I can see why people get impatient with a fishless cycle!

[Essjay]

The nitrico goop seems to be different from the other types of bottled bacteria.
From what I can gather, the other types have bacteria of specific strains put in the bottle - nitrosomonas, the ammonia 'eating' bacteria in all of them, nitrobacter, a species of nitrite 'eaters' which doesn't grow in fish tanks in most of them, and nitrospira, the species of nitrite 'eaters' which does grow in fish tanks in Dr Tim's and Tetra's products.
Nitrico goop seems to be prepared on the premises from their own mature media.

 

[AlexT]

After a bit of googling I found nitrico goop, I think this has potential as it is not harvested until it is needed and then has a short (48 hours I think) window where it has to be used. I've ordered some that's arriving on Tuesday with my new filter so it'll be interesting to see if it works/helps

I tested that recently Ian, and it worked. It cycled a brand new filter sponge in a bare tank. Just water, internal filter, Dr Tim's ammonia solution, and a brand new sponge. Temp was around 78 F. In 84 hrs, the filter was able to process 3ppm ammonia to 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite in under 24hrs. I think the nitrate went from 20 to 60. So, it definitely worked for me, no doubt.

 

[10 Tanks]

I fail to see how anything that's been sat in a bottle on a shelf for months is going to have any beneficial bacteria left. From what I gather most of these products just temporarily bind the ammonia so it is no longer toxic but that is not a fix at all

After a bit of googling I found nitrico goop, I think this has potential as it is not harvested until it is needed and then has a short (48 hours I think) window where it has to be used. I've ordered some that's arriving on Tuesday with my new filter so it'll be interesting to see if it works/helps

What are your test readings showing 10 tanks? From what you have described you are just doing a fish in cycle. Just because the fish haven't died immediately doesn't mean that the tank has cycled, it can just mean your fish are surviving in a toxic environment.

Hello again. I don't test my tank water. Never needed to because I change out so much of it, there's never a build up of nitrogen. How do I know this? The fish live a long time in my tanks. The vast majority for several years. If I treat my tap water to remove the chemicals the public water people put into it to make it safe to drink, then all I need to do to keep my fish healthy is remove and replace most of their water every few days. It's really that simple. Remove the toxins before they can build up and the fish live in near pure water conditions all the time. So, they remain healthy.

10 Tanks (Now 11)

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I don't have a lot of time now but will be able to post more in about a week when caught up with things. But what I can say now is that about 90% of what has been posted in this thread about the nitrifying bacteria goes agfainst everything science knows about the subject.

I will just offer this. Read at the link below and then come back to this thread with your reasons science has it all wrong. I can provide lots of paper in support of what you will read at the link, so you will need to find the science that shows something else is actually the case.

https://store.drtimsaquatics.com/Nitrifying-Bacteria-Mixtures-Work--Provided-_b_2.html

 

[10 Tanks]

Hello. The old books I've read and they go back quite a ways will tell you this: The key to keeping fish alive in an enclosed space like a tank is to keep the water clear of dissolved toxins. Period. You do this by treating the tap water to make the chemicals in the tap non toxic and to remove and replace most of the tank water regularly to remove the toxins from the dissolving fish waste. That's it. There's no mystery about the process. If you don't do these two things, the fish die. You don't need to add anything else to the process, this just makes things more difficult. You're very welcome to research the nitrogen cycle if that's your particular interest. But, this information goes back to the fact that if the water is kept clear of toxic chemicals and waste material through an aggressive water change routine, the fish stay healthy.

10 Tanks (Now 11)

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Maybe you should read more recent sccience. In 1995 science was sure they knew what bacteria was at work re nitrogen in aquariums. And then along came Dr, Hovanec et. al.

10- tanks- its nice that you believe what you write so htere is what I suggest we do as an experiment. I am building a giant new public aquarium. The smallest tank will be 100,000 gallons and there will be more that are smaller, a two 50,000 gallon and 4 at 25,00 gallons and lots of smaller ones of a few 1,000 which total another gallons. These tanks will all be fully stocked, not overstocked, and there will be a total of 450,000 gallons.

