Tank Cycling Reality Check

Ok, unless my eyes are fooling me I finally have a tiny change in color on my nitrite test. It's less bright blue than the last test I did, so that should mean there is a bit of nitrite in the water. Hopefully tomorrow I see a bit more and then we're finally on our way.

I appreciate all the advice in here. Obviously, I am going to get some bio-spira for before I put the fish in, since there is a week and a day till then and I doubt I will be able to grow a large enough colony to deal with the fish by then, but at least I am seeing something. Now the wife and I just have to figure out what kinda fish we're gonna get. Hmmmm.
 
Forgot to update yesterday...

Nitrite is now at .25 PPM and the ammonia was down to 2ppm so I added a few more drops. Hot-diggity it's finally on its way.
 
You know, I rerad this thread with interest.. What I saw was several confusing individuals trying to help a confused individual. For the record. My education is in water chemistry and one particular note in sewage treatment. I think that is what we are talking about right?

For next time here is what I would reccommend..

If you are going to use filter squeezings.. you might as well ask if you can set your own filter up on your friends tank for 2 weeks prior to putting it onto a tank of your own (provided it is portable.. unlike UG filters).. It should be fully established by then.. No need to worry about cycling so much then right?

If you are going to use water changes to control ammonia, you are going to defeat the purpose of fishless cycling. Ammonia is not going to inhibit the growth of bacteria -- nitrobacter or nitrosomonas.. pH has to seriously crash to affect the bacteria.. so if you have a pH of 8 or higher after a 2 day settling, it is likely you will have a KH of at least 100 to 120 ppm give or take.. As ammonia is BASIC just as carbonates are (not co2 which lowers your pH) is will not affect your KH. BUT -- As ammonia breaks down AND if you have very soft treated water, the brakdown WILL create acidic conditions. This is where you get pH crash.. and that usually takes some time to occur as much nitrate (NO3 ) usually has to be present. Additionally to this part.. Find out from your city if they use chloramines to treat your water... Chloramines are chlorinated ammonia. You might be removing ammonia only to be putting some back in.

Testing.. Using Amquel and similar products in your tank can fool some ammonia and other test kits into incorrect results.. Dont use ammonia controolling products when you are trying to cycle a tank fishless you are only wasting your product.

Here are the real reccommendations.. Ammonia from a bottle is Ammonium hydroxide. It will break down releasing ammonia gas (NH3) which will dissapate over time naturally. No need to do water changes as it will be counter productive anyway. Add equal ammounts of your ammonia for 3 days and let it be.. test daily till you get lowering results then start testing for nitrite. add half to a third the ammonia to the tank once this starts to occur.. for 3 more days. You should have introduced enough ammonia to get you to a noticable nitrite cycle within a week to 14 days. You Nitrite should finish cycle in another 7 to 14 days. Thus it can take 2 to 4 weeks cycling fishless.. this is still about half the time.. (4 to 8 weeks) to do it with fish. Much of this is going to depend on ammonia start levels, ammonia reentry levels, bacterial growth rates and in some cases buffering capacity of your water.

If you can, always contact your city water department and ask for a metals content report and what antibacterial agents they are using (chlorine or chloramines for most cities). I suggest knowing you tap pH, settled water (2 days old -- if pH rises you probably have a high CO2 content out of the tap) pH and your KH, GH and total hardness before you get started with new tanks. WIth the city metal content report (or whatever your city calls it) you want to know Iron content, Manganese and magnesiium. You also might want to find out if you have a high sulphur/sulphite/sulphate content. These will make you water smell kinda eggy.. rotten eggs like. If you tap hardness is very high, you likley have some high metal content in addition or in place of high KH.. so test KH and GH.. As to test kits, I personnally would use the Master test kit that comes in the blue little suitcase.. I forget the company. ?????? and just decided I am too lazy to go to a web page to look it up.. It should have all those tests in it.. KH GH Iron Phosphate etc.. especially if you are going to have several tanks.. Otherwise.. ask you LFS to help you out with a few of those tests.

Thank you for letting me add to the confusion.. And I am missing a few things.. I will return if I can remember them..

OH one more note water temperatures of between 50° F and 90°F will have little to no effect on your bacteria.. Yes warmer temps get em to reproduce a hair -- just a hair -- faster.

The end..
 
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Points of correction:

1. The nitrification bacteria which establish in FW tanks are not, repeat not, nitrosomas and nitrobacter. This has been well known and published for multiple years now.

2. In FW takes, there are inhibitory effects from excessive levels of unoxidized metabolites, primarily on the nitrite-oxidizers. That exact mechanism is undetermined, but it has been reported too many times by too many different people (where pH crash was not a factor) to be chance.

3. On putting a new filter on a friend's tank for two weeks and considering it fully mature by then: a) This requires a friend with a healthy tank, and who is willing to do this. b) This requires that the tank involved is sufficiently underfiltered that it will develop additional nitrification capacity, and be large enough to accomodate both filters. and c) It is highly questionable that a new filter will be fully matured in two weeks on a mature tank with existing fully competent biofiltration. It may well be inoculated in that time frame, but IME it will most certainly not be able to handle a full bioload for the tank for which it is intended.

4. If you really believe that the difference in metabolism of FW tank nitrification bacteria is trivial across the range of 50-90F, I have some reservations about your bacteriology knowledge.

