They go crazy over mulberry leaves! Adding leaves will also help build biofilm on them for shrimp to graze in.
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Established filter - but nitrite readings? Plants killed off my BB maybe?
- Thread starter AdoraBelle Dearheart
- Start date
I can say I am fairly certain on these points.
BB can quite easily survive for weeks if not months if kept wet or damp, in the absence of ammonia they simply go dormant and will reawaken again once there is an ammonia food source, even after weeks or months under optimum conditions.
I did state bacteria will likely die if left out to dry for some time.
Chlorine from tap water onto bacteria is not great for them but a quick rinse under tap water will not necessarily kill them, however if kept under tap water/chlorine for a considerable time then yes, the chlorine will start to kill them off.
Bleach will kill BB as well, as bleach kills just about my microorganisms. However in a very diluted bleach mix, and rinsed real well, chances are bb will survive, not guaranteed but this biofilm membrane that they live in, gets thicker over time and takes an effort to get right through them to kill the bb under the membrane. But this does not mean I recommend cleaning tanks and equipment with bleach, only in extreme cases.
I bug misconception for beginners is “Oh, my filter cartridge is dirt, lets thoroughly writes it off under the tap water”.
That was my thought when I first started keeping fish. I now know, that is wrong.
I have been telling people for over a year now never to rinse it under tap water, or leave it out of water.
Don’t mean to call you out, but the information your giving is not adding up...
(Sorry @AdoraBelle Dearheart for hijacking your thread)
That was my thought when I first started keeping fish. I now know, that is wrong.
If that is true, then why is everything I have 1( Heard on TFF, and 2( On the internet the exact opposite? Those sources say to never rinse it under tap water and to never leave it out of water. (As it will die)
I have been telling people for over a year now never to rinse it under tap water, or leave it out of water.
Don’t mean to call you out, but the information your giving is not adding up...
(Sorry @AdoraBelle Dearheart for hijacking your thread)
OP
OP
Awesome news, thank you! Crossing fingers that it is just a blip, it's reassuring that you've had the same experience with transferred media! I've just been through a month of treating a 57 gallon and a 15 gallon tank full of livebearers for worms, which has been a lot of work and I was happy to have reached the end of treatment and be able to just enjoy the tanks more again. But then contaminated plants and shrimp losses happened, and now this potential cycle thing... I'm willing, but wasn't thrilled about the idea of needing to do daily water changes again if I was back to step one of a cycle. This hobby is like a baptism of fire during the first year or so, huh? Or have I just been very unlucky?I don't know why the nitrite shows up on an instant cycle, just that it is what I experience. The levels are always low and always disappear within a few days. Like I said, a blip not a crash.
Your bleach cleaning is textbook.
I did go a bit ham with cleaning and sterilising everything, lol. I made a thread to learn how to do it safely, watched youtube vids, pestered @essjay a lot (thank you essjay!) along with others who were so helpful - to make sure I did it right. I dealt with camallanus worms maybe six months ago, and it was a nightmare, but I didn't go hard enough then. I was nervous about medicating with shrimp and otos, and only treated one tank with guppies, not my other that had otos and shrimp but that guppies had been in, nor the 57 gallon that has livebearers. I tend to share equipment and move plants and fish between all three tanks too. That treatment did seem to do the trick, but when I saw signs of worms again last month, camallanus PTSD kicked in and I wasn't having any of it. I moved all guppies in with otos and shrimp so I only had to treat the two tanks, and sterilised all the equipment. Bleach seems the most reliable way to kill worm egg. Things I couldn't bleach, like driftwood, I scrubbed with salt (abrasive and drying, should hopefully have ruined any worm eggs) and boiled.
Now that I know that most livebearers from stores come fully loaded with both round and flatworms, I'll be worming any new livebearers in quarantine, since they can carry worms without showing any signs for months. I just don't want to risk the main tanks getting worms again, I lost too many young fish and a favourite, beautiful purple male guppy I'd bred.
Ooohh, where do you get those? I thought amaranth was a liquor... lol
I don't have either plant in my garden, but I might grow some if the shrimps would like it. I just added a piece of dwarf bean to the tank for them. Have an almond leaf in there too, but might add another, I don't mind tannins.
I know you can get seeds on Amazon.com, but i don’t know where you could get the leaves. 
Maybe check your local produce store?
Maybe check your local produce store?
I hear you, I said all the same things as you years ago.
But I have learned from very knowledgable and very experienced keepers such as Eaglesaquarium and twotankamin (no longer are really around the forum anymore sadly) whom studied microorganisms and I got most of my advice from them.
I was just trying to explain that bb is tougher than most folks are aware of and for Adorabelle not to panic too much about the bb.
It is very true chlorine can kill bb, I’m not disputing that, what am disputing is rinsing some of your filter media under the tap is not going to kill all your bb, some will get washed away by the pressure of the water if tap is running hard and some will get killed off if rinsed for too long under the tap, hence my saying just do quick rinse under tap.
As a general rule just to be safe for everybody is we do recommend folks to rinse their filter media in old tank water as this is the safest way of clearing some muck off your filter media, and thus getting better flow through the filter for the ammonia source to the bb in media and also for the flow that’s needed for the tank and live stocking etc.
I personally did weekly rinse some filter sponge media (approx one third to half of sponge media) under the tap for years with little or no effect at all, don’t rinse off ALL your media under the tap at once, that’s asking for trouble.
Don’t rinse the biomedia or ceramic media, just the sponge part.
I apologise if I was not clear or concise enough for this.
