Aarohn there are many variables that could have caused this. I don't see anywhere that he says he transferred the bed, just the rock and water. There are all different levels of a cycled tank. You can be over feeding your tank, to many animals [big bioload], poor water change frequency, any nbr of reasons the tank could have been on the verge of having an ammonia issue before he changed. 8.0 ammon. is awfully high. There are other reasons, how much live rock was in the 75, verses what is needed in a 135. Was any uncured live rock added? I don't think we know the answers to some of this. HIS FIRST MISTAKE was what the May meeting was about that was not highly attended and that is TO HAVE A QT up and running ALWAYS, not just when needed, because you never know when it well be needed!!!!! Hope a lesson is learnt here. It sure saves money and stress and most of all LIVES. cheers
Thanks again everyone. That is one of the unfortuneate things about me having to work weekends is that I cannot attend meetings. I did not transfer the substrate and that is because my 75 was BB tank. I have about 2-3 inches in the 135. As far as a piece of shrimp goes I just left one of the fish that I lost to feed the cycle. it was a small (about 1 1/2) Blue Green Chromis. Tha Lionfish is a pretty hardy Fish. As far as rock is concerned I had about 80 lbs that got moved over. I plan on adding another 80 to 100 lbs when the funds become available. I have agood idea what might have happened. The rock was exposed to air for about 5 or 10 min. That might have caused enough die off to create the high levels of ammonia.
What caused your spike was probably not enough good bacteria since you didn't move any substrate over, if your rock was only out for 5 or 10 mins., doubt much if anything died other then if you had alot of sponge on the rock, it doesn't last long in air. Alot of reefs go bare at low tide. If you had bought the substrate that comes with the good bacteria already seeded you probably would have been okay. Yeah just leave the chromis in there that well give you a good cycle. Setup a QT in the future to have ready for emerg. cheers and good luck
One other thing that I believe to be of value is to get a cup of substrate from a couple different people to seed your new sandbed. This will give you a jump start. Just get the top 1" or so and scatter it over your sandbed. Good luck with your tank and please keep posting.
I am also a fan of natural cycling and to clarify on what I have suggested, a pure source of ammonia or pee is about as natural as it gets without having decomposing animal parts to view for weeks at a time.just because it wasn't expelled from a gill doesn't make it unnatural by anymeans. And just becuase it isn't your favorite method doesn't make it bad information. As mentioned, there are thousands of options to get to the end result.I use the fishless method on all my tanks and they are and have been just as healthy as any others. What ever you decide to go with research it and ask questions that will start debates. That's how the member ship will gain knowledge and ideas. The main issue you lion faces right now is residual damage to his gills. When they are exposed to those levels for long periods of time they will develop slimecoat on the gills that can take days to dissapate and they can suffocate even after removed from the original conditions. Good luck on the cycle and post some pics of the new system when you can
You are right, but as it comes out of the bladder and passes through the tract getting out of the body it can pickup bacteria, women it is a higher possability then men, also you could have the beginning of a unrinary tract infection and not know it, so for the most part you are correct, but I guess I would rather strain my eyes to see the dead meat as you put it then take the chance the other way.
I think I am going to go out and find some of that live sand and put it my refugium. Probably about 3 inces worth. that will probably get things rolling a little faster.
Sure buy a bag and use it to seed the other and your fuge or do as Norman suggested if you have friends with a tank running that has seeded substrate. With a 8 pt ammon level, it is going to take awhile for it and the nitrite cycle to get done no matter what you do. Start a QT for the next time something goes wrong also, like when you start adding new fish to the 135. One wrong step and you well be right back in the same situation again of losing animals.
Yes I am for sure going to start a QT tank. I also ordered 45 lbs of standard Fiji cured rock from www.liveaquaria.com. I wanted to go ahead and get it in there since I do not have fish right now. That way nothing will suffer while the rock goes through some dieoff due to shipping. I also put 20lbs of live sand in my fuge this morning. I went by paradise pets yesterday and my lionfish is still alive. She has got her color back. Her fins look rough. The ammonia apparently ate some of the fins away.
