Anothre Cycling Question

[Luca Brazzi]

Im currently about 1/2 way through a fishless cycle in my 75 gallon tank. Ive read post where some people have used some form of "bacteria in a bottle" to their tanks to help speed this process up, and for the most part it doesnt seem to work very well.

Ive been thinking though that there might be a way to speed up this process and maybe you folks out there can tell me what you think about it.

The typical fishless cycling process is to add ammonia to the tank, to establish an ammonia eating bacteria colony. This colony will then begin producing Nitrite which is food for the second, Nitrite eating colony of bacteria. When the second colony grows it will eat the Nitrite and produce Nitrate.

My thought was that is there a way to add Nitrites directly to the tank from the start? You know.... Nitrite in a bottle? This way I could begin growing Nitrite eaters at the same time Im growing Ammonia eaters instead of waiting for the Ammonia eaters to produce the Nitrite.

So the process would be like this:

1) Add 5ppm ammonia, and X ppm Nitrite to the water.

2) Keep adding enough ammonia and nitrite to maintain the levels until you see Nitrates. (The amount of NO2 you need to add to get Xppm should decrease as the 1st bacteria colony establishes itself)

3) Once you see X ppm Nitrates, stop adding the Nitrite completely, and only add ammonia.

4) If you can add 5ppm Ammonia and after 24 hours your ammo, and Nitrites are at 0... youre cycled... otherwise go back to step 2

This should take 1/2 the total cycle time as it would just adding ammonia since youre growing both sets in parallel.

[famman]

The nitrite eating bacteria grow more slowly, take longer to establish in a tank, and are less robust than the ammonia eaters. If you re-innoculate daily from a good tank, this will continually reintroduce the nitrite eaters from a robust colony. Exposure to ~ 5ppm of ammonia over extended periods of time are probably toxic to the nitrite eating bacteria. It is only when the ammonia levels drop rapidly due to the presense of a robust colony of ammonia eaters that the nitritre eaters can begin to take hold, therefore you cannot grow the bacteria colonies in parallel.
jmo
good luck
:)

[Luca Brazzi]

So in otherwords, if I were to start off by adding Nitrite instead of ammonia, and I grew a large colony of Nitrite eaters without having any ammonia eaters, then started adding ammonia to grow the ammonia eaters (along with continuing to add Nitrite), the Nitrite eaters would die off?

At what concentration/exposure time does Ammonia become toxic enough to the Nitrite eaters to kill off an established colony?

[famman]

In short, I think the answer is yes, you'd kill off the nitrite eaters by the long term exposure to high levels of ammonia; though it would be an interesting experiment to perform.
It's JMO, and I'm not a biologist, so I'm not sure what levels/over what time span are toxic. But it does appear that 5ppm for more than 24 hours is toxic, because it isn't until this condition no longer holds true that the nitrite eaters begin to colonize.
good luck
:)

[MP]

I'd seriously doubt it.

First of all, you can grow the colonies in parallel or in reverse order. People have done it. The only problem here is certain difficulties in finding a source to buy cheap nitrites.

5ppm of ammonia is far from being able to kill the second colony. Yes, some sources mention POSSIBLE suppression of the second colony by very high doses of ammonia, but I have never seen any actual trustworthy data. I realize that we can suppress a bacterial colony by high doses of anything, but the quantitative data is what interests us here.

As for the second colony being more susceptible to different types of impact, I tend to think so too. However, it doesn't mean that this is, indeed, a fact. The second colony depends on the first one in receiving food, and this relationship may lead us into wrong conclusions in some cases.

[wetmanNY]

While I'm waiting for the quantitative data, I am often reading posts here and there, recounting a reoccurence of nitrite in a well-established system that's recently had some measurable ammonia (medication, too many new fish, whatever). Til the ammonia-metabolizing community is producing nitrite, there's no resource available for the nitrite-eaters to be getting busy with. That would account for some observed lag in itself.

[Luca Brazzi]

So then the reason the second colony only establishes after the ammo goes to 0 is because thats the time when there is enough Nitrite around for them to eat. Not because there is no more ammo.

Where would one look to find possible sources of Nitrite? Chemical supplier? Ive found Sodium Nitrite on a few chemical supplier sites... I think its molecular formual is NNa02 or something like that.

[MP]

The second colony starts developing after the first colony starts producing nitrites. Dropping ammonia levels is a sign of it being transformed into nitrites (unless you have plants that consume ammonia directly). So the second colony doesn't need to wait till ammonia comes to zero. :)

Sodium Nitrite (NaNO2) is exactly what was used by those people I mentioned.

