Thanks for clearing that up for me, I turned my heat down a few degrees. I was a bit sceptical when I kept hearing that higher temps (85F+) = higher growth. Glad to hear a solid number for optimal growth.
confused- where the heck am I in this cycle?
- Thread starter injunear
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Yep, I remember reading that higher temp gives more growth several times in various forums.....
Will turn mine down too........
This is a common misunderstanding. Many bacteria species do much better at higher temperatures. This is especially true of most pathogenic/symbiotic species for humans. Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Bacillus & Escherichia (the E. in E. coli). You have probably all heard of these and surprise they have an optimal growth temperature of around 37C (98.6F).
The optimal growth temp is normally associated with the environment that the bacteria normally resides in.
Ok, so I backed down on my temperature to 82 F.
Perhaps I'm getting a bit impatient but frankly the rate at which the ammonia is being consumed concerns me.
I barely see any change in ammonia level following about 36 hours when I last spiked it to about 4ppm........One would think that after 4 weeks, 2 days that I'd see at least 1~2ppm dissipate over 36 hours?
Perhaps I'm getting a bit impatient but frankly the rate at which the ammonia is being consumed concerns me.
I barely see any change in ammonia level following about 36 hours when I last spiked it to about 4ppm........One would think that after 4 weeks, 2 days that I'd see at least 1~2ppm dissipate over 36 hours?
That does seem to be a bit of a slow cycle. All I could add is to be sure that your kH hasn't been brought down by the nitrification so much that you had a pH crash. I have to keep an eye on my kH and add baking soda when it falls, even though out of the tap I have kH of about 9 degrees. The resulting pH crash from low kH can stall the cycle.
Your baseline pH at 8.6 seems a bit high to me, but I'm sure the bacteria could handle it.
Your baseline pH at 8.6 seems a bit high to me, but I'm sure the bacteria could handle it.
If he's had his temp at 90F all this time it is not surprising that you are seeing very little ammonia conversion.
Bacteria grow by logarithmic growth. Which means it starts off slow and then goes very fast ({In 12 generations}1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048). The nitrogen metabolizing bacteria have a 20 hour generation time. This means that it takes 21 generations to reach the first million bacteria starting from 1 bacterium. So under optimal conditions it will take 17.5 days to reach the first million. Say you slow down each generation by 25% it now takes 21.88 days to reach the same level.
What does this all mean... well if in your tank under optimal conditions the "cycle" would have taken 4 weeks to complete, at 90F it will take as much as 35 days to complete... a full extra week. If it would have taken 6 weeks to complete it may take closer to 8 weeks.
Bacteria grow by logarithmic growth. Which means it starts off slow and then goes very fast ({In 12 generations}1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048). The nitrogen metabolizing bacteria have a 20 hour generation time. This means that it takes 21 generations to reach the first million bacteria starting from 1 bacterium. So under optimal conditions it will take 17.5 days to reach the first million. Say you slow down each generation by 25% it now takes 21.88 days to reach the same level.
What does this all mean... well if in your tank under optimal conditions the "cycle" would have taken 4 weeks to complete, at 90F it will take as much as 35 days to complete... a full extra week. If it would have taken 6 weeks to complete it may take closer to 8 weeks.
Now a little good news. Keep testing your tank and see how many days it tanks to reduce the ammonia by 50%. Then re-add the ammonia back up. Then next time you will need to add ammonia will be 1/1000 of the time it took the previous time. So basically once you see the ammonia being broken down... you are pretty much onto the nitrite portion of the cycling.
Well, we'll see. I certainly hope you're right else there's something wrong here.
What I decided to do is test everyday, and save the result in a small glass jar so that I can compare the color change from day to day.
Frankly, it's too difficult to see small changes in color otherwise. You would think that the manufacture's would have designed the color cards to be more similar to what you're seeing in the vials.....
The vials contents are not opaque as the color cards are (color on white opaque background) but are translucent since you're looking into colored water.
The cards colors should have printed on clear plastic instead of white.......JMO
What I decided to do is test everyday, and save the result in a small glass jar so that I can compare the color change from day to day.
Frankly, it's too difficult to see small changes in color otherwise. You would think that the manufacture's would have designed the color cards to be more similar to what you're seeing in the vials.....
The vials contents are not opaque as the color cards are (color on white opaque background) but are translucent since you're looking into colored water.
The cards colors should have printed on clear plastic instead of white.......JMO
Well, I had to add another Bio-Spira packet to get things going again as it was clear to me that the cycle had stalled for whatever reason.
BTW, in the above quote it says the bacteria grows logarithmically (if true) and so it should multiply 1, 10, 100, 1000, etc. and not binarily 1,2,4,8, 16, or by factors of 2.............
I don't know what stalled the cycle but I suppose that it could have been high temperature as I had it set to as high as 95~100 degrees F.
I can tell things are going again as my ammonia has decreased by 1ppm over the last couple of days and it appears that my nitrAtes have syrocket to 80+. My nitrItes have been out of range of the test kit for a while now.....
As of yesterday, Sat 4/12 it's been 5 weeks, sigh......
Logarithms can have different bases i.e. the number that is multiplied by the result over and over again. The one you describe is a log with a base of 10. Bacteria grow to the log of the base of 2. For example Log(base 10)(2) = 100 Log(base 10)(3) = 1000 while Log (base 2)(2) = 4 and Log(base2)(3)= 8
Glad to here that you have nitrites and nitrates. That means that you are well on you way to being completed. I would guess it will be only a week or two more.