Now please tell me how you plan to keep all of these tanks healthy. It takes a lot of water to fill the tanks and we have no place to dispose of 10s,000s of gallons every few days.

Now I would hate to turn you into a fish murder so let me help you here.

How the Georgia Aquarium Works

The Georgia Aquarium is the largest aquarium in the world, whether you're measuring by the number of fish (more than 100,000) or the volume of water (more than a million cubic feet). It houses about 500 species in 60 habitats with 12,000 square feet of viewing windows, and it cost $290 million to build........

Even though the Georgia Aquarium's tanks hold 8 million gallons of water, the facility uses only as much water as an average supermarket.

A treatment and reclamation system cleans and recycles the water, losing only a little to evaporation and the protein skimmers that help remove debris.

Behind the scenes, the aquarium uses three types of filtration:

• Mechanical filtration, which removes fine particulates
• Fractionation, which removes dissolved organic materials
• Ozone, which plays the same role as chlorine in a swimming pool but is safer for fish

It takes 218 pumps, 141 sand filters and 70 protein skimmers to do this for the whole aquarium. These pumps move 261,000 gallons of water per minute -- that's about 163,125 toilet flushes. Ocean Voyager alone requires 28 pumps and 56 sand filters, which clean about 1,800 gallons of water per minute. The life support staff must perform maintenance, including oil changes and filter changes, on all of these pumps and filters.........

Even though the system is almost 100 percent self-sustaining, the staff still takes samples from every exhibit every day, analyzes them in a lab, and adds any necessary chemicals by hand. Water chemists evaluate the nitrogen cycle -- the breakdown of organic material into nitrogenous wastes -- as well as ammonia levels, pH, salinity and oxygen in water samples from every habitat every day. An ion photography system measures, dilutes and analyzes samples, recording anything that is positively or negatively charged. The staff also uses a high performance liquid chromatography system for research-based applications.

It is too bad you do not believe in the nitrogen cycle. That is you right. But that also doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it actually at work in not old huge aquariums but also the ones most of us keep in our homes.

For those of us who do believe in science consider this from https/bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Biology_(Kimball)/17:_Ecology/17.02:_Cycles_of_Matter_in_the_Biosphere/17.2B:_Nitrogen_Cycle


"All life requires nitrogen-compounds, e.g., proteins and nucleic acids. Air, which is 79% nitrogen gas (N2), is the major reservoir of nitrogen. But most organisms cannot use nitrogen in this form. Plants must secure their nitrogen in "fixed" form, i.e., incorporated in compounds such as: nitrate ions (NO3−), ammonium ions (NH4+) and urea (NH2)2CO. Animals secure their nitrogen (and all other) compounds from plants (or animals that have fed on plants)......

Four processes participate in the cycling of nitrogen through the biosphere: (1) nitrogen fixation, (2) decay, (3) nitrification, and (4) denitrification. Microorganisms play major roles in all four of these.

Nitrogen Fixation​

The nitrogen molecule (N2) is quite inert. To break it apart so that its atoms can combine with other atoms requires the input of substantial amounts of energy. Three processes are responsible for most of the nitrogen fixation in the biosphere:

• atmospheric fixation by lightning
• biological fixation by certain microbes alone or in a symbiotic relationship with some plants and animals
• industrial fixation

Biological Fixation​

The ability to fix nitrogen is found only in certain bacteria and archaea.

• Some live in a symbiotic relationship with plants of the legume family (e.g., soybeans, alfalfa).
• Some establish symbiotic relationships with plants other than legumes (e.g., alders).
• Some establish symbiotic relationships with animals, e.g., termites and "shipworms" (wood-eating bivalves).
• Some nitrogen-fixing bacteria live free in the soil.
• Nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria are essential to maintaining the fertility of semi-aquatic environments like rice paddies.

Biological nitrogen fixation requires a complex set of enzymes and a huge expenditure of ATP. Although the first stable product of the process is ammonia, this is quickly incorporated into protein and other organic nitrogen compounds."



