Kate's Fishless Cycle

[KateT]

If you have 0.25ppm in your tap supply you should really be talking to your supplier, do you like drinking wee? because thats pretty much what ammonia is, i would be more worried about your health.

The only time i would ever expect a partial reading of ammonia in a tap supply would be over xmas when water treatment and processing plants tend to be very light on staff.

Really? I've seen a few tap water stats which have stated upto 1ppm ammonia and nobody has said that

 

[nehpets81]

If you have 0.25ppm in your tap supply you should really be talking to your supplier, do you like drinking wee? because thats pretty much what ammonia is, i would be more worried about your health.

The only time i would ever expect a partial reading of ammonia in a tap supply would be over xmas when water treatment and processing plants tend to be very light on staff.

Really? I've seen a few tap water stats which have stated upto 1ppm ammonia and nobody has said that

Hmm not sure about that, my tap water has Ammonia in it too...
Just out of interest, was the ammonia reading before of after dechlorination? Could the removal of chloroamine produce ammonia?

Monochloroamine is NH2Cl. I am no chemist and have no idea actually how the dechlorination products remove chloroamine but it is not a massive stretch of my imagination to imagine 2 hydrogen atoms (for instance in H2O) could produce two compounds from NH2Cl - NH3 and HCl.

HN3 is Ammonia.

I could be totally off track here as I'm trying to remember back to my school days with this but it seems kinda plausible to me!

Actually, pretty sure I'd know about it if I had Hydrochloric acid in my tank so the above is probably nonsense

 

[KateT]

If you have 0.25ppm in your tap supply you should really be talking to your supplier, do you like drinking wee? because thats pretty much what ammonia is, i would be more worried about your health.

The only time i would ever expect a partial reading of ammonia in a tap supply would be over xmas when water treatment and processing plants tend to be very light on staff.

Really? I've seen a few tap water stats which have stated upto 1ppm ammonia and nobody has said that

Hmm not sure about that, my tap water has Ammonia in it too...
Just out of interest, was the ammonia reading before of after dechlorination? Could the removal of chloroamine produce ammonia?

Before - reading is .25ppm straight out of the tap. After sitting for 12 hours the reading was .5ppm

 

[Gvilleguy]

Natural levels of ammonia are not uncommon (my tap water measures 0.25 ppm), and the World Health Organization does not consider it hazardous to human health at those levels. Here is an excerpt:

(source: WHO Ammonia)

12.6 Ammonia
The term ammonia includes the non-ionized (NH3) and ionized (NH4+) species.

Ammonia in the environment originates from metabolic, agricultural and industrial
processes and from disinfection with chloramine. Natural levels in groundwater and
surface water are usually below 0.2 mg/litre. Anaerobic groundwaters may contain up
to 3mg/litre. Intensive rearing of farm animals can give rise to much higher levels
in surface water. Ammonia contamination can also arise from cement mortar pipe linings.
Ammonia in water is an indicator of possible bacterial, sewage and animal
waste pollution.

Ammonia is a major component of the metabolism of mammals. Exposure from
environmental sources is insignificant in comparison with endogenous synthesis of
ammonia. Toxicological effects are observed only at exposures above about 200mg/kg
of body weight.

Ammonia in drinking-water is not of immediate health relevance, and therefore
no health-based guideline value is proposed.However, ammonia can compromise disinfection
efficiency, result in nitrite formation in distribution systems, cause the failure
of filters for the removal of manganese and cause taste and odour problems (see also
chapter 10).

 

[KateT]

My nitrites are off the chart for the first time today. I've been doing weekly water changes (to help my wood leech out tannins) - I assume it's still okay to do one (about 40%) this week as usual?

Ammonia seems to be processing nice and quickly now, too.

GVG, thanks for that - interesting. I don't think I have much to worry about. I did message the water board (so I thought) yesterday as advised and received this today;

"Hi Kate,

You have reached the water board for North Wales, Pennsylvania. Best of luck contacting your own water company."

Just to give you a giggle. I should learn to read things more thoroughly before steaming ahead.

 

[KittyKat]

Water change as usual is fine.

 

[waterdrop]

...always good to remember that ppm stands for parts per -million- when thinking about these things...

 

[KateT]

My ammonia is 0ppm again today

When can I plant the tank? Wait until the cycle has finished completely, or just until ammonia is being processed promptly? Ideally I'd want to give them a little while to root themselves

 

[waterdrop]

You know, it's funny, I was just sitting here thinking about the plant thing. They are really so slow, at least assuming you're not doing a planted tank with pressurized and all that, which I assume you're not. Roots on submerged plants are such a different thing, somewhat left over or having a lot to do with the period of the year when the plants are emergent (which the vast majority of the selections the hobby has ended up with are (well it would be hard to put a percentage on it, but a lot I'd say.) With non-aquatic terrestrials I think stimulation/need for a big strong root system is driven by the powerful need for water. But once plants evolved back into water environments water became readily available and could be absorbed all over the plant, so you see slower and less root development. Of course it varies widely by species.