[JSchmidt]

I can't see any reason both colonies couldn't be grown simultaneoulsy. In fact, that's what we do with heavy seedings from established tanks when fishless cycling. If you were start from scratch (i.e., no seeding) adding nitrite right from the start would be a great idea, I think, and could conceivably cut cycling time in half. It certainly wouldn't hurt to try and report back here.

Sorry I can't help much with a source of nitrite, though...

Jim

[famman]

Hmmmmmm......:rolleyes:

Very interesting. I do note that the nitrite eating bacteria generally do take twice as long to establish than the ammonia eating colony.

It would be an interesting test, take an established hob filter and isolate it. Dose with ammonia to 5ppm and continue to add every few hours for 24 hours or more to maintain the 5ppm level.
Change water and test to see if the filter is still cycled.

:)

[Luca Brazzi]

Ive got another test....

I just ordered some Sodium Nitrite.

When I get it Ill setup a scenario (bucket of water with media in it) with some Virgin media to see if it can produce Nitrates while the ammonia level is at 5ppm. If I can produce Nitrates from Virgin media with an ammonia concentration of 5ppm...

Done deal.

[RTR]

Agree w/MP - unless he's quoting me - an early SW tank of mine was fishless cycled, nitites first, then ammonia. There is no obvious biological reason why it should not work either way, despite the years of anecdotal comments to the contrary - whether the nitrite-oxidizers are less hardy, slower growing, sensitive to high levels of ammonia, what ever. In a monitored process, you should be able to control both metabolite levels.

My personal thought is that frequently the original inoculation of bacteria is likely to be insufficient, and the nitrite-eaters have starved and died off before the ammonia eaters are in full production.

[MP]

So, you've done it too, Robert? Did you use NaNO2?

[Luca Brazzi]

RTR brought up a point that has been bugging me throughout my fishless cycle. When I started I added a few handfuls of gravel from an established tank. This gravel SHOULD contain both bacteria colonies however since I was not producing Nitrites in significant amounts till about 2 weeks after I started... there was little to no food around for the nitrite eaters.... So wouldnt they die off?

[RTR]

None of us know how long these beasts can go without an energy source. A week is safe, 10 days has been reported, beyond that nobody has enough info to say - tank parameters could influence the outcome as well, but we just don't know. All we know is that for these bacteria they are pretty slow-growing, they are not spore-formers, and cannot metabolize unless attached. With large inocula, there is rarely any issue. The problem is that large inocula may not be easy to get for newcomers - thus the suggestion to re-inoculate once nitrites start climbing if there has been much (undefined "much') lag.

I don't remember which cation the salt was, K+, Na+, or other. This was many many years ago. It was probably based on solubility of the salts. Any highly soluble nitrite should do the same job. I do remember it was slow - the protcol was for very slow increases, and I followed it closely. First weeks were increasing nitrites, then ammonium was added, and finally nitrite dosing tapered down as ammonia was maintained. There were no hitches, no problems. But I would not have done it if I had not been in the lab. Chris' technique is sooo much easier.

[MP]

Thank you, Robert!

[Luca Brazzi]

So are you saying (RTR) that adding the Nitrites and Ammonia at the same time will tend to complicate things over Chris' method?

[RTR]

The decades-old protocol I followed certainly did. Today, with our ease of testing and resetting desired levels on materials such as ammonia and nitrite, no, probably not. A bit more complex yes, but not at all unreasonable.

You might do well to plot the curves out (concentration vs. time) for both or all three nitrogen forms, so that you get a feel for how much nitrite you need to add yourself versus hom much will be generated from ammonia - it might save you a few water changes.

I would track the pH and if needed the KH. I don't know your alkalinity, but with two processes going at max growth rates, I'd monitor and add baking soda if required.

Then when you are done, you can do a nice article ---hint, hint, hint. :p

[Luca Brazzi]

Ok... Its almost 2 months now... I defintely have Ammo, and Nitrite eaters, however, I think the Ammo eaters far exceed the Nitrite eaters. This would account for the fact that I always have so much Nitrite. Yesterday, I did 3, 100% water changes within a couple of hours of each other. I was finally able to get my Nitrites down to .2ppm. The Nitrates are down to around 20ppm. After the 3rd change, I added a little ammo to the tank. Within a few hours, the Nitrite was back up to 2ppm. Those Ammo eaters are producing way more Nitrite than the Nitrite eaters can consume.

So... what I plan to do is to stop adding ammo for awhile to starve the Ammo eating boogers a little. Maybe I can reach a balance somewhere.

