Bacterial Additives...

[OldMan47]

Even for me, with 26 tanks running and lots of nice mature media to jump start a cycle, there is nothing instant about a new filter. As WD has said, it takes some time to establish a new functional filter. For me that time is cut back to a week or so but nonetheless it is not instant as so many bacterial bottlers would have you believe. Even my week can suddenly turn into 10 days on a particularly difficult filter. I fully understand that a 7 to 10 day cycle would be a dream for a new fish keeper, but one day you will each have enough mature filters to see that on a new tank's filter.
My live filter media can indeed cycle a new filter very quickly but I do not get to bypass any stage of the process. My AOBs must develop before my NOBs see any nitrites to grow on. The NOBs must grow before they can process anything that I send their way. Ultimately I end up doing a huge water change before relying on my new filter, even if my nitrates never exceed 50 or 60 ppm of nitrate. I do not hesitate to do huge water changes if I find that my filter is not really ready for some reason.
I sometimes bring home fish from an auction and find that I have no home prepared for them. I seed my new tank and place the fish right into an uncycled tank. After a very few days I see some ammonia or nitrites show up and I do what I call a 90% water change. What I really do is drain the water until even a guppy would have trouble swimming and replace it all with fresh dechlorinated water. The fish always look better after such a change and in a very few days I need no longer do such changes because the filter is really cycled for my fish population.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Morning update:

Day 11, 5/10/11 - 07:00 - pH: 8.3, NH3: 0ppm, NO2: 0ppm, NO3: N/A, temp 80F. (I adjusted my heater incorrectly after the water change... this is something I am going to need to fix before I have fish.)

Interestingly, the nitrites from last night (~0.50ppm) were processed in less than 12 hours. That is encouraging to me, whether it is considered a "seeded" cycle or not. Either way, I was able to observe some movement with nitrites. I think that I will continue to do water changes when the nitrites go off the scale, partly because of what Dr. Tim observed regarding the concentration that works best for nitrospira, and partly because I could still use the practice. Also, my 5 year old son had a good time (for a while) helping me with the water change. He was "all in" for the first bucket to come out of the tank. The second bucket confused him. He didn't know why we were removing MORE water! And he was good with the first bucket to go back into the tank, but quickly lost interest on the second. I can only imagine how he will feel when we will be filling the 56 gallon tank, instead of a mere 10 gallon!


I upped the ammonia back to ~2ppm this morning. I will be very interested to see where the nitrite is tonight. (According to what I have observed recently, the ammonia should be all processed (or very close) by then. So, if 1ppm turns to ~2.7 ppm of nitrite, then I am interested to see where the nitrite reading will actually be. If it can process 0.50ppm overnight, then perhaps it can process a little more? Even if not, my math tell me that ~5.4ppm of nitrite should be made available today for the N-bacs, and if they process 0.50 ppm, the nitrite should be high tonight, but not off the scale. If I get a reading near 2-3ppm, I will be thrilled/shocked!



waterdrop,

Thanks for checking in again. I agree with your hypothesis regarding the time frame claimed by these BB products. They all claim, although some more subtly than others, that their product will instantly cycle a tank.

SafeStart's instructions say:

Directions: Shake well. Add entire bottle to aquarium. Aquarium is then ready for fish.

First, they don't say how many fish. Second, they don't say that any further attention is necessary for the cycle. They make it sound like the cycle is now complete. If a person were to add a full bioload to their tank at once, which would fit within the directions of use with this product, they would immediately be causing ammonia spikes and causing their fish to suffer. It is AMAZING that this type of misinformation is acceptable. That would be like an automatic cat litter box claiming that you can just turn it on, and forget about the cat waste for an undisclosed number of cats. That would probably be considered inhumane to the cats. (And honestly the owner would find out soon enough that the claims are baseless when the odor started to seep into all parts of the house.) With fish, the dangers aren't noticed by most novice fishkeepers until the fish are either dead or beyond hope of recovery. (These would be the same folks who have no clue about what "cycling" a tank really means... aka me, about 3 months ago! )


I guess what I am saying is that while these products might actually be delivering some bacteria and that this could diminish the duration of a fish-in or fishless cycle, they should never be counted on to completely cycle a tank immediately as they are, and as sales people seem to want customers to believe. Maybe they fear that if they are honest about what needs to be done, they will lose customers, because it may be too much hassle for some people who buy fish. But, that would be akin to not talking to a dog owner about needing to walk the dog multiple times a day - or giving it access to the backyard, and letting it exercise! I would think that they could actually make MORE sales in the long run by being truthful. First, the initial investment would be quite large - trust me on this one! I have spent over $100 so far on stuff, and don't even have the full size tank I will be getting. This was spent on filters, tubing, test kits, ammonia, a heater, water conditioner, fish maintenance supplies, etc. I still haven't purchased substrate, lighting, FISH, food, nets, decorations, plants, etc. All in all, I've figured that I will be spending about $500 for all this when it all finished. And then there will be the ongoing costs, like more food, more test kits, more de-chlorinator, medication, fertilizer (maybe), etc. If I found a quality LFS around me that would be honest and up front about all this, they would get ALL my business. But, as of right now, I've only one a single LFS employee (manager of the fish department at the Petsmart) who was willing to spend 10 minutes talking to a guy about fish and all of the interactions, etc. of different species and what they would want/need. This conversation started when I asked if they carried a hardness test (with drops, not a strip). We got to talking about what my plans were for the tank, etc. He walked away having made a sale (although backordered) of the tank and stand I want for my dining room. With me feeling comfortable about buying fish from that store, and a general good feeling about it. My favorite thing that he said was: "I don't know about that, I've never done it. But I think..." HONESTY! Wow. It was nice. A local, independent store I went to had the owner himself trying to push a bacterial additive product I'd never heard of on me, because he didn't carry one that I was interested in. When I asked how he knows it works, his only answer was, "Well, I'm selling a ton of it." That's not proof of anything other than a bunch of people buying it at his direction (primarily because it's the only one he carries).

