bicarbonate and the fishless cycle

Originally posted by daveedka
Also does someone know the actual make-up ratio of baking soda. i.e. how much sodium is in a teaspoon of baking soda.
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Baking soda (or is it powder, I always get the two confused):
NaHCO3

In water it will fully dissociate to:
Na+ (sodium) and HCO3- (bicarbonate)

In general, if my mind is working, for every ppm you increase KH, you should have an equal increase in Na+.
 
Ok,
I feel like I'm highjacking a little here, but If I have this all straight, each time I add Baking soda, I add an equal part of Sodium. bicarbonate is consumed over time the sodium is left.
If I increase my Kh 1 PPM I have increased my Na the same amount. So feasably I could go back over my notes from the 2 months since I set up the tank. See how many ppm's of Kh I have added in how many gallons, and that would tell me how many ppm's of sodium I have added to the tank. Did I miss anything.

BTW silentskream are you using liquid or strip tests. I have found the strip to be very difficult an unreliable.
 
brendanh, Thanks for the equation, I'll punch in my numbers and see if I have anything to worry about in the first ten years.
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heheh sometimes maybe i get carried away, i like this water chemistry stuff. but seriously, it's useful for any number of water changes
 
Daveedka,
I know it's tough to get your head around, it gives me a bit of a headache too.;)

Remeber that water change equation that brendanh went through? Basically think more along the lines of how much Na you're adding between water changes, how much you change your water and how often. I'm certain that you've reached steady state by now and likely this isn't more than 5-10ppm.

Conversely, if you're really worried about the sodium, you could use the crushed coral in a mesh bag method. Then the cation is calcium instead of sodium.
 
i've been using test strips except the dropper bottle and tube for pH

one test strip tests ammonia, and the other test is for nitrite and nitrate

i tested again just a minute ago.

my ammonia is down to about 4ppm
my nitrite/nitrate is still through the roof.

should i test pH again?
 
Back when Chris Cow was first popularizing fishless cycling, none of us in the beta test group had soft water, so we saw no issues with pH or KH. Then when the technique became popular, naturally a number of soft water folks tried it and had really hard times. Nitrification does eat KH, two milli-equivalents for each milli-equivalent of ammonia-N to nitrate-N. So soft water folks who use high titer ammonia fall out of healthy pH ranges for the bacteria.

See also Chris's last article on the topic:

http://www.tropicalfishcentre.co.uk/Fishlesscycle.htm
 
I was hoping that you'd pop up.

So, back to my original query, should soft water folks add bicarbonate when doing a fishless cycle? Should it be added to the direction for fishless as a sidenote to those with soft water?

It seems to me that other than the pH crash associated with bicarbonate consumption that there's no reason that soft water folks shouldn't see the same success with fishless as hardwater folks.
 
heheh sometimes maybe i get carried away, i like this water chemistry stuff. but seriously, it's useful for any number of water changes
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I was a bit concerned after my response that I might have sounded sarcastic. I appreciate the equation more than you know, and have every intention of using it just because I like to know how things really go. One of the things I am starting to see as well is that last week my Tank Kh stayed a touch higher than it had previously, and I haven't tested this week so I anxious to see if things stabilize and the need to add bicarbonate becomes less over time.

Conversely, if you're really worried about the sodium, you could use the crushed coral in a mesh bag method. Then the cation is calcium instead of sodium.
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I really am not worried about the sodium, As I don't believe it causes problems at low levels, However I had thought about the calcium carbonate idea as well. Things are working great without actually putting anything in my tank (change water only) and I already have a ph that is higher than I really like, soI was thinking I'd try some different methods to dissolve calcium carbonate in my change water and get the desired KH. I would like to see my KH steady at 5, but have kept it at 4 in order to keep the ph as low as I can without sacrificing stability. The tank I'm doing the most work with is the oscar tank, and although I see no problem with a ph of 7.6 it would be nice if it would magically stabilize at 7.0 and still have a good KH. I just thought of a new question, I may post a thread when I find all my thoughts and get them organized (Of all the things I've lost it's my mind I miss the most) Thanks to everyone for the great discussion.
Dave
 
Originally posted by happychem
I was hoping that you'd pop up.

So, back to my original query, should soft water folks add bicarbonate when doing a fishless cycle? Should it be added to the direction for fishless as a sidenote to those with soft water?

It seems to me that other than the pH crash associated with bicarbonate consumption that there's no reason that soft water folks shouldn't see the same success with fishless as hardwater folks.
Click to expand...

Simple answer: yes, low KH water should have bicarbonate added during fishless cycling.

Jim
 
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