But to be perfectly safe, continue with using old tank water, I was just trying to ease concerns if rinsing filter sponge media under tap or chlorine not to panic as not all the bb will be killed or lost.
As for leaving filter media out of water, I never said this, I said bb CAN survive without ammonia for weeks or even months as they go dormant as long as kept under optimum conditions, meaning kept damp or wet. Again, I did mention a sure fire way to kill bb is to let to dry out.
Don’t change your advice, it is quite correct in that not to recommend rinsing under tap water, and not to leave media left out to dry.
I hope this does clear some things up and apologies for any confusions made.
You should also always finish a bleach cleaning with triple dose of Prime also.
OP
OP
No, the filter was in the same size tank, but that tank also had a small canister filter running on it, plus a lot of established plants. A much heavier bioload than this 'new' tank as well, but between two filters and a load of plants, I don't know how much of the ammonia was being processed by the sponge, you know?
I suspect since I have no signs of ammonia, and I had nitrites and nitrates, that like @Naughts said, all the bacteria needed are present, just need to catch up a little now it's the sole filter on another 15 gallon.
I've heard the same things @Ch4rlie is saying. Think of it this way, there's a difference between a filter that is brand new and has no nitrifying bacteria, and one that did have a full colony, but was rinsed under a tap. When a beginner does this, chances are that they washed away and killed a good amount of their bacteria - enough to cause a mini cycle and ammonia spikes - since the colony had grown in balance with their tanks bioload - but usually, there are still enough of both types of bacteria left for the colony to quickly reproduce and catch up. That's what most mini cycles are after all.
When I used an anti-bacteria med during worm treatment (since worms can cause damage to the fishes intestines, secondary bacterial infections are common, so it was a precaution) it caused a mini cycle in both tanks. My 15 gallon recovered quickly since it wasn't overstocked and had a lot of fast growing plants - they dealt with most of the ammonia, so a water change was all I needed, and within two days, the mini cycle was over and the tank was stable again. The med clearly killed a lot of my BB, but nowhere near all of them.
The 57 gallon is overstocked right now, and only had slow growing plants, and the ammonia and nitrites were higher. I as bracing for this so was doing water tests and did large water changes, so didn't lose any fish. That tank needed more water changes and an extra day or two to recover from the mini cycle.
If it was a complete beginner who doesn't know the nitrogen cycle and didn't have such a heavily planted tank, or it was overstocked, that could have lead to sky high ammonia levels and a tank disaster that killed the whole tank. But under lab conditions, tests show that these bacteria are more robust than we sometimes give them credit for. So if say, you switched off your canister filter for a week, and when you opened it it stank to high heaven - there's still a good chance that rinsing the media in tank water then refilling it and turning it back on will work. You'd need to rinse out the dead bacteria of course, stinking media isn't good, but a lab test would likely show a bunch of bacteria survived, and can restart the colony much faster than starting over again with a new filter.
So yes, don't rinse filters in tap water, or dry out filter media you want to continue using - it's not needed, and it will likely kill a big enough chunk of the colonies to potentially cause a disaster. But on the other hand, if someone has rinsed their media under a tap, it doesn't always mean their entire cycle has crashed and they're starting from scratch either. If they're cleaning their tank weekly and rinsing the sponges under the tap every week, their causing a mini cycle every week, and the colonies keep getting knocked back every time they try to grow to handle the bioload of the tank... ammonia spikes and unstable parameters and fish deaths usually follow. But if they stop rinsing the filter in tap water, enough bacteria will have usually survived that the colonies can catch up much faster than if they were starting a cycle from scratch.
OP
OP
Always good to do a lot of research before sterilising stuff, making a thread here about how to clean everything helped so much!@AdoraBelle Dearheart did say she dosed de chlorinator 3 times, which was good in her part.
Actually this is not entirely unexpected. You have added BB in the form of mature media but the rest of the tank is completely sterile. In simple terms you don't have enough BB. The good news is it multiplies quite quickly to take up the bioload. I have seen this a few times when starting a new tank this way (although I only test for ammonia initially). I would expect that within a week or so the system will be able to cope.
OP
OP
Ah brilliant, thank you! I didn't remember this happening before when I first set up my first tank using a cycled filter, but I was also new to cycling and the hobby, only had 2-3 guppies in a 15 gallon, and I pinched some substrate and I think plant clippings too. And I was still using dip strips then, which might not have picked up the low readings of nitrites like the API kit has, I don't know.
Related question - I'm about to do a seeded cycle on the new 12 gallon that will be a grow out/hospital tank, and same new substrate/in-vitro plants etc as this one, so I'm expecting similar readings. Since it won't have livestock, shall I leave it to balance itself without water changes to lower the nitrite?
No problem. You only need to do minimal water changes while it has plants only. Do a big change before adding fish as the pH may have shifted.
Not sure what type of filter you are planning but why not leave the sponge in the filter of an active tank and only move it over when you need it. That way you know the bacteria are being fed. If its a sponge filter and you have sponge filter(s) elsewhere just swap the sponges when you need.
Your QT will already have the following advantages over where you are now
- Actively growing plants
- Established so not completely sterile
- When you add a sick fish or fry chances are you will be doing daily changes anyway
I have to agree with Charlie here. When I had my canister filter hooked up to my main tank, I would do my monthly rinse out with the garden hose full blast. Never had a problem at all just a bit of a rise in my nitrates which would go up around 10ppm and back to 0ppm within a day or two. (Well planted tank)
OP
OP
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