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Dr Tim’s One and Only, add one or more fish on day 1, and your cycle is essentially done. I don’t understand why people are still cycling in buckets for weeks or with ammonia.
 
JVU said:
Dr Tim’s One and Only, add one or more fish on day 1, and your cycle is essentially done. I don’t understand why people are still cycling in buckets for weeks or with ammonia.
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I would add crank up the heater to 82F and have a ton of flow to shorten the cycle. And don’t use pukani rocks :)
 
I’m using pukani. Jester6 prepped them with pressure wash and acid wash, they looked clean when I got them but of course there are all those books and crannies.

Dr. Tim’s One and Only, added all my fish from my temporary tank on day 1.

I was nervous so I tested every day, never got any dangerous spikes. Basically no appreciable cycle. I think the common wisdom that you need to cycle rocks is out dated at this point. And fish work better than ammonia for use with Dr. Tim’s from what I’ve read, more natural, balanced, and continuous nutrients.
 
JVU said:
I’m using pukani. Jester6 prepped them with pressure wash and acid wash, they looked clean when I got them but of course there are all those books and crannies.

Dr. Tim’s One and Only, added all my fish from my temporary tank on day 1.

I was nervous so I tested every day, never got any dangerous spikes. Basically no appreciable cycle. I think the common wisdom that you need to cycle rocks is out dated at this point. And fish work better than ammonia for use with Dr. Tim’s from what I’ve read, more natural, balanced, and continuous nutrients.
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I have to disagree with this. There are some important reasons rocks still need to cycle.

* A lot of times you don't know how much organic material is still in the rocks. If the decay is greater than the amount of Dr. Tim's bacteria you put in can handle, you could have an issue with ammonia spikes.
* You want to ensure you have a robust bacterial load seeded in the rocks before you have livestock in the tank. If for any reason you needed to do greater than a 50% water change, you need to make sure enough bacteria exists on substrate or rocks to handle the bioload. While using Dr Tim's can speed this up from a typical month cycle, bacteria still needs time to multiply. Nitrosomonas (ammonia->nitrite) double in count around every 7 hours and nictrobacter (nitrite->nitrate) takes even longer to double, somewhere between 13-20 hours.

Do you have a link to the source or reason why fish work better than using an ammonia product (like Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride or ammonium hydroxide from Ace hardware) to get a cycle going. I'd like to understand the reasoning.
 
The constant addition of ammonia from fish makes sense to me rather than an initial high level that decreases over time. No science here, just makes sense to me.
 
Coral reefer said:
The constant addition of ammonia from fish makes sense to me rather than an initial high level that decreases over time. No science here, just makes sense to me.
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I think that would make sense if we knew that a high level of ammonia had a detrimental effect on nitrosomona bacteria growth, but as far as I know, that isn't the case (at least at the levels we're talking about). Pukani rock from BRS will generally spike your ammonia levels well above 8ppm (at least the two times I've cured rock from them) within 2 or 3 days, but by week 2, ammonia will be all or mostly gone and this is without any bacterial supplements. I'd imagine if high levels were problematic, it would take longer to process ammonia to nitrite or wouldn't even happen at all.
 
Coral reefer said:
Did you acid wash first? I think that makes a large difference.
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No, I didn't. Dangerous acid and me probably wouldn't work out so well. Washing in acid does make a difference in nutrient load during curing as BRS proved in their video on curing rock. Bleaching helps out too. But I'm not sure though how that question relates to using live fish, decaying organic material, or an inorganic ammonia source for a "better" bacterial load/cycle.
 
RandyC said:
No, I didn't. Dangerous acid and me probably wouldn't work out so well. Washing in acid does make a difference in nutrient load during curing as BRS proved in their video on curing rock. Bleaching helps out too. But I'm not sure though how that question relates to using live fish, decaying organic material, or an inorganic ammonia source for a "better" bacterial load/cycle.
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I think it has a big effect by removing a lot of what needed to be cycled. I think that means it goes faster. Your way could very likely result in a higher bacterial population, but ten it will dwindle if you don't continue feeding it enough.
If you start with less dead stuff in and on the rock and get enough bacteria to sustain the fish you are going to keep on the tank it should work well without overshooting and then having a lot of excess bacteri die off pretty quickly, which can be an eyesore and or feed other nuisance issues.
So my only point really is that it's not the source of the ammonia I'm concerned with as much as the amount I guess. The fish you have make the amount that they make and the cycle can be tailored to that. Although if you put way too much bacteria in, or not enough, you have problems there too.
 
