Cycle or no cycle? Confused?

[beeguiles]

I filled up my 93g about five days ago. I bought this stuff called quick start by API.
QUICK START? - API
The only reason I bought this was because I needed to separate fish quickly. But I ended up bring the bully to my lfs anyways. So I put this quick start in my tank and I'm confused at what I'm supposed to be seeing. The bottle says instantly starts the cycle. But also you can add fish instantly? So should my tank be cycled already or am I watching for spikes like a normal cycle? I testers the parameters and they are all zero. Oh and I also threw in a chunk of frozen krill about for days ago to kick start the cycle and still nothing. Im just confused on if the tank is going to cycle or not...anybody have any ideas? Thanks!!

 

[cvcdrk]

Everything I've read from reliable sources has said that those chemicals make false claims.

I'm no expert, so someone else could confirm this but it's basically a solution with a lot of nitrifying bacteria in it. If you haven't seen an ammonia spike then it may not have been enough.
I've read that it doesn't really do a whole lot. Some sources have said it does peed up the cycle (by about 2 weeks or so) but I've never seen anything that has said that you can just add fish right away (except the bottle).

I asked my LFS about it the other day and the guy, who is moderately knowledgeable but not by any means an expert, said that he wouldn't recommend adding it for two reasons. One is that it is a chemical and 99% of the time adding any chemicals to the tank is dangerous because it can throw off other parameters. The other reason he said was that the company that made this stuff was no reputable...but yours is API so that doesn't apply.

I could be wrong but 93g is a big tank...maybe the ammonia just hasn't gotten a big enough kick yet for that big of a tank? These products DEFINITELY don't eliminate the cycle completely...only introduce bacteria to speed it up

The other idea I have is that maybe the bottle adds enough bacteria to handle the krill you put in but that doesn't mean that they are colonized and ready to start breeding rapidly enough to handle a fish load. I feel like adding fish after only 5 days would overwhelm them and you'd see the ammonia spike you're looking for....but obviously it could seriously hurt the fish.

 

[slwedge71]

I bought a 29g bio cube 3 months ago and used a quick start chemical. It actually cycled my tank in 16 hours. I however didn't put my goby in the tank for 3 days after. Just keep adding the chemical every day for 7 days and check your readings. If your PH is good and you A,Nitrite are 0 you should be good, If i remember your build from Tank Showcase your building a reef so you want some low Nitrate readings.

When I tested my tank on the 3rd day PH was at 7.9 and my A and Nitrite was 0 and my Nitrate at in the safe lvls. ATM I have 1 goby, 1 CBS, 4 Mexican Tubo's and CUC for the tank plus about 6 coral frags and all are doing well.

 

[beeguiles]

Idk if I feel comfortable adding this stuff to the tank everyday. Also it's a big tank so it takes a whole bottle which is $14. I guess I'll just add some more fish food and wait a few more days and then test again. Surely then there should be some kind of spike. If there is not a spike then I'll consider the tank cycled?

 

[cvcdrk]

I'm in the same boat as you at this point. I bought live sand from the LFS and live rock from the LFS that was only out of water for like....20 minutes tops....so I'm sitting here waiting for an ammonia spike that may come and go in between tests...but either way I still need a lot more bacteria than what is in there now.

 

[beeguiles]

I'd say that you only would have to wait a week or so with everything being live already. That's how I did it with my 29g and everything was fine. I added fish after a week. But for my tank now I stared with dry sand and dry rock.

 

[FishyReef]

Brittany, you might need to add some live rock rubble or a small piece of live rock from your 29 to get it started. I read a recent review on Dr. Tim's that led me to actually believe for the first time that it might work, but I don't know about the API stuff. Since you started with totally dry rock and sand, I'd recommend adding in a small piece of live rock and then adding in some more fish food and see if you get any sort of ammonia spike. I'm pretty suspicious that you haven't even seen a nitrate spike despite adding krill, which makes me think that nitrifying bacteria aren't present enough yet. I'm not sure I'd risk live stock yet until you definitely can add fish food and see nitrates in your system afterwards to know for sure that the food was processed.

 

[JohnVH]

I used Stability by Seachem when I started my tank. I had initially set up my tank with about 100lbs of dry rock and raw table shrimp then added 20lbs of live rock. I had no intention of trying to speed up my cycle but my concern was for the live rock I had purchased was full of life, it had several colonies of GSP's, Mushrooms, Feather Dusters and Xenia. I was concerned that a majority if the life would not survive the cycle so I started to use the Stability. My tank still cycled in about 4 weeks but my tank only had a minor spike and all my readings went down to 0. I think that the Stability helped everything on the rock survived and has now grown substantially. I do not think that these solutions are a miracle cure for anything but I don't think it's all snake oil either.

 

[beeguiles]

Fishy I forgot to mention before that I did put some live rock from the 29g in there to seed the tank as well. Idk how I forgot about that. So that's why I thought I'd see at least a little something but maybe it just takes longer being that it's a large tank.

So the consensus is to add some more food and just wait and keep testing?

 

[Kelz88]

I used something similar on my 55 gallon bc i was a helpless noob lol. Thought i was good to go when i threw the shrimp in and no spike.

Put a fire clown in and then the tank really started to cycle. Dragged its way out for 6 weeks all the time i have to keep adding bottles to the tank to keep the ammonia at an acceptable level.

At 20$ a bottle i can see why my lfs recomended it to me -.- Hopefully api's snake oil is a little better :)

 

[slwedge71]

Well, according to the instructions on my bottle, I had to add it to the tank every day for 7 days. It was only half the amount that I had to add the first time. My tank is just fine and has been running now for 3 months. My corals are fine and healthy and multiplying.