bicarbonate and the fishless cycle

happychem · May 19, 2004

The nitrification process takes up bicarbonate, right?

This has me thinking , since bicarbonate is taken up, would perhaps a tsp. or so of baking soda every now and then aid a fishless cycle? At least in cases of low KH to prevent HCO3- limitation?

Just a thought.

silentskream · May 19, 2004

thats a good point. it seems like it would make sence.. but i'm scared to try it in my tank.

baking soda is sodium bicarbonate isnt it? in that case, one would need to be careful, because the bicarbonate gets used, but what happens to the sodium? i dont know what the effects of sodium would be on a tank.. but like i said i'm scared to try it out on my big tank, for fear that it could cause problems. i might be getting a few small 5 - 10 gallon tanks soon, in which case they might be a more appropriate size for testing it.

daveedka · May 19, 2004

Some info for Morgunda and happy Chem to play with, don't know if it will help or not. My fishless cycle ran very slowly, my KH is at 2-3 out of the tap, and the original filling of the tank was 50% distilled water so nothing in the water hardly. When I saw a drastic drop in PH at the end Of week 1 I started adding Baking soda at 1 tsp to 30 gallons. This raised my tap PH from 7.6 to 7.8, but raised my KH to somewhere between 4-5. My cycle seemed to speed up overnight, but this cold have just been the timing of things and finished very quickly and thouroughly. Don't know if any of this will help without an actual study, but I will be starting several more tanks in the next few months so I culd run some numbers if someone wants me too. I have a q-tank going through week 2 of a fishless with absolutely nothing but tap water ammonia and a filter in the tank (heater will be here Friday) could play with it as I have no need for it right now.

I should also add that When the PH bottomed out, my ammonia was still at 5PPM, and my KH was no longer existent. I added Baking soda to the tank to bring the KH to 4, and that brought my PH from 6.6 back up to 7.6

baking soda is sodium bicarbonate isnt it? in that case, one would need to be careful, because the bicarbonate gets used, but what happens to the sodium?

I'm chemically challenged to say the least, but a fairly quick learner. could someone expound on the above quote Please?
I am using Baking Soda in my change water and it keeps my KH steady so I am not using crushed coral or the like in the tank. Should I be doing things differently? The system I have holds the KH between 4-5 and has shown no problems at all. But I don't want to create any. I have only had the tank running this way for 2 months, and only a month with fish in it. weekly water change at 30%, and one 90% (three 30% in two days).

silentskream · May 19, 2004

My cycle seemed to speed up overnight, but this cold have just been the timing of things and finished very quickly and thouroughly

that makes me think that perhaps it's worth a shot.

i'm still curious as to what happens to the sodium from the baking soda? i dont know what would "eat" sodium and unless it bonded with cloride, i cant imagine it would be useful at all, that scares me into thinking it could be dangerous.

i'm not a chemistry person, i'm a biology person, and a new one at that. but i am interested in this idea. like i said, i'll look into it as soon as i can get a small testing tank.

happychem · May 19, 2004

With the amounts that you'd be adding you would not increase Na that much.

Off the top of my head, I would think that you'd be increasing Na by a few ppm. Those who add salt (NaCl) to their water therapeutically (or regularly

) would be adding much more Na.

Besides, at the end of a fishless you gotta do a great big water change to get rid of NO3 anyway, most of the Na added would be removed here.

daveedka · May 19, 2004

Besides, at the end of a fishless you gotta do a great big water change to get rid of NO3 anyway, most of the Na added would be removed here.

I agree with this, but what about in my case where I have a continued use scenario. Just curious.

happychem · May 19, 2004

There was an article at 'the krib' about ferts and water changes. I've long since forgotten the link, sorry. The gist of it was what happens when you add, say nitrate to bring the conc. up to x, then change half the water and repeat the same doseage. The phenomenon under investigation was whether you would end up building up the nutrient to, well, ultimately infinite, right.

Anyway, the person who wrote the article had some talent for math and basically showed that, ignoring uptake (I think) the concentrations of the nutrient would reach a steady state with respect to the % water change and addition. In other words, after a certain number of water changes (the number depending on the % changed) the concentration of the nutrient would be stable.

I think that this will be a similar case, after a few water changes, your Na concs. will level off.

More experienced fish keepers should confirm this, but I've never heard of Na causing a problem with fish. Sec, I wanna check something...

silentskream · May 19, 2004

well if you're fairly sure it will be a success, i'd be happy to try it out in my 55gallon which is on day 11 of cycling.

i just gotta go get some baking soda.

let me know if you think i should give it a shot.

silentskream · May 19, 2004

alright. well i'm going to go buy some baking soda, retest the water, and then put in 2 tablespoons of bakingsoda.

tomorrow morning i'm going to test it again. i usually test it at about 9 30 or 10am, so be expecting the results then.

silentskream · May 19, 2004

as of 9pm (about 5 minutes ago):

ammonia: just under 5ppm
nitrite: way off the charts (test kit goes up to 10ppm)
nitrate: 80 ppm

i put just under 2 spoonfulls of baking soda in the tank, its hard to measure that stuff when it comes out of the box. but i think i got it.

so yeah.. give me 12 or 13 hours and we'll see what happened.


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