TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
I highly doubt the Abacs (AOB) vs Nbac (NOB) health argument is a valid one. There is simply no logic for it.
I have said this several times and still believe it, Your tank has been cycled for a while now and the main issue is ammonia test kit error not failure to cycle properly.
But let me explain the logic here. You dosed ammonia, it rose, it dropped. Nitrite appeared and it dropped. For these things to happen, there must be both types of bacteria at work. We also know that in cycling ammonia appears and drops before nitrite. In your case both bacteria came in from the DrTim's and were at work pretty quickly. At the very least we saw the nitrite go to 0 which would indicate the NOB are processing all the nitrite the AOB are creating.
Now we also know that in a fully cycled tank the capacity of the AOB and the NOB equqalizes which is why ammonia and nitrite should always read 0 on anything but the most sensitive lab test kits. We also know that if more ammonia enters the system than the AOB can handle, we should see an ammonia reading until the AOB multiply sufficiently to process the extra load. But a part of that process is also to create more nitrite than the slower to multiply NOB can handle, and while they are catching up one gets a nitrite reading.
So you dosed the 16 drop 24hour tests dose. That should have added 2 ppm of ammonia. If the tank is cycled you should get a 0/0 reading. But you had basically a .25/0 reading. So that would seem to indicate 1.75 ppm got processed but .25 ppm did not. But you processed 100% of the nitrite. But if you have sufficient AOB to process 1.75 ppm in 24 hours, how much time should it take for the colony to grow to the size where it fully processes that amount of excess ammonia? 1.75/2.00ppm is 87.5% of all the ammonia. That would incdicate (all other things being equal) the AOB capacity must increase by 1/7 (under 15%) to catch up. Since we know that AOB populations can double in 12-24 hours depending upon conditions, how long should it take your colony to catch up? Maybe a few hours. How long have your low level readings persisted? Over a day?
If there were something inhibiting the activity or reproduction of the AOB, what would the expected result be? An AOB colony is in constant flux in terms of the individuals which comprise it. Some bacterium are always dying and others are replacing then via reproduction. So a colony can be stable even as the individual members change. But if something is done to inhibit the ability of the colony to process ammonia and thus cause ammonia readings to show up on test kits, this would also imply the reproductive rate is not keeping up with the death rate. And if this is indeed the case, the colony size would be contracting with the result that even more ammonia is not being processed and this would show up in higher readings somewhere along the way.
If the AOB are lagging, ammonia levels should be rising each time the same dose of ammonia is added. And then there is the issue of what might be causing them to lag in the sort of uneven patterns you appear to be experiencing. One would have to argue what is going on in your tank is the AOB colony is behaving completely erratically. You dose the same amount of ammonium chloride and sometimes the residual reading is .25 and sometimes its .50 and sometimes its in between. The dosing, the testing and the composition of the underlying AOB colony and its ability to oxidize seem to be unrelated.
In the face of this all I keep coming back to the same thing, You tank is cycled and the API ammonia test kit is not giving correct readings. Now if you were one of only a very few people experiencing this, one might conclude it is specific to something in your water etc. But, as we all have seen there are an awful lot of posts and articles on the net regarding this issue. Even Dr T sees some problems.
I am dealing with this issue on other forums besides here. Since I can not link to them, I will merely copy some of it here. This part of a general cycling thread was posted on March 1:
And this was my reply:
"Your tank is cycled. That .25 and even a .5 reading is not accurate. You can not continually have an ammonia reading, even a low one and not get a nitrite reading that follows it.
If ammonia is at 0 and nitrite is also, then you have cycled tank. If something causes the ammonia to go up, it means there are not enough bacteria working to clear the ammonia and they will reproduce. The result is more nitrite gets produced as well- that is more nitrite than the nitrite bacteria can handle. So while the nitrite eaters are working and reproducing, you get some excess nitrite which would show up on the test.
While it has not been documented or scientifically researched, there are an increasing number of posts on the net about issues with the API test kit and ammonium chloride. On the surface it makes no sense this would be a problem, but apparently it is. I am working with somebody on another forum in the exact same situation. Nitrite acts right and ammonia wont go below .25 ppm.
At this point you have two options- to hold the cycle you dose about 4-5 drops every few days, or else do a water change and add a bunch of fish."
As you can see this sort of thing is not all that unique. My feeling is still that your tank is and has been cycled for a while and that the ammonia readings are not right.
On the topic of my screen name. You are correct that it is partially a reference to King Tut. But the origin of the name was from my earliest days on the net when I used to play a war game called Axis and Allies. One of the territories on the board was Egypt and one of the various pieces were tanks. So I got the idea of combining it all into one pun. At that time I also tended to use multiple screen names. Soon after I began joining and posting on fish sites and it seemed that TTA was also a perfect name for that as well. At that time I dropped all other screen names and I have used TTA everywhere. It has been a secret dream of mine for a number of years to open TwoTankAmin's Used Fish and Tank Bazar
I have said this several times and still believe it, Your tank has been cycled for a while now and the main issue is ammonia test kit error not failure to cycle properly.