A traditional cycle involves having a few bacteria accidentally drift into your bucket/tank from nowhere and then we add something that decomposes but doesn’t give usable nutrients right away, takes many many rounds of bacterial replication to get going, if you even start with any of the correct bacteria. More likely you start with suboptimal bacteria that the better bacteria then have to compete with once they find their way in. Meanwhile your decay products are building up, potentially to levels that inhibit bacterial growth, all the while just kind of hoping with fingers crossed that the biology is all sorting itself out optimally.

With Dr. Tim’s you are adding billions of the correct bacteria, ready to go to work on day 1. Then you add some fish and they pee and poop into the water giving a rich and full immediately bioavailable diet for the various bacteria, not just ammonia. Many many fewer rounds of bacterial replication are required to seed every available surface since you are starting with a lot, with the bacteria you want as opposed to whatever was floating in the air.

Fishless Dr. Tim’s with adding ammonia is also an option for those too nervous to use fish, but to me it is clear that this will be a poorer and less consistent (peaks and valleys) diet for the variety of bacteria we want to grow. Plus it leaves you with a tank full of nitrate not balanced with phosphate and so more difficult to remove later.

I don’t have citation, but I researched it a lot before I dumped my fish in a new tank without a traditional cycle, and I also have a professional background in related subjects.

I agree that if your rock has a lot of decaying matter on it you might overwhelm the added bacteria, but even then adding large amounts of the right bacteria will help tremendously. But anyway that’s why I started with prepared rock.
 
What I took away from the BRS study on rock cycling was that after bleaching, acid wash doesn’t add enough cleaning value to warrant handling (even more) dangerous chemicals. I’m of the thinking if you want the insta-cycle you need to use clean manufactured rock with your dr tims, and if you want the surface area and natural look of pukani you should be prepared to cycle it until all the junk trapped inside breaks down. For me that’s taking about 6 weeks in 70F water with a power head and skimmer.
 
Good to hear that Dr Tim's works well.
I may be cycling some tanks soon.

I usually acid wash to open up the rock pores.
You can see a pretty obvious visual difference.
Note that it takes a lot of acid. It gets neutralized pretty quickly. I think that is where people go wrong.
Although too much and your rocks will be mush.

I already have dangerous chemicals since I have a pool....

My usual procedure:
Put rocks in tub.
Add tap water to barely cover it.
Add acid until it starts to froth.
Wait an hour, add more acid until it froths again.
Then wait a day.
I do not "scrub" it. It would help, but hard to do safely.
 
Chromis said:
What I took away from the BRS study on rock cycling was that after bleaching, acid wash doesn’t add enough cleaning value to warrant handling (even more) dangerous chemicals. I’m of the thinking if you want the insta-cycle you need to use clean manufactured rock with your dr tims, and if you want the surface area and natural look of pukani you should be prepared to cycle it until all the junk trapped inside breaks down. For me that’s taking about 6 weeks in 70F water with a power head and skimmer.
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I'd definitely cure at 82F. The two separate occasions I cured and cycled pukani, I was able to cycle both times in 4 weeks without any bacterial supplements. Ran around 81-82F and I didn't even bother scrubbing or cleaning the rocks aside from picking off a few big pieces on the surface.
 
reeferfoxx said:
what is ADA?
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It’s an aquarium manufacturer - Aqua Design Amano. We stumbled across this AquaForest shop in SF specializing in the most beautiful freshwater planted tanks. Has anyone else been there? I liked the simplicity and clarity of the tank and turned mine into a reef.
 
I’ve decided the pukani rock is done curing for my new Reefer 450. It’s that nice toasty brown color, like a bun that’s done cooking in the oven. Time to start a new tank thread!
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