Bacterial Additives...

[Randi]

Here is a rather long winded article that might be of interest to you. http/www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Nitrogen_Cycle.html

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Here is a rather long winded article that might be of interest to you. http/www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Nitrogen_Cycle.html

If you didn't notice by my last post above, I understand long winded!


A nice article, but I'll take it with a grain of salt. There was a lot of useful information in there, but the repeated mentioning and linking to their page where they sell Stability (as well as other Seachem products) makes me a bit skeptical that their isn't a bit of an ulterior motive behind their high praise for Stability. I very interesting thing about Stability is that even their own webpage doesn't mention what bacteria it actually contains. Maybe they are scared of a company stealing their formula, but I think that any company worth their salt could just buy a bottle of it and figure that out, so why not just say what it is supposed to contain?


SafeStart, BioSpira, TurboStart, and One and Only all claim exactly what bacteria they contain.


Thanks for the article, it was interesting.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!


Now the morning update:
Day 9, 5/08/11 - 07:00 - pH:8.4 , NH3: 025-0.50ppm, NO2: <0.25ppm, NO3: 80ppm, temp: 83F (first nitrite reading today, and more than likely the ammonia will be zero by the next test. This test took place less than 12 hours after dosing, closer to 9 hours. sometimes life gets in the way of cycling!)


I have a little nitrite for the first time today. The color was odd. It didn't match any of the colors. It was a very light violet, but not nearly as deep as it would be if it was higher than 0.25ppm.

The ammonia levels have dropped drastically after only 9 hours from dosing. I am feeling like phase one may have ended, and that phase two could be close behind (remember, though, this is my first fishless cycle). I tested nitrite twice to try to get a color closer to the given scale, but failed. I also tested nitrates THREE times. I just couldn't seem to get reliable results. They kept coming up at 0ppm, and I knew that couldn't be the case any more. I probably should have done another test after the 80ppm reading to verify it, but I am sick of shaking!


Well, I'd love to hear from any of the cycling experts out there. Like I said before (in a much longer post) there seems to be much more movement than in the regular fishless cycles I've seen recently posted on here. I am starting Day 9, and I've almost reached zero ppm ammonia in 12 hours! Nitrites are still very low, while nitrates are very high. Bacteria seem to be processing both ammonia and nitrite, and at a pretty nice rate. The high hopes I had earlier have returned and things are moving the right way. (Taking waterdrops warning about cycles that take less than 30 days being the ones that generally have the most issues later, I have decided that a full TWO WEEK qualifying week might be in order, just to prove that the colony has really taken! Furthermore, I will have to go through a bit of a recycle later, when I get the bigger tank arrives.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

NIghtly update:

Day 9, 5/08/11 - 19:00 - pH: 8.4, NH3: 0-0.25ppm, NO2: 0-0.25ppm, NO3: 20 ppm, temp: 85F


So, the end of phase 1 seems to be very near. It's been only 21 hours since I dosed back up to 4ppm, and the ammonia is down to a trace reading. It is not 0, but it is not 0.25ppm either. Secondly, the nitrite seems to be keeping up with the ammonia pretty well. The nitrite was not zero either, but was not up to 0.25ppm either. Is it possible that phase two will be just a speed bump on the way to the third phase? One can only hope.


I will mention that the nitrate test is driving me crazy. This time it came up at only 20ppm. I am tempted to go out and buy some strips for nitrates, because it couldn't be any less accurate than what I am currently getting. Maybe I need a new nitrate test from API. I'm not sure, but I will say that I am going through those drops like crazy right now! I usually do two tests just to get a reading that makes any sense at all.


I am hoping that the nitrites and ammonia will drop from 4ppm in 24 hours sometime this week. That would be awesome!



In other news, I believe that I am finally settled on a community group of fish ultimately for my 56 gallon tank that is on backorder currently:
10 black phantom tetra
15 pygmy cories
15 cardinal tetras
2 German blue rams
2 cockatoo apistogrammas
8-10 ghost shrimp


These will be added to the tank over the course of about 9-12 months. Phantom tetra will be in first for about a month, followed by the cories in two, maybe three groups, then the cardinals. Then I will let it sit for a while, while I monitor things to make sure that things are going well. Once I hit the 6 month mark, I plan to find two GBRs (Suggestions on whether or not to go with a pair or two male or two female welcome). If things go well there for about two months, then I will look to add in some apistogrammas... male or female would be good for advice as well! Finally, I would like to add a few ghost shrimp to keep on top of the algae in the tank.




***edit*** 23 hours after dosing, the NH3 has now reached zero, and the nitrite is still just a smidge over 0ppm. I would say that this marks the end of Phase 1. I've redosed to 4ppm. I don't see a need to drop the dosage to 2ppm, since the nitrites are so low. If they spike, I will lower the dosage, but now I am looking to see ammonia drop to zero in 12 hours, and looking for the nitrites to fully reach zero after 24, to mark the end of phase 2.***edit***

 

[drobbyb]

I'm happy that you are seeing results (and a little surprised, but then I never tried that particular product either). I will be interested to see how this matures now.