If we remove the microorganisms from the process, there would be very little life on the planet.

And then lets wonder what happens if 10-tanks has a heart attack and is out of comission for a number of weeks. When I had my bypass surgery it was over 2 months before I could do anything serious in my tanks, I was lucky I was able to have a couple of the member of my fish club volunteer to come and do my water changes. But, where I do them weekly, these folks could only come every two weeks.

 

[Sanityassassin]

The nitrogen cycle exists alright, no denying that, it keeps the whole world ticking over, including our little aquariums.

But it is extremely possible to run a completely healthy aquarium without the nitrogen cycle ever even starting!

Granted, it would take a lot of daily effort from the hobbyist, by way of daily water changes and filter maintanance to ensure that no waste ever built up, mainly ammonia, which would eventually kick start the cycle.

But of course those of us who have lives to live, and don't have the time to put so much daily effort into such an exercise, ie, all of us, then we greatly rely on the nitrogen cycle along with our weekly maintenance regime.

But the fact remains, it is extremely doable to run an healthy aquarium without worrying about ammonia, nitrite or nitrate, ever!

 

[TwoTankAmin]

No it is not possible to run an aquarium over time without the nitrogen cycle being there.

When fish exhale, they exhale ammonia. Since there breathe all day long, they make ammonia ll day long. if there is ammonia present, nitrifying bacteria will colonize. If one has a planted substrate the odds are good that there is bot nitrification and denitrification occurring.

In order to have an aquarium running for some time not to have the nitrogen cycle working in it to some degree is if one adds chemicals to inhibit the bacteria.

If you add live plants to a tank, you are also adding bacteria.

it you add tap water to a tank, you are very likely to be adding some nitrifying bacteria. If you have any level of humidity in you air in your home, you likely have a few bacterial cells floating around.

What is would require to have a running aquarium (i.e. stocked) that had no nitrifying bacteria bacteria at all in it would be quite a challenge, it might even be impossible.

Pretty much all living things need nitrogen, including us. This is the simplified explanation, Very few life forms are able to utilize nitrogen. Instead it must become fixed in a way it can be used by plants. Ammonia, ammonium, nitrate, urea- something that contains the N can be used by microorganisms and plants which in turn are eaten by animals including us. Plus we usually also eat the animals. The nitrogen we need arrives this way.

The nitrogen cycle is pretty much ubiquitous whether we see it or not. And we cannot stop it,

Air is mostly gas It's a mixture of different gases. The air in Earth's atmosphere is made up of approximately 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen. Air also has small amounts of other gases, too, such as carbon dioxide, neon, and hydrogen.

If the nitrogen in the cycle were not returned to the air as a gas, the level in the atmosphere would drop drastically.

By doing all those daily water changes and filter cleanings all one can do is to reduce the amount of bacteria in the tank. That is because the amount depends upon the general concentration of ammonia. But, you will never be able to achieve a 0 level of nitrifying bacteria. And for sure you will likely have ammonia oxidizing archaea as they have a higher affinity for ammonia than the bacteria. This means they can thrive on lower levels than the bacteria. But they are just replacing the bacteria doing the first part of the cycle. The AOA still create nitrite.

Our test kits are not able to detect any of the above because they lack the sensitivity. But scientist and well equipped labs do.

 

[Sanityassassin]

Ok, explanation accepted, to a point. My excessive maintenance idea, as in changing large volumes of water out every day, and changing out filter pads, also daily, even with the fishes ammonia releasing metabolic processes going on, would mean that ammonia would/should be kept to a bare minimum, though granted, not eliminated entirely.

However, I believe this constant "bare minimum" level of ammonia would greatly hamper the start of the nitrogen cycle. It may cough and splutter, and try it's hardest to get going, but simply would not, not on a level that we see in a "usual" type aquarium anyway.

Like you say, it would take testing equipment far superior to what's available to us hobbyists to register any nitrogen cycle data, but yes, if you want to split hairs, there probably would be a miniscule register of something going on, but not to us using API type kits and the like. I'm pretty confident the three basic parameters of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate would be 0, 0 and 0 constantly, which, to all intents and purposes, signals no nitrogen cycle.

