If, after the water change, your nitrite concentration is 5 (which is seems to be based on your post) then to get things going again you need to change more water. Nitrite at 5 is right on the edge of inhibiting the bacteria. Get it down to 2-3 and you'll see the cycle process take off. Adding the TSS with a nitrite at 5 or higher will not help much (disclosure - I am the original inventor of what has now become TSS) but you could add it when the value is 2-3.
Fishless cycle not budging- can I add Tetra Safestart???
- Thread starter mirasmom
- Start date
No offense to anyone but just because a bunch of people say 2 + 2 = 5 doesn't make it right.
There is a fair amount of research on the toxicity of ammonia and nitrite to the nitrifers (and/or that different concentrations inhibit certain species of nitrifiers) but it is in the scientific literature and it takes a long time for the industry and hobby writers to catch-up.
Witness that most still say Nitrobacter is the nitrite oxidizer and I was the first of many who published papers in 1998 that showed this is not true. I even wrote popular articles in a few hobby magazines but the 'old ways' die hard. Note I don't say myths because the thinking that Nitrobacter was the nitrite-oxidizer was based on the best science available but with new techniques we were able to show that that was not the case.
There is a fair amount of research on the toxicity of ammonia and nitrite to the nitrifers (and/or that different concentrations inhibit certain species of nitrifiers) but it is in the scientific literature and it takes a long time for the industry and hobby writers to catch-up.
Witness that most still say Nitrobacter is the nitrite oxidizer and I was the first of many who published papers in 1998 that showed this is not true. I even wrote popular articles in a few hobby magazines but the 'old ways' die hard. Note I don't say myths because the thinking that Nitrobacter was the nitrite-oxidizer was based on the best science available but with new techniques we were able to show that that was not the case.
You can also use the time to get your decor, especially plants, JUST the way you want it. The plants will have time to root and get established and start doing some growing. You can rearrange rock and wood elements until it has just the look you have been dreaming of, without having to worry about stressing or disturbing inhabitants.
It doesn't have to be all boring all the time. And do back off on the testing (imho) since you are not only driving yourself crazy but using up test kit ingredients that you will have better use for later when fish are in.
It doesn't have to be all boring all the time. And do back off on the testing (imho) since you are not only driving yourself crazy but using up test kit ingredients that you will have better use for later when fish are in.
Great advice from XanAvaloni
My line is - patience is the most important thing in aquariums, and most of life. It can be expensive. Let us help you reduce the price.
My line is - patience is the most important thing in aquariums, and most of life. It can be expensive. Let us help you reduce the price.
Although familiar with effect of high NH3/low pH on actitivity of Nitrite oxidizer be it Nitrospira and/or nitrobacter but never have came across research data which claims high NO2 affecting Nitrospira/Nitrobacter.
I had no problem controlling high NH3/NO2 without any water changes and catalysts (TSS, etc, etc), be it fishless or controversial fish cycling.
Is it possible to provided such documents/links on this subject as well as different strains of Nitrosomonas affected by [NH3] posted by you previously?
cerianthus - give me a day or two and I will post some references and a summary of each. One reference you can get right now is a paper I co-authored in 2001 which is below.
The conclusion of the paper is --
"Our results suggest that the AOB found in fish culture environments, such as public aquaria, aquaculture facilities, and home aquaria, where the ambient ammonia concentration rarely exceeds 5 mg of N per liter, are different from the traditional Nitrosomonas europaea-Nitrosococcus mobilis cluster type AOB, which are prevalent in the high-ammonia concentrations typically found in environment such as wastewater and sewage treatment facilities. This, and our results with enrichments of the various strains of AOB in newly set-up aquaria, strongly suggest that start-up inocula for the establishment of nitrification in aquatic culture systems should optimally consist of Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB rather than Nitrosomonas europaea-Nitrosococcus mobilis cluster AOB."
What we were able to show was that around 5 mg/L of ambient ammonia-nitrogen there shifts in the species of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria. So as I wrote earlier there are two issues - toxicity and species shifts. I will pull together some more references and post them here.
Paul C. Burrell, Carol M. Phalen, and Timothy A. Hovanec.
Identification of Bacteria Responsible for Ammonia Oxidation in Freshwater Aquaria.