 

[CrazyAirborne]

Well written, very interesting EA. I looking forward to your results!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Thank you for following the thread!


Morning update:

Day 10: 5/09/11 - 07:00 - pH: N/A, NH3: 0.25ppm, NO2: ???, NO3: 10ppm (maybe... this test is beyond annoying now...) temp: 85F


Well, the ammonia portion seems to be flying by. NH3 has dropped to 0.25ppm in only 10 hours! Nitrite has me a bit confused though. I drop the 5 drops in the tube, and there is a dark purple at the very bottom of the tube, then when I shake it per directions, the color forms a color that doesn't make any sense to me... It's a sort of steel-ish blue I guess. I'm not very good at colors, so trying to describe this isn't easy.


The nitrate test still seems to be all over the place... I didn't have time before work to do a second test, but the color seemed to be for 10 ppm. (But, that means that somehow nitrates have dropped in the last few days. I am really getting fed up with this test and I might just try test strips for the nitrates, how much worse could it be than what I am currently getting???)


Any advice would be appreciated? Are the nitrites really low, or are they really high? Should I lower the NH3 dose to 2ppm instead of 4ppm for a while, and see what happens to my testing results for nitrites? If the levels are low, then dropping the NH3 dosage should end up giving me a zero nitrite reading again soon. If the levels are high, then nitrite might actually be able to catch up a bit. Should I consider a water change to lower nitrite artificially (and the nitrates as well) just to try to track how the nitrite and nitrate levels develop over the course of a few hours?

 

[fluttermoth]

That result on a nitrite test indicates that nitrites are off the scale.

I'm not that good on fishless cycles, but I'm sure you should drop the ammonia levle to 2ppm during the nitrite part.

I'd do a water change and see how things go over the next couple of days.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

That result on a nitrite test indicates that nitrites are off the scale.

I'm not that good on fishless cycles, but I'm sure you should drop the ammonia levle to 2ppm during the nitrite part.

I'd do a water change and see how things go over the next couple of days.

It would be nice if the test kit would mention that! Ok. Thanks.


I've updated the OP to reflect when the nitrite test first indicated the off the scale reading...yesterday morning.


So, ammonia is being processed FAST, and nitrite is not keeping up. (Based on a post by Dr. Tim, who said that nitrite levels as low as 0.14ppm are needed to select for nitrospira, I plan to do a 100% water change when I finally get home from work. I will test it before I do the change. If the nitrites come back to a reasonable level, then I will hold off. If not, then the water change will happen and the ammonia dosing will be dropped to 2ppm.)


Dr. Tim's post quoted below:

The reason why one finds Nitrospira and not Nitrobacter in these systems has to do with the nitrite concentrations. As Regan et al 2002 describes starting on page 79, a low-nitrite environment selects for Nitrospira while a high nitrite environment will select for Nitrobacter. Optimum growth for Nitrospira is a nitrite concentration around 0.14 mg/L NO2-N. For Nitrobacter the optimal nitrite concentration for grow is around 14 mg/l NO2-N which is a toxic concentration for most freshwater fishes.

I will add that I am completely confused by the nitrate readings I've gotten now! If nitrite is not being processed as I thought, then the nitrate readings that came out in the 40-80ppm range don't make a lick of sense now! See, it is stuff like this that explains why I didn't go into biology or chemistry for my profession. A biology/chemistry teacher colleague says, "Physics is easy. If you mess up the lab, all you have to do is put the car back at the top of the ramp. If you mess up a biology or chemistry experiment, you have to start over!"

 

[Uriel]

Don't some test kits effectively show nitrite + nitrate on there nitrate tests. Meaning a high nitrite will register as you having nitrate even if you have none.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Don't some test kits effectively show nitrite + nitrate on there nitrate tests. Meaning a high nitrite will register as you having nitrate even if you have none.

I don't know. I am using API's test kit. I'll be doing a water change tonight, and will update the thread afterwards with before and right after water change test results.

 

[OldMan47]

Nitrite could be getting processed to nitrate fairly well and still have off scale nitrites. Each one ppm of ammonia that you have added to your tank will produce 2.7 ppm of nitrites. Even if you are moving 1 ppm onward, it would not take long for your nitrites to reach a value over 5 ppm.

 

[Bignose]

Don't some test kits effectively show nitrite + nitrate on there nitrate tests.

I haven't seen a test for the sum of nitrites and nitrates. They are fairly different chemicals, and have different reactivities with different substances. And, in a fishkeeping point-of-view, very very different. Not saying it is impossible, but I don't think that it is likely.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Nitrite could be getting processed to nitrate fairly well and still have off scale nitrites. Each one ppm of ammonia that you have added to your tank will produce 2.7 ppm of nitrites. Even if you are moving 1 ppm onward, it would not take long for your nitrites to reach a value over 5 ppm.