But let me explain the logic here. You dosed ammonia, it rose, it dropped. Nitrite appeared and it dropped. For these things to happen, there must be both types of bacteria at work. We also know that in cycling ammonia appears and drops before nitrite. In your case both bacteria came in from the DrTim's and were at work pretty quickly. At the very least we saw the nitrite go to 0 which would indicate the NOB are processing all the nitrite the AOB are creating.
Now we also know that in a fully cycled tank the capacity of the AOB and the NOB equqalizes which is why ammonia and nitrite should always read 0 on anything but the most sensitive lab test kits. We also know that if more ammonia enters the system than the AOB can handle, we should see an ammonia reading until the AOB multiply sufficiently to process the extra load. But a part of that process is also to create more nitrite than the slower to multiply NOB can handle, and while they are catching up one gets a nitrite reading.
So you dosed the 16 drop 24hour tests dose. That should have added 2 ppm of ammonia. If the tank is cycled you should get a 0/0 reading. But you had basically a .25/0 reading. So that would seem to indicate 1.75 ppm got processed but .25 ppm did not. But you processed 100% of the nitrite. But if you have sufficient AOB to process 1.75 ppm in 24 hours, how much time should it take for the colony to grow to the size where it fully processes that amount of excess ammonia? 1.75/2.00ppm is 87.5% of all the ammonia. That would incdicate (all other things being equal) the AOB capacity must increase by 1/7 (under 15%) to catch up. Since we know that AOB populations can double in 12-24 hours depending upon conditions, how long should it take your colony to catch up? Maybe a few hours. How long have your low level readings persisted? Over a day?
If there were something inhibiting the activity or reproduction of the AOB, what would the expected result be? An AOB colony is in constant flux in terms of the individuals which comprise it. Some bacterium are always dying and others are replacing then via reproduction. So a colony can be stable even as the individual members change. But if something is done to inhibit the ability of the colony to process ammonia and thus cause ammonia readings to show up on test kits, this would also imply the reproductive rate is not keeping up with the death rate. And if this is indeed the case, the colony size would be contracting with the result that even more ammonia is not being processed and this would show up in higher readings somewhere along the way.
If the AOB are lagging, ammonia levels should be rising each time the same dose of ammonia is added. And then there is the issue of what might be causing them to lag in the sort of uneven patterns you appear to be experiencing. One would have to argue what is going on in your tank is the AOB colony is behaving completely erratically. You dose the same amount of ammonium chloride and sometimes the residual reading is .25 and sometimes its .50 and sometimes its in between. The dosing, the testing and the composition of the underlying AOB colony and its ability to oxidize seem to be unrelated.
In the face of this all I keep coming back to the same thing, You tank is cycled and the API ammonia test kit is not giving correct readings. Now if you were one of only a very few people experiencing this, one might conclude it is specific to something in your water etc. But, as we all have seen there are an awful lot of posts and articles on the net regarding this issue. Even Dr T sees some problems.
I am dealing with this issue on other forums besides here. Since I can not link to them, I will merely copy some of it here. This part of a general cycling thread was posted on March 1:
And this was my reply:
"Your tank is cycled. That .25 and even a .5 reading is not accurate. You can not continually have an ammonia reading, even a low one and not get a nitrite reading that follows it.
If ammonia is at 0 and nitrite is also, then you have cycled tank. If something causes the ammonia to go up, it means there are not enough bacteria working to clear the ammonia and they will reproduce. The result is more nitrite gets produced as well- that is more nitrite than the nitrite bacteria can handle. So while the nitrite eaters are working and reproducing, you get some excess nitrite which would show up on the test.
While it has not been documented or scientifically researched, there are an increasing number of posts on the net about issues with the API test kit and ammonium chloride. On the surface it makes no sense this would be a problem, but apparently it is. I am working with somebody on another forum in the exact same situation. Nitrite acts right and ammonia wont go below .25 ppm.
At this point you have two options- to hold the cycle you dose about 4-5 drops every few days, or else do a water change and add a bunch of fish."
As you can see this sort of thing is not all that unique. My feeling is still that your tank is and has been cycled for a while and that the ammonia readings are not right.
On the topic of my screen name. You are correct that it is partially a reference to King Tut. But the origin of the name was from my earliest days on the net when I used to play a war game called Axis and Allies. One of the territories on the board was Egypt and one of the various pieces were tanks. So I got the idea of combining it all into one pun. At that time I also tended to use multiple screen names. Soon after I began joining and posting on fish sites and it seemed that TTA was also a perfect name for that as well. At that time I dropped all other screen names and I have used TTA everywhere. It has been a secret dream of mine for a number of years to open TwoTankAmin's Used Fish and Tank Bazar
