all three then it is better to jsut give the tank plenty of time.