Well, I tested the tank when I got home from work:

NH3: >0ppm (just a trace of green in the yellow), NO2: off the scale, NO3: not tested, temp 85F.


I just completed a ~95% water change. I didn't worry about the water in the filter, and I left about a inch or so of water in the bottom. I got the vast majority of the water out.

I just refilled, with temp approximated (86-88F), and have retested the water.

pH: 7.6, NH3: 0.25ppm (not surprising, as that is the value in my tap ), NO2: dropped to 0.50ppm, NO3: 20ppm.

So, the questions are:

Do I redose the sodium bicarb to raise the pH back to ~8.4 where it has been for the entire cycle? (I assume - yes)

Do I redose the ammonia now, or do I leave it sit overnight and redose at 7am? (I assume that giving the bacteria a bit of time to munch on the nitrites might be good, and I could see if the level drops any over night. If it does, then I will know that there is some N-bacs working. If not, then I can pretty much assume that N-bacs are minimal - which would mean that the bottle didn't add anything significant!)

Do I redose to 2ppm? Does it depend on the nitrite reading? (Meaning if the nitrites are processed by morning, do I dose to 4ppm, but if not dose to 2ppm to try to keep the nitrite under wraps.)



I look forward to everyone's suggestions...

 

[waterdrop]

That result on a nitrite test indicates that nitrites are off the scale.

I'm not that good on fishless cycles, but I'm sure you should drop the ammonia levle to 2ppm during the nitrite part.

I'd do a water change and see how things go over the next couple of days.

Agree. On the API Nitrite(NO2) test when the reagent drops sink to the bottom and form a dark purple (or weird greenish or green-bluish) pool in the bottom of the test tube then you know immediately that NO2 is off the scale. You can dump the tube and not even bother to wait the 5 minutes. If you wait you see the weird grayish color you describe.

This is very significant in that it means you are only now hitting the beginning of the second phase and that your nitrites were not being held down by Nitrospira having been successfully supplied by the bottle. This aspect now looks very much like the timing of a normal ammonia fishless cycle with no BB added. In standard non-MM, non-BB ammonia fishless cycles the most common time to see the nitrite spike start is anywhere from the 7th to the 14th day or so.

Also, Flutter is correct that this is when we normally apply the tweak of dropping the dosing to 2-3ppm instead of 4-5ppm with the thinking that this will lessen the overall nitrogen that goes in to the system and produce less excess nitrite and nitrate, thus delaying the need for water changing a bit.

Nitrite could be getting processed to nitrate fairly well and still have off scale nitrites. Each one ppm of ammonia that you have added to your tank will produce 2.7 ppm of nitrites. Even if you are moving 1 ppm onward, it would not take long for your nitrites to reach a value over 5 ppm.

Quite agree here that you can have both the nitrite spike and also have quite a bit of nitrite getting processed in to nitrate(NO3) as the N-Bacs are actually growing about like the A-Bacs but just have a lot more material to try and deal with.

---
My answer to all 3 of your questions eagle would be yes. Usually when we do a water change during fishless cycling to remove nitrite and nitrate we make it a very large full water change (since partial ones serve little purpose in fishless) and then we refill with temp-matched conditioned water and re-dose both our ammonia and bicarb (if we're using bicarb.) No big deal if you didn't redose your ammonia immediately, but it shouldn't wait too long.
---

I have a technical comment for those of us following this thread who are thinking about our overall BB discussion: Does it not make sense that bottled bacteria would have to go through the establishment process just like bacteria that float in via the tap water system? I mean, all these BBs are more or less delivered in liquids (or very much liquids) and therefor would have to attach to media (since both our autotrophs must attach as the first part of their life cycle.) Then they have to build their biofilms and I think it likely at least some amount of this needs to happen prior to any significant reproduction. So it doesn't really make sense to me to think that pouring in non-attached autotrophs is going to somehow create a cycled aquarium right away and ongoing through the first days.

Now it does make sense to me that if they are alive then they will be processing ammonia and nitrite and I can see that the thinking might be that this amount would match up with a small correctly-sized fish-in cycling bioload. But I still find myself thinking that the needed time for the attachment and biofilm construction doesn't match up well with the claims of instant cycling and secondly I would like to note that all of us "watchers" have seen many example of times and situations where we feel the bacteria "shock" or "pause" or "do not do well for a while" when disturbed in various ways (quick pH change or, water changes or media moves, those sorts of things.) We'd expect that pouring loose bacteria into a new tank would not result in an instantly cycled tank but would result in the bacteria shutting down for a few days (and this possibly even if they were already established in mature media, but in the BB case they are not on media.)

OK, well that's about all I can muse about after a hard day at work

~~waterdrop~~