mini cycles

[johng1]

Hey folks,

A guy in the local club has lost most of his fish (a tomato clown, an angler, and a naso tang). His yellow tang is still kicking, so it's not a total loss.

As near as we can figure, it's because he added all of these too fast and didn't let his tank catch up. He's running a 75g with a HOB skimmer. He added each fish with 2 to 3 weeks in between. Right now most of his water parameters are ok except his nitrites are high (which likely killed his livestock).

Anyway, is there any way to watch these mini cycles after adding fish? From what it is looking like to me, you can add a fish but the nitrogen cycle that starts from that one fish is pretty small (too small to see on the testing kits?). The bacteria will build up some more, and then you can add another fish.

It seems like if you can see much of anything on the test kits, it's pretty much too late. Is this right?

I'm running a 75g with a 29g sump, so my system looks alot like his and I don't want to kill anything.

John

 

[LordErrorprone]

How much LR does he have? I usually wait a month between new additions but if you don't have alot LR you might need to wait longer or he past his Max Bio load.

 

[SeanMonster]

You should let the guy know that his tank is less than half the size required for a Naso. It's not what caused his problem, but just to save him overcrowding issues in the future.

 

[carey]

If a tank is properly cycled then in my opinion you shouldnt see any mini cycles. If cycled with a decent amount of ammonia, like 4ppm, then the biological filter should be prepared for fish. I do agree though that you shouldnt add a bunch of fish in at the same time in the beginning though.

I added 4 fish at once (didnt' want to pay shipping more than once) to my newly setup 90g and I've been testing each day and no spikes of any kind. I've added a fish a week for the last 3 weeks and still no spike. I did however use about 60lb of live rock from my 125g and the other half base rock but the tank has remained stable.

AND yep, that Naso is WAY too large for a 75g tank. there are a couple of tangs like a tomini and other bristletooth tangs that can be kept in a 75g though so he might wanna research those.

 

[johng1]

Ya know, he said something about his tank being down for a while. I bet that he had cycled, but his rock wasn't alive again. After I read Lord's comment I looked back at his pics and it looks like he has a decent amount of rock in there. probably just dead rock though.

I'll tell him about the naso also. Dang, I just looked those up and they get huge!

John