[wetmanNY]

Consider the possibility, mentioned before in this thread, that the NH3 you are adding is simply toxic to the NO2-metabolizers. NO2 is produced (you are testing for it), but the NH3 has eliminated the NO2 eaters.

[Luca Brazzi]

Actually I think that may be the case because I recently realized that I made a mistake in my fishless cycling. I think that I was supposed to cut back on the ammo once the ammo eaters first consumed my 5ppm. Now that I reread the article, I was supposed to cut back by half the amount that it took to get 5ppm in the first place. I didnt do that.... What I did was I kept adding 5ppm ammo every day... by the end of the day the 5ppm was back to 0 but I should have cut back to 2.5ppm additions. I think that by doing this I created way more ammo eaters than I needed, and at the same time suppressed the growth of Nitrite eaters.

So I will drastically cut back on the ammo now.

I know I have at least some Nitrite eaters because my Nitrates were way over 100ppm before the water changes. But there arent enough to consume all the Nitrite the ammo eaters are generating.

[JSchmidt]

I dunno... I never cut back the ammonia to half from my 5 ppm dosing level, and I don't see any suppression of nitrite-eaters. I don't think ammonia levels of 5 ppm are enough to inhibit growth of those bacteria. Never have been for me, anyway...

Jim

[RTR]

I tend to agree with Jim - I'm not certain what the reasoning was on Chris' cut-back of the ammonia titer after nitrites are running. Sometime I'll have to ask him about it.

But I also never adopted the revised 5ppm titer anyway. The original 3ppm did the job for the tests I ran for myself. I don't overcrowd and rarely overfeed.

The higher NH3/NH4+ levels can cause problems for folks w/low KH water. Alkalinity burn out with massive nitrification has pH crashed a number of tanks.

[Luca Brazzi]

Question...

Is the amount of NItrite that the ammo eaters produce directly proportional to the amount of ammonia they have to consume? In otherwords if I reduce the ammo, should the amount of Nitrite produced also be reduced?

And

How long can the ammo eaters live with 0ppm ammo?

[RTR]

1 NH3 -> 1 NO2 -> 1 NO3 Just one nitrogen in each of those, so yup, directly proportional, but the working concentrations are quite different. As nitrates are normally the endpoint, they build up to higher levels.

Several days, but why? Once growing and metabolizing well, it is not the best to starve them any more than necessary.

[Luca Brazzi]

Im trying something different now...

I did another water change today to dilute the Nitrite concentration. The ammo I added yesterday is gone and Im at 0 ppm ammo, and about .5ppm Nitrite.

I added about 45+ small fish (3 bucks worth). Guppies, Rosy Reds. They will be my Ammo generators from now on.

So far only 4 have died. I think the guy at the LFS had a point when he said that fishless cycling wont grow the variety of bacteria that a fishy cycle would. I need fish poop to do that.

I think that all I need to do now is to monitor the Nitrite level, and maybe change the water in the sump every couple of days till the cycle completes.

I plan to get very young Africans so as they grow, they can munch on the surviving guppies every now and then till they are gone.

[RTR]

Since the ammonia we read in tanks and which is toxic for fish comes largely from the fish's gills, I think we can safely say that the guy in the LFS does not know enough about fish tank biology to come in out of the rain. Take his words for what they are worth, self-serving mythology. It worked, he made a sale, and can look forward to more if his feeders introduced disease to the tank.

Good Luck.

[Luca Brazzi]

I hear ya. I know Im taking a chance with possibly introducing disease. He may be wrong however, I dont think this guy is looking to intentionally screw me up so he can sell me more fish since he knows for a fact that Im not buying my Africans from him.

[RTR]

Well, he obviously knows nothing about fish's ammonia metabolism, so is talking through his, er, hat to start with, so I don't know what else he is trying to do. Nor does he appear to understand nitrification of disolved material is the water - fish poop is not dissolved waste. So my take is that he is a salesman, period. Fine, that is what he is there to do, but when he distorts fact to do so, my opinion of him and the store in which he works are about as low as they can get. Neither he nor the store would get my business.

[Luca Brazzi]

Again... I hear ya.

Although... even if he is slightly misleading me (or maybe he's just dumb), he is still only participating in what we all know to be the "American Way" :D This country was built on misleading.

Now you... RTR... are the informed consumer... Fortunately, for our economy, you are a rarity :D

You have got me thinking though... Instead of placing the Africans in with these guys/gals, I think I may nuke survivors in the tank after it cycles... Wait a while, then add the Africans.

[RTR]

I would - but it means you would have to revert to ammonia feeding to support the nitrification bacteria during the tank QT period.