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Evening update for 5/10/11:

20:00, pH:N/A (has been quite stable during this process, so I don't see a need to test it more than every few days any longer, advise if you disagree.)




NH3: <0.25ppm, just a trace of ammonia remains, barely a noticeable amount of green in the yellow tube. A-bacs are doing very nicely, and the ammonia should be zero by morning.
NO2: 2.00ppm (there is not much difference between 5.00ppm and 2.00ppm to my eyes, so this could be higher. I am hoping to see a bigger drop in nitrite overnight.
NO3: ~40ppm, as expected, nitrates are being processed (assuming I am testing correctly! - this could certainly be called into question.) But now that the nitrites are under control the nitrate test seems to be more reasonable to the other data.


Things seem to be moving along. I'm not sure that the water change actually did anything, but it is nice to be able to see nitrites going up and down, so I think it was worth the effort. I may continue to do water changes when I notice the nitrite levels off the scale. According to Dr. Tim, the nitrospira is much better served with lower concentrations of nitrite, so I am going to try to control them a bit. (granted this is a bit unorthodox, but there is nothing that says it can't be done, and according to my logic will benefit the cycle.)

 

[drobbyb]

It's ok to skip pH tests because the bacteria will function at a wide range of pH values, and when it drops to ~6 on the scale you will notice that your ammonia processing has slowed significantly.

If you know what you are looking for, you can predict how long you can go before you need to test.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

thanks drobbyb!


Any thoughts on how the cycle is progressing? Am I correct in believing that the nitrites are being processed well, even if slightly slower than ammonia currently?

 

[drobbyb]

In my last fishless cycle, that's exactly what happened. Then one day, the nitrite solution turned purple at the bottom of the test tube. I didn't even need to shake it up. They were off the scale, and it happened overnight.

Little anomalies such as these are normal.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with drobbyb. He's got plenty of experience, an observant fishkeeper.

Yes, I think this fishless cycle is proceeding just fine eagle. By sharing information, sharing the watching of the data and trying to understand things you are of course ahead of 99% of the casual people out there who just try to keep fish without really getting curious about the processes involved.

In my opinion, getting involved in details can't help but make things more interesting. Most of the time my son was as bored as you can get with all these kinds of details and I've certainly taken taken hits from the family for years, but I've noticed that there have been times when my son was really proud of knowing more about what was going on. One time in biology class the teacher ventured directly in to the area of the nitrogen cycle and suddenly my son became a surprising database of knowledge to the class - he got quite a kick out of that and I'm sure it left an impression with him.

Anyway keep up the good work. A pH check every 3 days or so or doing one when you feel things may have slowed does seem to work ok in many cases.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Well, the pendulum swings back the other direction again!


Shocking (at least to me) result this morning:

24 hours after dosing to 2ppm NH3...


pH: N/A, NH3: 0ppm (no shock there), NO2: 0ppm!, NO3: N/A, temp 84F




I don't know if anyone else expected this, but I sure didn't! Phase two might just be coming to a close soon... We shall see if it is sustainable. I redosed ammonia to ~3ppm, to make the bacs work a little harder.

 

[anon02]

In my opinion the greatest benefit in the fishless cycle using ammonia is the spare capacity you get when dosing to 5ppm. Some fishkeepers would consider a filter that reduces 3ppm to double zeroes in 12 hours cycled, do you intend to increase the dosage to 5ppm at some stage ?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

In my opinion the greatest benefit in the fishless cycle using ammonia is the spare capacity you get when dosing to 5ppm. Some fishkeepers would consider a filter that reduces 3ppm to double zeroes in 12 hours cycled, do you intend to increase the dosage to 5ppm at some stage ?

I started at 4ppm. I dropped it to 2ppm when the ammonia dropped to zero in 24 hours, because I had a massive nitrite spike. Now that nitrite is dropping back to zero in 24 hours, and am working it back up to 4ppm. That's why I am currently dosed at 3ppm. If the ammonia and nitrite both drop to zero in 24 hours, I will redose to 4ppm. I might dose it back to 5ppm, but then again I may not. I'm not going to go with a huge stock of fish immediately, so I don't think that it would be necessary (I might still do it just for fun).