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Dec. 2001, p. 5791-5800.
here is a link http://www.drtimsaquatics.com/Library_Presentations/SciencePapers/SciencePapers.html
here is the abstract
Culture enrichments and culture-independent molecular methods were employed to identify and confirm the presence of novel ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in nitrifying freshwater aquaria. Reactors were seeded with biomass from freshwater nitrifying systems and enriched for AOB under various conditions of ammonia concentration. Surveys of cloned rRNA genes from the enrichments revealed four major strains of AOB which were phylogenetically related to the Nitrosomonas marina cluster, the Nitrosospira cluster, or the Nitrosomonas europaea-Nitrosococcus mobilis cluster of the beta subdivision of the class Proteobacteria. Ammonia concentration in the reactors determined which AOB strain dominated in an enrichment. Oligonucleotide probes and PCR primer sets specific for the four AOB strains were developed and used to confirm the presence of the AOB strains in the enrichments. Enrichments of the AOB strains were added to newly established aquaria to determine their ability to accelerate the establishment of ammonia oxidation. Enrichments containing the Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB strain were most efficient at accelerating ammonia oxidation in newly established aquaria. Furthermore, if the Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB strain was present in the original enrichment, even one with other AOB, only the Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB strain was present in aquaria after nitrification was established. Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB were 2% or less of the cells detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis in aquaria in which nitrification was well established.
The conclusion of the paper is --
"Our results suggest that the AOB found in fish culture environments, such as public aquaria, aquaculture facilities, and home aquaria, where the ambient ammonia concentration rarely exceeds 5 mg of N per liter, are different from the traditional Nitrosomonas europaea-Nitrosococcus mobilis cluster type AOB, which are prevalent in the high-ammonia concentrations typically found in environment such as wastewater and sewage treatment facilities. This, and our results with enrichments of the various strains of AOB in newly set-up aquaria, strongly suggest that start-up inocula for the establishment of nitrification in aquatic culture systems should optimally consist of Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB rather than Nitrosomonas europaea-Nitrosococcus mobilis cluster AOB."
What we were able to show was that around 5 mg/L of ambient ammonia-nitrogen there shifts in the species of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria. So as I wrote earlier there are two issues - toxicity and species shifts. I will pull together some more references and post them here.
Paul C. Burrell, Carol M. Phalen, and Timothy A. Hovanec.
Identification of Bacteria Responsible for Ammonia Oxidation in Freshwater Aquaria.
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Dec. 2001, p. 5791-5800.
here is a link http://www.drtimsaquatics.com/Library_Presentations/SciencePapers/SciencePapers.html
here is the abstract
Culture enrichments and culture-independent molecular methods were employed to identify and confirm the presence of novel ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in nitrifying freshwater aquaria. Reactors were seeded with biomass from freshwater nitrifying systems and enriched for AOB under various conditions of ammonia concentration. Surveys of cloned rRNA genes from the enrichments revealed four major strains of AOB which were phylogenetically related to the Nitrosomonas marina cluster, the Nitrosospira cluster, or the Nitrosomonas europaea-Nitrosococcus mobilis cluster of the beta subdivision of the class Proteobacteria. Ammonia concentration in the reactors determined which AOB strain dominated in an enrichment. Oligonucleotide probes and PCR primer sets specific for the four AOB strains were developed and used to confirm the presence of the AOB strains in the enrichments. Enrichments of the AOB strains were added to newly established aquaria to determine their ability to accelerate the establishment of ammonia oxidation. Enrichments containing the Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB strain were most efficient at accelerating ammonia oxidation in newly established aquaria. Furthermore, if the Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB strain was present in the original enrichment, even one with other AOB, only the Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB strain was present in aquaria after nitrification was established. Nitrosomonas marina-like AOB were 2% or less of the cells detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis in aquaria in which nitrification was well established.
What I am wondering about TSS if I may change the subject, is that I did go ahead and add it, and the next day my nitrites were gone. It didn't change my ammonia and raised my nitrAtes a little to about 5, but the nitrites are gone now. What does that mean???
I beleive it means that the colonies of bacteria are building at different rates. Perhaps the colony added by the TSS was stronger in removing your nitrites first, or that concentration was lower so it was faster to dissapear. Whatever the answer is you should see things starting to improve now.