But I do take on board what you say.

 

[Magnum Man]

I just bought my 1st Ph Meter, & 1st dissolved solids meter today... also got my 1st Ammonia test strips... other tests I have, don't do ammonia specific testing... & I don't think my Tilapia aquaculture set up's filter is strong enough to remove all the ammonia from 100 nearly full sized Tilapia... so I'll be monitoring the ammonia levels, during water changes, just to keep things safe...

 

[10 Tanks]

Maybe you should read more recent sccience. In 1995 science was sure they knew what bacteria was at work re nitrogen in aquariums. And then along came Dr, Hovanec et. al.

10- tanks- its nice that you believe what you write so htere is what I suggest we do as an experiment. I am building a giant new public aquarium. The smallest tank will be 100,000 gallons and there will be more that are smaller, a two 50,000 gallon and 4 at 25,00 gallons and lots of smaller ones of a few 1,000 which total another gallons. These tanks will all be fully stocked, not overstocked, and there will be a total of 450,000 gallons.

Now please tell me how you plan to keep all of these tanks healthy. It takes a lot of water to fill the tanks and we have no place to dispose of 10s,000s of gallons every few days.

Now I would hate to turn you into a fish murder so let me help you here.

How the Georgia Aquarium Works

The Georgia Aquarium is the largest aquarium in the world, whether you're measuring by the number of fish (more than 100,000) or the volume of water (more than a million cubic feet). It houses about 500 species in 60 habitats with 12,000 square feet of viewing windows, and it cost $290 million to build........

Even though the Georgia Aquarium's tanks hold 8 million gallons of water, the facility uses only as much water as an average supermarket.

A treatment and reclamation system cleans and recycles the water, losing only a little to evaporation and the protein skimmers that help remove debris.

Behind the scenes, the aquarium uses three types of filtration:

• Mechanical filtration, which removes fine particulates
• Fractionation, which removes dissolved organic materials
• Ozone, which plays the same role as chlorine in a swimming pool but is safer for fish

It takes 218 pumps, 141 sand filters and 70 protein skimmers to do this for the whole aquarium. These pumps move 261,000 gallons of water per minute -- that's about 163,125 toilet flushes. Ocean Voyager alone requires 28 pumps and 56 sand filters, which clean about 1,800 gallons of water per minute. The life support staff must perform maintenance, including oil changes and filter changes, on all of these pumps and filters.........

Even though the system is almost 100 percent self-sustaining, the staff still takes samples from every exhibit every day, analyzes them in a lab, and adds any necessary chemicals by hand. Water chemists evaluate the nitrogen cycle -- the breakdown of organic material into nitrogenous wastes -- as well as ammonia levels, pH, salinity and oxygen in water samples from every habitat every day. An ion photography system measures, dilutes and analyzes samples, recording anything that is positively or negatively charged. The staff also uses a high performance liquid chromatography system for research-based applications.

It is too bad you do not believe in the nitrogen cycle. That is you right. But that also doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it actually at work in not old huge aquariums but also the ones most of us keep in our homes.

For those of us who do believe in science consider this from https/bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Biology_(Kimball)/17:_Ecology/17.02:_Cycles_of_Matter_in_the_Biosphere/17.2B:_Nitrogen_Cycle


"All life requires nitrogen-compounds, e.g., proteins and nucleic acids. Air, which is 79% nitrogen gas (N2), is the major reservoir of nitrogen. But most organisms cannot use nitrogen in this form. Plants must secure their nitrogen in "fixed" form, i.e., incorporated in compounds such as: nitrate ions (NO3−), ammonium ions (NH4+) and urea (NH2)2CO. Animals secure their nitrogen (and all other) compounds from plants (or animals that have fed on plants)......

Four processes participate in the cycling of nitrogen through the biosphere: (1) nitrogen fixation, (2) decay, (3) nitrification, and (4) denitrification. Microorganisms play major roles in all four of these.

