Stability and bacteria bloom

[johnwduncan]

Should I cease using Stability when there is a bacteria bloom going on? Also, I had some evaporation so I put out a pitcher of water over night and forgot to add Prime and added that quart of water the next day to my tank. Did I possibly kill my cycle with that water?

Update: I checked ph and ammonia. ph went up a tad and the ammonia was 1ppm two days ago and now it is at 0.50 ppm.

 

[the loach]

No, decreasing ammonia indicates the product is working and the tank is cycling. It is finished when ammonia and nitrite are at 0 and converted to nitrate. I wouldn't worry about a bacterial bloom at this point.

 

[johnwduncan]

No, decreasing ammonia indicates the product is working and the tank is cycling. It is finished when ammonia and nitrite are at 0 and converted to nitrate. I wouldn't worry about a bacterial bloom at this point.

ok because there was 0 nitrites.

 

[tarheel96]

I checked ph and ammonia. ph went up a tad and the ammonia was 1ppm two days ago and now it is at 0.50 ppm.

pH isn't significant now. During cycling it can rise and fall. Adding ammonia will increase pH.

ok because there was 0 nitrites.

NitrIte at 0 ppm? Are you sure you don't mean nitrAte? Ammonia is converted into nitrIte. 1 ppm Ammonia is converted into roughly 2.4 ppm NitrIte. So, if ammonia has decreased from 4 ppm to 0.5 - 1 ppm then you should have around 10 ppm NitrIte. Make sure you are allowing 5 minutes before matching the color on the chart to the test tube and read the instructions carefully. Also, make sure you are testing with a liquid test kit like the API Master Test Kit. I wouldn't waste my money on test strips if that's what you're using. They are inaccurate and could be why you see 0 ppm NitrIte at this point.

Also, I had some evaporation so I put out a pitcher of water over night and forgot to add Prime and added that quart of water the next day to my tank. Did I possibly kill my cycle with that water?

Just add 1 drop of Prime into the tank if you haven't done so already. Such a small amount of water will not kill the bacteria in your filter media.

If you plan to grow the necessary bacteria using a 'fishless cycle' you need to maintain a level of 2-4 ppm Ammonia. If ammonia drops to 0 ppm and stays there long enough, then there is nothing for the bacteria to eat and they will die. Add ammonia to keep it between 2-3 ppm.

Ammonia is converted into Nitrite. As your ammonia-oxidizing bacteria colony increases in size, ammonia will be converted into NitrIte at a faster and faster rate and you will have to add ammonia (increase it to 2-4 ppm) more often ... eventually every day.

Nitrite is converted into NitrAte. As the colony of NitrIte oxidizing bacteria increases in size, Nitrite will be converted in Nitrate. Eventually, NitrIte will rise far beyond what your test kit can measure and, when the tank/filter is completely cycled, there will be 3.64 times (in ppm) NitrAte for every 1 ppm Ammonia you will have added.

If/when ammonia drops from 2-4 ppm to 0 ppm for two consecutive days, and NitrIte reads 0 ppm, enough bacteria has colonized to convert all the ammonia into nitrite and then into nitrate ... aka 'tank/filter cycled'.

*Don't change the filter media .. don't touch it. Don't change the water. Keep adding ammonia as needed to keep it between 2-3 ppm. Don't add too much because higher levels of ammonia (over 8 ppm) can retard the growth of your bacteria colony.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Ammonia doesn't raise pH. pH actually determines what percent of total ammonia in water is in the form of Ammonia NH3 vs Ammonium. To a lesser extent temperature also affects this balance. The higher the pH and or temp. The more of the total ammonia will be NH3 and vice versa. But there is another factor at work. Most dechlors contain an ammonia detoxifier. This is needed to neutralize ammonia created when chloramine is broken down into its components- ammonia and chlorine. The dechlorinator neutralizes the chlorine component and the ammonia detoxifier convert ammonia into ammonium. Yes ammonia itself is high pH. But the ammount that gets added for a fisless cycle is so small it will no produce a change in pH.

The cycle itself actually works to lower pH because nitrate produces acid which lowers pH. One of the reasons for this is that the bacteria need inorganic carbon and they can get it from carbonates. Carbonates and bicarbonates are what contribute to KH and KH is what holds pH steady. One of the things water changes do is to restore KH to the water and to remove acids. lack of water changes results in old tank syndrome which will ultimately crash pH.

It is absolutely not true that no ammonia in a tank kills the bacteria. What it will do is cause them to go dormant. They can last a very long time this way. There is a ton of science on this subject.

Finally, most people do not know what actually kills a cycle. It is too much nitrite And too much nitrite comes from adding too much ammonia. Most nitrite test kits do not go high enough to read the actual level of nitrite that often accumulates during a cycle.

The other thing that kills a cycle is dosing more ammonia than is needed and then dosing it too many times. The only tanks that should get more than 2-3 ppm of ammonia are higher pH tanks like those used by rift lake cichlid keepers. Because of their high pH, ammonia is deadly in such tanks and it is essential one be very certain there are enough bacteria to prevent ammonia buildup before adding fish.

Finally, 8 ppm of ammonia has already stalled a cycle. One should never ever have more than about 3 ppm in a fishless cycle if you are doing it correctly. You will be harming your cycle if the ammonia on a total ion test kit gets over about 5.5 ppm. For nitrite this lever would be just on the 15.5 ppm range, well above the highest number on most nitrite test kits. You also should not need more than 5 -6 ammonia additions to complete a fishless cycle. One of these is a small "snack" dose and the last dose or two is to insure and confirm the tank is fully cycled.

If one is able to seed some bacteria from an established tank or adds the bacteria in Dr. Tim's One and Only or Tetra's Safe Start, you should see almost no nitrite. There are both ammonia and nitrite oxidizers in the bottle and in the proper proportions such that any ammonia those bacteria can convert to nitrite, the nitrite oxidizers can immediately convert to nitrate. In a normal fishless cycle without seeding there are almost no nitrite bacteria to start and those few cannot handle the amount of nitrite being created. So in one case you see no or minimal nitrite and in the other case you see a full load of nitrite building up.

if one is able to seed the proper bacteria when starting a fishless cycle and/or if one uses live plants, these help to jump start a cycle. Plants use ammonium/NH4 faster than the bacteria can consume ammonia/NH3. When plants consume ammonium, there is no nitrite being created from this. In addition. live aquatic plants host nitrifying bacteria on their leaves and stems. They will also transport O down and out of their roots in anaerobic regions of the substrate. This turns these aerobic which in turn fosters the growth of the nitrifyers. So the use of live plants also acts to seed some amount of bacteria.

The article here for fishless cycling is outdated. I have repeatedly offered to allow them to use the one I wrote for another site similar to this one but which is more active. I was compelled to offer to write it for that site because of the number of posts i was reading about stalled cycles. What I created for them was a fail-safe method of fishless cycling. I have not been an active participant on that site for many years. However, the article I wrote was posted in July 2013 and remains unchanged there to this day because it works.

Because I will not send folks to a competing site, I will not post a link to the article on that forum, However, anybody who would like to see it can shoot me a site PM here and I will send you the link. My goal is not to send members to another site but to help those who need it with fishless cycling. If i cannot do this here, then I will send folks who ask via PM there.