Quote:
Originally Posted by jlmawp
At no point did I say anything about quitting. You asked similar questions in your other threads, and you got a ton of answers. Accurate answers. You just chose not to listen to them because they weren't the answers you wanted. If you are going to threaten to quit after 4 days, before your tank is even cycled, then maybe you should be thinking about getting rid of it before the real challenge begins. Cycling is the easy part.
This is a hobby of patience and occasional setback. Everyone goes through it...it's part of the learning experience. So far, in the other two threads you have made, people have told you to be patient and let the cycle take its course, including myself. They all say sometimes it takes up to a month. The average cycle is 2-3 weeks. It has been 4 days for your tank. Mcgyver even told you that everything is fine and your situation is totally normal, and he doesn't mince words. Instead of heeding the advice of the experienced people that you are asking advice from, you keep trying to force your way into cycling a tank with chemicals and over-analyzing water level tests. People are trying to tell you how things work, and you aren't listening. Your tank doesn't need more chemicals, treatments, or changes. It needs time. A tank cycle isn't something you get to fast forward. You will learn that there are no healthy shortcuts in this hobby, and it's best to have some more patience and allow things to go slowly and steadily. Trust me on this. Others who are much more experienced than myself will agree. This forum's creed is "nothing good in this hobby happens quickly". You will see it many times if you decide to stick around.
Your tank WILL cycle, and you WILL get to move forward and have a beautiful reef tank with corals, inverts, and fish. Clearly it's important to you, and you seem like you'll pay attention and do a good job. But obsessing over a 4 day cycle is not a good start, and it's not going to make it go any faster. It's just not ready yet, man. It will be ready when it's ready. Leave it alone for a week and it will likely be a lot better. Interfering with tanks too much can cause more issues than it helps. GIVE IT TIME.
I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm trying to give you some advice, like Sammy said. Don't be so dramatic. You're doing fine, and your tank will be fine. You have everyone here to ask questions to as you go forward, but you have to be able to take advice and understand that people here spout truth and are out for your best interests...even if it's not the thing you necessarily want to hear.
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I agree, having success with this hobby requires patience and the ability accept criticism/advise. If you "force" stuff and ignore advises that you dont want to hear, quitting would be a better option than spending couple of thousand dollars and hundreds of hours for an eventual failure.
Also as an advise, evaporation of 1 gallon water from 40 gallons would not move any parameter much. It would concentrate them only by 2.5% (lets say 3% since real volume likely is lower than 40). So it would raise 10 ppm nitrate to ~10.3 ppm. I change smaller than the resolution of hobby grade tests.