this post is by a gentleman by the name of larry on rc(HAWKD12) and he has agreed to let me post it here. "Several years ago i attempted to directly assess the differences between various approaches to cycling in a controlled experiment- in particular to dispel the need to cycle with a live fish myth that was pervasive a few years ago. i don't have all the data in front of me but, using 4 identical 10 gl tank,equipment and salifert test kits ( much of what was generously provided by premium aquatics). i tested the capicity of the tanks cycled with low dose ammonia, high dose ammonia, no nutrient source, and fish crap( one moderately fed damsel). ammonia fed tanks were continuously fed by peristaltic pumps at the same load daily for apporximately 2 months. nitrte,nitrite,alk,temo and salinity were measured daily and ca+ was measured twice per week. the results: it took a few days longer for the high dose fed tank to cycle than the fish fed tank or the low dose fed tank. the non-fed tank never exhibited any evidence of cycling as expected. maximum measured nitrate and nitrite levels were significantly higher in the high dose fed tank then teh fish or low dose fed tanks, also as expected. the three fed tanks, as i recall all cycled in 2-3 weeks. i considered the tanks to have completely cycled when the nitrate and nitrite both went to 0. so heres the real experiment. after allowing the tanks to continue processing their daily feed amounts for about a month after completion of their cycles- i.e. demonstrating having established stable nitrification, i then asked what the ammonia load capacity was of each tank. to do this i added high or low dose bolus amounts or ammonia and measured how long it took the tanks to return to "0" nitrates and nitrites. i don't believe this had ever been scientifically demonstrated, but it was clear that the high dose cycled tank fed a constant high dose of ammonium was able to absorb the added bolus in a much shorter period of time than was the low dose cycled/fed tanks suggesting that tank had a greater capacity for processing waste(keep in mind both tanks parameters were identical at this point, prior to the bolus) interestingly, the low dose tank and the fish cycled/fed tank responded comparably suggesting that a single damsel (in a 10 gl tank) was comparable to a LOW nutrient burden. ok, so this supported the theory that an aggressively cycled tank, and one cycled with ammonia rather then fish crap, would have a greater capacity to handle sudden increases in load- say from adding a half dozen new fish or throwing in some new live rock that begins to decay. but the real question is, how durable and sustainable is this "extra strength" waste processing capacity? to test that i reduced the high dose tank feed rate to that of the low dose feed tank and added bolus after 1 day,1 week, 2 weeks, and 1 month- or at least that was the plan.at day 1 post feed reduction, the former high dose tank was able to process the bolus a day or so faster then the low dose tank( the bolus amounts are the same in all experaments) and at about the same rate as before lowering the continous feed - i.e. the tanks capacity persistance in the absence of high nutrient load for at least a day. however, by the week 1 time point both tanks took equivalant periods to process the added load, suggesting the bacterial populations in the tank had adjusted fairly rapidly to the lower steady state feed rate. the data was insufficient to demonstrate a differential effect on nitrate reduction vs nitrite reduction, so this experiment did not address differences in load response to the critical main bacterial populations in the tank. i terminated the experiment at this point- 15 tests per day was getting old. as an aside, the non-fed tank experiment was terminated after failing to demonstrate any cycle. the same tank was then used in a parallel experiment to compare the cycling rate and load capacity of tanks cycled with household ammonia or laboratory grade sources with no difference in out come, but not all of the long term load experiments were performed and after a week of nearly identical readings, parameters were tested only every couple of days for a few more weeks. unfortunely, i had planned to test the ability of either tank to "adapt" to handle larger bolus loads by increase the feed rate, but other matters required that i take down the tanks. the conclusion is that different feed rates to in fact have a significant impact on the tanks ability to absorb and process waste, but that this capacity is transient and changes fairly rapidly based on steady state load post cycle. therefor, if ones plan is to heavily stock a tank soon after it is cycled, it might be best to cycle the tank with a high nutrient burden. if the tank will be lightly stocked, or will be stocked over a period of time, then a low nutrient load is sufficient. further, based on parallel experiments, it is likely that simple household ammonia will serve very well as the nutrient source. in any case, the bacterial populations in a cycled tank seem to be very responsive to changes in environmental nutrient load and it is unliekly that how a tank is cycles will impact the ability of a tank to adjust , fairly rapidly to changes in a reef keepers stocking ambitions, though a gradual approach to increasing bioload in a tank will give the tank time to adjust"
Nothing new here other then the fact that he was using house hold ammon., The same thing can be done by loading a bigger hunk of food source into the tank when cycling, it well create a larger bacterial population which as stated in this article well change very quickly by how much food source is available for the bacteria to sustain its population. I would still rather use chunks of shrimp or some other food source, the more you load in the stronger the good bacteria well be.
thats the point i was trying to make adding this. ammonia dosing is not a new trend or a radical move. it has been tested and proven to work for years.
Discussions like this encourage people to do a lot of reading. I recently set up a 30 gallon nano cube and after reading these posts considered that since I used the same rock and substrate from my 20 gallon that I might not go through much of a cycle. For several days everything stayed nice and white and boom - today I came home from work to a brown tank. It ends up being so different for each individual set up that it is hard to explain why cycling turns out different for some than it does for others. It is always so frustrating for me when I try to model others success only to have things not work out like the other persons. Thank you everyone for taking time to make such detailed threads our forum is the better for it.