Nitrogen Fixation​

The nitrogen molecule (N2) is quite inert. To break it apart so that its atoms can combine with other atoms requires the input of substantial amounts of energy. Three processes are responsible for most of the nitrogen fixation in the biosphere:

• atmospheric fixation by lightning
• biological fixation by certain microbes alone or in a symbiotic relationship with some plants and animals
• industrial fixation

Biological Fixation​

The ability to fix nitrogen is found only in certain bacteria and archaea.

• Some live in a symbiotic relationship with plants of the legume family (e.g., soybeans, alfalfa).
• Some establish symbiotic relationships with plants other than legumes (e.g., alders).
• Some establish symbiotic relationships with animals, e.g., termites and "shipworms" (wood-eating bivalves).
• Some nitrogen-fixing bacteria live free in the soil.
• Nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria are essential to maintaining the fertility of semi-aquatic environments like rice paddies.

Biological nitrogen fixation requires a complex set of enzymes and a huge expenditure of ATP. Although the first stable product of the process is ammonia, this is quickly incorporated into protein and other organic nitrogen compounds."



If we remove the microorganisms from the process, there would be very little life on the planet.

And then lets wonder what happens if 10-tanks has a heart attack and is out of comission for a number of weeks. When I had my bypass surgery it was over 2 months before I could do anything serious in my tanks, I was lucky I was able to have a couple of the member of my fish club volunteer to come and do my water changes. But, where I do them weekly, these folks could only come every two weeks.

Hello Two. You have quite the job ahead of you. Since you've been tasked with this project, you're apparently the best at what you do. I'm sure you'll be able to set up a system similar to what our local fish stores have to constantly cycle fresh water through a water through a system that removes the old tank water and replaces that with new treated fresh water. I believe after this many years in the hobby, I've settled on a system that provides a near nitrogen free, and steady levels of the micro nutrients environment. The key to keeping fish healthy are large, frequent water changes and a good working knowledge of what to feed the fish and how often.

Good luck with your project!

10 Tanks (Now 11)

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I cannot do what you suggest re a system. As I have mentioned numerous times on this site, my tanks are in 2 different buildings and 4 room. During summer that expands to 5 rooms. Only two rooms actually have a water supply in it- one is my bathroom. with 2 tanks. The other is my fish space carved out of part of a storeroom where I installed a utility sink. In non freezing months I can pump tank water in some of my tanks out a window while others must empty into a toilet. When the ground is frozen everything must go down the toilet.

here is the next thing I know. Water is not free unless you can take it from a river or lake directly. I am not sure if this is legal in all places. For people on municipal water systems there is is usually a charge for water. And even if this is not the case, it takes electricity to move water.

Next, how one stocks a tank including plants or not matters to how healthy a tank can be. I have only been keeping fish for going on 24 years; I started late in life and compensated by ramping up fast. SO I had to learn fast as well. From day one I have done weekly water changes of 50% or more. Sometime the situation called for more on a tank or even two. But it was more likely I would be forced to skip a water change than I needed to do extras.

I also began breeding the expensive B&W plecos from the Big bend of the Xingu river. I have done quite well with this. Consider this description of the water from that part of the Xingu:

The Amazon and some of its tributaries, called "whitewater" rivers, bear rich sediments and hydrobiological elements. The blackwater and clearwater rivers, such as the Negro, Tapajós, and Xingu have clear or dark water with few nutrients and little sediment. The Xingu is crystal clear and carries little in the way of sediment.

https://www.zebrapleco.com/core/zebra_pleco_habitat.php

Despite the "cleanliness" of the water in the Xingu, the tanks I skip first when I cannot do regular weekly maintenance for some reason are my pleco tanks. Oddly enough, these fish are much hardier than their water conditions might suggest.

All of the above said, I have run temporary holding containers and hospital tanks uncyled by doing water changes very regularly. I do not consider this to be a practical long term solution however.


I also know one more thing. All of 10-Tanks tanks have some level of nitrifying bacteria in them despite what he does. Water changes will not prevent this from happening in any tank that set-up and running with fish etc, in it for anything more than a short term period.