My test kit only measures 4ppm or 8ppm, so 5ppm wouldn't make a ton of sense to me.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

****SURPRISING UPDATE INFORMATION*********

Before I mention what the results of this evening's test is, I wanted to remind folks of the past few days.


On the morning of May 8th, the 9th day of the cycle, I had a nitrite spike, but didn't know it right away. Ammonia by that point was being processed down from 4ppm in 24 hours. By the end of Day 10, I realized that I had a nitrite spike, and did a huge water change. I took out everything I could without tilting the tank, or emptying the HOB filter, approximately 95%. When refilling, the ammonia was at 0.25 ppm and nitrites came down to 0.50 ppm. I left that overnight and both fell to zeros. I redosed to 2ppm ammonia. It went to zeros for both ammonia and nitrite by the next morning, that was this very morning. It had processed ammonia at 2ppm in just 24 hours. Well, the morning I figured I would start to re-up the ammonia. I went to 3ppm this morning, and now here are the latest results:


After only 12 hours, NH3: 0ppm, NO2: 0ppm! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Based on this result, one would say that I have just finished phase 3. (Of course, I need it to happen for a 4ppm dosage of ammonia, and I am not declaring that it is there yet, but according to "the book" that's what it means. it would seem that I went straight from finishing Phase 1 on Day 10, to finishing Phase 2 by the beginning of Day 12. I will be dosing the ammonia to 4ppm tomorrow morning, and if it drops to zero for both ammonia and nitrite, then that would be the end of Phase 3 on DAY 13! And technically, I would be into my qualifying week at that point! So, if everything goes as it has been recently, the entire cycle from beginning to end could take less than 3 weeks, INCLUDING the qualifying week.


WOW!!!


Any and all comments welcome!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Redosed to 4ppm ammonia.

07:00

 

[waterdrop]

Hi eagle, OK, looking good here and I'm glad you are enthusiastic, you may have a fishless cycle that is going to be fast and you may indeed have seen some seeding effect, especially on the N-Bacs if they hold out.

This of course is a situation where we're going in to the front end of why we added the qualifying week concept. It will be important to see whether the biofiltration is solidifying or whether the "results" you are seeing will still be exhibiting a bouncing effect (zeros, then higher numbers, then zeros etc.) You are right after a large water change and those changes can have an influence over the results for several days sometimes.. yet another reason to go steadily along and gather more steady state data.

I agree with anon, the intended size of the initial stocking has less influence over me than the fact that a nice large "overhead" like 5ppm gives you has had good results in the past. Working down from 5ppm is all about the "quality" or "robustness" of the colonies, not about balancing the bioload. I would definately attempt the work-up to 5ppm during the qualifying week and possibly beyond in your case. I agree with you that it's an almost rediculous guessing game as far as the slightly darker green between 4 and 8ppm but what people follow more is the dosing calculator and percentages based on their own previous dosing milliliters.

If this fishless cycle keeps giving double-zeros at 12 hours from now on and never looks back then we will have a positive case for safestart (by the way, my feeble memory has finally coughed up that it was "biospira" and "bactinettes" that were the two back in 2008 that we used to get positive cases on - can others confirm that for me?)

In my mind, as I've mentioned to you, any fishless cycle that is very fast, regardless of how that happened should be regarded with some suspicion by the fishless cycler because it carries a small increased risk of spiking back on you, even after the first stocking of fish. So, quite separate from the BB experiment here (which we would still consider a success and a positive case if it makes it through the week (or two if we decide that) of qualifying) I would still -try- to opt for a nice long qualifying period with plenty of days of dropping 5ppm to double-zeros at 12 hours. This may feel very hard after a week of it doing it because it will be very boring by that time.

[Oldman47 and I may choose to use this thread to introduce a new add-on to one of our tweaks that we've been thinking about but I would prefer to see a good week of qualification before we complicate things with yet an additional discussion.]

~~waterdrop~~

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Thanks for the feedback WD.

Yes, I am working on upping the ammonia dose right now. (I thought that I would have more time to bring it back up to 4ppm than a day and a half! This result was VERY unexpected, especially in light of the nitrite spike.) I used the dosing calculator to determine the 4ppm dose (but I used the API to confirm... partly to confirm the amount, and partly to confirm that I was reading the test correctly.) I certainly could up the dose to 5ppm during the course of the qualifying week.

I think a two week qualifying exercise makes sense. It won't be anymore boring for me than it is for the poor folks who have to go through a 50+ day cycle.


I did this exercise in an effort to help folks... either to help shorten the cycle period (preferably) or to help folks save their money and not spend it on stuff that doesn't work. You and OM47 certainly have the option to do with this thread whatever you believe will benefit folks the most.

 

[anon02]

Well the product you added certainly seems to have shortened phase 2, although you can not be 100% certain how much of each bacteria you introduced with your tap water. Does the BB you used claim to contain both species of bacteria ?