Part of my extreme caution on such is that the Cichlids are such long-lived fish - it seems such a waste to risk fish that should live to their teens. I know it is unreasonable of me, but I'll do things with short-lived fish I would not consider with Cichlids or puffers or loaches or most catfish.

[Luca Brazzi]

I guess Ive just gotten a little frustrated, and decided to try something different. There must be some reason why I cant seem to fully establish Nitrite eaters. My Alk is fine, my pH is fine, my Temp is fine, the Ammo eaters are great...


Maybe its my DIY Biotower? Ive got 2 gallons of Bioballs for biomedia and when the pump is on (its on all the time), the water level in the sump is about 1" above the bottom of the balls. When I simulate a power outtage, the water level in the sump rises to about 3/4 full. I havent added more gravel from an established tank since my Nitrites started to rise (I did add some in the very beginning), but I shouldnt have to since from the amount of Nitrate in the water, I have Nitrite eaters just not in large enough quantities.

At what rate do the Nitrite eaters reproduce?

[JSchmidt]

Luca, I think thru your actions you have done away with the greatest advantages of fishless cycling: not exposing any fish to ammonia/nitrite and not exposing your tank to disease-ridden feeders. Now you've got a bunch of fish that you don't really want (at least it sounds that way) that may or may not be eaten by the africans (not all of whom SHOULD be given feeders) and your tank still isn't cycled. You've had access to lots of very informed people who have been helping you with the fishless cycle, and you bailed on that because of what an LFS salesperson told you?

This isn't meant to be a flame, but I'm puzzled as why anyone would bail at this point...

:confused:

Jim

[Glenstorm]

It was helpful to read about Lucca's experience here since I am in the same process. . .

I have some questions though about this cycle. To start is the time it takes to cycle dependent on the size of the tank? I am assuming the answer is yes, but can someone confirm that.

Secondly, what is a reasonable time frame for a 75G to cycle? I am on the second day and the ammonia hasn't dropped at all. Just curious what the normal time frame should be. I am empathizing with Lucca and getting impatient for some indication of progress.

thanks,
Dan

[RTR]

The length of the cycle is related to the size of the bacterial colonies (two different types are required) used to start. A small inoculation requires a long time to develop. Problems during the development period with pH/KH problems can extend the time markedly.

For me, times have varied from little more than ammonia challenges to confirm clearance of ammonia when mature filters were moved to new tanks(see note 1 below), up to 2-4 weeks with new but inoculated filters on new tanks. I have seen some folks on these boards require months - usually because there were problems along the way(see note 2 below).

Note 1: Having multiple tanks with no disease issues, it is easy for me to run-in filters on existing tanks. Adding a filter to a mature tank will allow it to become inoculated with the required bacteria. Even if that filter develops colonies too small to serve as mature filters on new tanks, they will be well started. If run on my largest tanks of messy fish, they are likely to be mature when moved to smaller tanks. This is cheating in a sense, as fishless cycling was intended for folks without existing tanks - but it certainly helps the rest of us as well.

Note 2: The commonest problem is pH crashing from low KH water. Nitrification is an acid-generating process, it uses up the natural buffer in the water. If the water is poorly buffered to start, and high titers of ammonia are used, then if the pH and KH are not monitored the tank may crash. If the pH crashes the nitrification bacteria will be harmed or killed.

[Luca Brazzi]

JSchmidt... not to flame but...

I didnt change what I was doing because of what a salesperson told me. Im not NEARLY that naive. Ive been trying to cycle this tank for over 2 months. I am grateful for the assistance Ive received from folks around here, however, something is missing.

Not to say that there havent been plenty of folks who have successfully fishless cycled their tanks but... Plain and simple...noone has been able to explain the issues Ive encountered. My water parameters were fine pH,Alk, etc. I did everything by the book (except cutting back on the ammo which I found out wasn't necessary anyway). Yet still... high Nitrite.

So... I decided to try something new.

The fish in my tank are not being exposed to extreme levels of toxins. My ammo level is at .25ppm (although I dont know why this is since I had a colony capable of devouring 5ppm/day) , and Nitrites are at 1ppm and seem to be moving lower.


As far as disease goes... A) I could get a disease from the several Africans I am planning to buy anyway. There are no guarantees. B) There is no guarantee that these fish will contaminate my tank. C) The reason I decided to start a tank in the firstplace was to have another view of nature. Diseases are a part of nature. You see... most people view Ich as something to get rid of because it screws up their view of what their fish are supposed to look like. However, there is beauty in ALL life even the relationship between the fish, and the so called parasite. So... Im not afraid of it. If I get it... Ill kill it... beauty and all.