5. As for you suggestions, I have some questions. Have you ever done a fishless cycle? More than one? Did you read the sticky on this board and/or Chris' articles on fishless cycling?
 
RTR said:
Points of correction:

1. The nitrification bacteria which establish in FW tanks are not, repeat not, nitrosomas and nitrobacter. This has been well known and published for multiple years now.

2. In FW tanks, there are inhibitory effects from excessive levels of unoxidized metabolites, primarily on the nitrite-oxidizers. That exact mechanism is undetermined, but it has been reported too many times by too many different people (where pH crash was not a factor) to be chance.

3. On putting a new filter on a friend's tank for two weeks and considering it fully mature by then: a) This requires a friend with a healthy tank, and who is willing to do this. b) This requires that the tank involved is sufficiently underfiltered that it will develop additional nitrification capacity, and be large enough to accomodate both filters. and c) It is highly questionable that a new filter will be fully matured in two weeks on a mature tank with existing fully competent biofiltration. It may well be inoculated in that time frame, but IME it will most certainly not be able to handle a full bioload for the tank for which it is intended.

4. If you really believe that the difference in metabolism of FW tank nitrification bacteria is trivial across the range of 50-90F, I have some reservations about your bacteriology knowledge.

5. As for you suggestions, I have some questions. Have you ever done a fishless cycle? More than one? Did you read the sticky on this board and/or Chris' articles on fishless cycling?
Click to expand...


OK lets see if I can do this..

Reply 1. Point me in the direction of a few of your sources of this please. Everything I still currently read refers to both Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter. I have read the Tim Hoveanek articles. You are referring to Nitrospira as the "other bacteria" ANd I think I recall it is a Nitrite feeding bacteria.. Yes, I know about them.. and in my experience nitorsomonas and nitrobacter both still exist within the denitrifying system.. For the record, all of these bacteria are affected to some degree by temp and supposed self induced pH crash. more on that later..

Reply 2. pH crash is not a pointed factor.. Lack of KH or carbonates is though.. and lack of carbonates usually occurs with low pH. If you start out with a KH of below 100 , yes, you might have a problem.. I think I said that previously. If you have heavily treated water that has removed most of the KH, you are going to run the risk of Carbonate crash.. Nitrifying bacteria use carbonates and not CO2 in there respiration processes to convert nitrogen to energy. If left untended, the process can crash and pH in an indicator but not the problem.

Reply 3. Yes, a 2 week period in an established tank is adequate for average stocking levels on a new tank. I have and do do this all the time. If he has a friend that has been cooperating with him to this point it would not hurt to ask.. all of your other points are moot as you do not know either the bioload or the tank it is intended for.. nor do you know the stocking level of the tank it is in. I use a 90 gallon tub with my pond goldfish to mature new sponge filters. I have not gotten an appreciable measure of either ammonia or nitrite doing the. Has never shown above on level above zero. It is sufficient to fill the need.

Reply 4. My bacterialogy knowledge is fine, thank you.. WIth that said, Metabolism in the bacteria are not overtly affected by temp. However, reproduction is.. Nitrification will take longer at temp extremes from my understanding but it still occurs.. at extremes you get reproductive inhibition enough that it may not keep up with Nitrogen production. By the way, I understand I siad the opposite on my previous post. I honestly was not thinking striaght.. :eek:

Reply 5. Point me to the "sticky" and articles from Chris. Maybe you should notice I have only posted a few times on this board and am relatively new to it. Yes, I have used commercial ammonia and my own urine to cycle tanks. Very recently in fact.. Total of about 5 times. I prefer my method. But then I am planning out things and have access to other means. It requires less testing and better use of my time. I also have fore knowledge of what I am working with and some idea of what to expect.
 
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Fishess cycling is intended to develop full mature colonies sufficient to support full bioload for the tank, not just for gradual and slow build-up of the stock. That is a big part of the point of the process. A new hobbyist can stock up as soon as the filter is mature. The sticky is permanently located at the top of this forum, but its URL is http://64.191.28.50/forums/showthread.php?t=26051

I do believe that I excluded the pH crash scenario in my response, waving that as red flag is distraction from the issue, not discussing the issue of inhibition. Nitrification bacteria do not necessarily "use" bicarbonate in the sense that you imply, except that nitrification itself is an acid-generating process, so alkalinity is required to counterbalance it - but most metabolism is acid-generating, or end result is alkalinity-requiring - that is inherent in the chemistry. As fishless is developing a larger than full bioload nitrification colony, it has a non-trivial requirement for alkalinity.

Since cycling is the devolpment of two baterial colonies sufficiently sized to handle the bioload of a fully stocked tank, bacterial reproduction is the basic requirement of the process. Dismissing a factor which is metabolically linked strongly to temperature was not in any way valid or appropriate. It is clouding the issue and confusing to the target audience for the process.

This process was developed and popularized primarily for those new to hobby, who do not have access to mature tanks and their bacteria/filters. Multi-tank folk have litte or no need of fishless unless they elect to do so for other reasons - as I do periodically when setting a new tank for a full school species tank. It was not done for the experienced hobbyist, although they can certainly use the technique, but to ease the novice through the first big hurdle of a biologically complex process, and to train them that testing can show issues which are not yet serious before they become problems. Learning to test and use hobby-level test kits is another big hurdle for novices. If through fishless cycling they are testing-adept and have learned a bit about what nitrification is in reality, that is a big hurdle behind them as well.
 
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