As far as your statement that I now have a bunch of fish that I dont want. I did say that I might nuke the whole lot of em and wait a week before adding the Africans but... Ive grown somewhat attached to some of these boogers. Yeah... they arent the prettiest things in the world but... For example... this morning when I checked out the tank, I noticed that there was a teeny weeny little wiggler running around in there that wasnt there before (or at least I never saw it before). Little Jepetto... Maybe Ill build a small tank for them and move them there.

I guess Im just not one of those I-want-to-impress-my-friends-because-I-have-a-perfect-specimen-of-X-in-captivity types (with emphasis on the in-captivity part).

As far as Im concerned. Unless you plan to throw 20 fish in your tank at once. Fishless cycling is a waste of energy. Just get a few fish, and go for it.

Can you tell the difference between a fish that has been used to fishy cycle a tank and a fish that has been placed in an already cycled tank? No.

[Luca Brazzi]

Glenstorm...

Whats your filtration setup?

Are you seeing Nitrates yet?

I dont think that the size of the tank matters that much in reducing the amount of time the fishless cycle takes. What matters more is how much bacteria you start off with. The more you have the better. My problem is that my Nitrite eaters dont seem to be growing fast enough to catch up to the ammo eaters. Before I switched to fishy, my Nitrite was off the chart. Its getting lower now (I think due to the lower ammo and hence lower Nitrite production from the ammo eaters)

What Im trying to see by this experiement is this: Do I have enough Ammo and Nitrite eaters to support the bioload I plan to have when I put the 15-20 Africans in there? If so, then Im done once the Nitrite drops to 0. To heck with the 5ppm stuff because if thats not what my fish will generate... what's the point? Whats the point in growing bacteria colonies capable of supporting a far larger bioload than I plan to have? If what I currently have can support these 40 fish at 0 ppm ammo/nitrite... thats all I need since the Africans will be just as small as these guys and there will only be 15-20 of them.

As for the potential of catching some disease/parasite goes... thats another story :)

[Glenstorm]

Lucca,

I have an AC500 that I seeded with used floss from a whisper3. I am also using that whisper3. The reason the floss moved to AC500 is long unimportant story. . . ;)

You asked if I have seen nitrAtes, but i thought I am looking for nitrItes. Anyhow I haven't seen any of either. . .


It seems that we are going to have twin tanks, since I am also going to be stocking with Africans. Which lake(malawi, tang, victoria) are you planning on using?

[Luca Brazzi]

I havent decided on which Africans yet. From talking to different folks Ive come across 2 basic types when it comes to these fish 1) The Purist. This is the person who will only stock with either Haps, Mbuna or Tangs.... no mixing. and 2) The person with a little of everything in there. I think Im going to be a type 2. Keeping the pH around 8, the Alk high, and feeding a variety of foods... vegetable and high protein you should be able to keep them all healthy.

I asked about the Nitrates because when I was doing the fishless cycle, I started getting Nitrates long before my ammo went to 0 (go figure). By the time my Ammo finally went to 0, I had over 150ppm Nitrates. Since then my Nitrites have been off the scale. Even after several 100% water changes, the Nitrites would quickly creep back up. I would have to dilute the sample several times to get a reading somewhere on the Nitrite scale. Since I stopped the fishless and added the diseased feeders :D, my Nitrites have been dropping steadily... they are currently somewhere between .2 and .5 ppm. As RTR mentioned... when I do remove the feeders (by whatever means) I will be better off QTing the tank for a week before adding the Africans so if there are any parasites...

During that time I will have to add a little ammo daily to keep the tank cycled. Yeah... if I was planning to add several large fish in there Id probably need a bacteria colony large enough to devour 5ppm ammo/day. But as it turns out, Ill be replacing the 40 guppies (oops maybe its only 34 now :D) with 15 - 20 Africans... if that

[Luca Brazzi]

I have a question...

As some of you know... This is my first tank and I built my entire system from scratch (75 gallon acrylic Tank/Stand/Canopy/Sump/BioTower). My question is this: Currently I have 2 gallons of Bio-Balls in my biotower. According to the documentation for the Bio-Balls each gallon is capable of supporting 45-60 gallons of marine life. Could it be that I dont have enough surface area for bacteria? Maybe due to how the water flows over the balls or not having enough balls :D to house the Nitrite eaters? Maybe my Nitrite eaters have been mainly growing on the rocks/substrate that I placed in the tank weeks after I started cycling instead of on the balls?