I assume you've still got the anubias on wood in your betta tank and anubias are among the slowest of the slow. They just sit there week after week with those nice dark leaves (well at least the nana variations I've had) and are usually very, very hardy. They don't need or even like a lot of light and are happy to be shaded by higher up plants.

One of the things that is different about plants prior to fish going in is that the water won't have all the nitrogen and phosphorus (in particular) left over from the fish waste and excess fish food and since these two, along with the other main macronutrient potassium are used in higher amounts each day, the plants can suffer a deficiency if you are not dosing them. I also feel there is possibly a weird thing about a new tank where a lot of the initial plant nutrient dosing may kind of get lost attaching itself to gravel or filter media to some extent and so is not at first quite as effective as it is later in a more mature tank.

Were you hoping to have the fish provide all your macros or were you going to go with some supplemental dosing? I forget what your light numbers are.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[KateT]

You know, it's funny, I was just sitting here thinking about the plant thing. They are really so slow, at least assuming you're not doing a planted tank with pressurized and all that, which I assume you're not. Roots on submerged plants are such a different thing, somewhat left over or having a lot to do with the period of the year when the plants are emergent (which the vast majority of the selections the hobby has ended up with are (well it would be hard to put a percentage on it, but a lot I'd say.) With non-aquatic terrestrials I think stimulation/need for a big strong root system is driven by the powerful need for water. But once plants evolved back into water environments water became readily available and could be absorbed all over the plant, so you see slower and less root development. Of course it varies widely by species.

I assume you've still got the anubias on wood in your betta tank and anubias are among the slowest of the slow. They just sit there week after week with those nice dark leaves (well at least the nana variations I've had) and are usually very, very hardy. They don't need or even like a lot of light and are happy to be shaded by higher up plants.

One of the things that is different about plants prior to fish going in is that the water won't have all the nitrogen and phosphorus (in particular) left over from the fish waste and excess fish food and since these two, along with the other main macronutrient potassium are used in higher amounts each day, the plants can suffer a deficiency if you are not dosing them. I also feel there is possibly a weird thing about a new tank where a lot of the initial plant nutrient dosing may kind of get lost attaching itself to gravel or filter media to some extent and so is not at first quite as effective as it is later in a more mature tank.

Were you hoping to have the fish provide all your macros or were you going to go with some supplemental dosing? I forget what your light numbers are.

~~waterdrop~~

To be honest lighting is something I am really confused about.

I've had a look at the tube in the tank (it's second hand so not the supplied light) and it says on it Classica FX18 (24", 600mm)

I don't know what that means and I have no idea how I'd go about changing the tube.

Plant-wise, I don't want to overcomplicate myself with CO2 diffusers etc - but I am planning to dose liquid carbon and ferts.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi KateT,

I found THIS

which leads me to believe your fluorescent tube is an 18 watt tube with a "daylight" type of color spectrum (daylight is just fine for freshwater plants.) I'm going to assume the most likely thing is that the tube is some sort of normal T8 (T8 means 8/8's of an inch in diameter which means 1 inch if you were to measure the diameter of the circle, which you can do at the end of the tube when it's out of the socket.) Often the older T8 or T12 (inch, 1.5 inch) fluorescents are the normal efficiency, whereas the thinner 5/8's inch diameter are indicative of the newer "high efficiency" sort of fluorescent.

[The reason I got off on the efficiency thing is just that unfortunately the planted world got off years ago on the thing of describing the "amount" or "brightness" of light (which in physics is actually quite a difficult thing to do) by means of electricity consumption, which of course is totally dependent on the efficiency of particular devices. So an 18w normal tube would be what they were thinking of at the time, whereas an 18w high efficiency or high output tube would put out much more light really.]

Anyway, let's ignore all that and assume you've got 18w over a 25.4G/96L tank which means you're only shining in 0.72 of a watt per US gallon of water volume. Unfortunatly this is too low, in my experience for decent "low-light" technique planting approaches. You want to somehow get up into the 1.0 to 1.5 w/g range but not go over 2 w/g I'd say. Light is the "driver" of the whole process and it is important to get yourself into the right starting range so that you can make your overall light adjustments via the lamp timer you use to control your hours of lighting (yes, even when not doing the fancy CO2 stuff!)

Anyway, I'd say your goal is to figure out how to get to that range. One way would be a second 18w strip (this is the way I do it - I use separate strip fixtures that can sit over top of a simple glass hinged aquarium top. The two strips are separate completely, allowing two timers to be used so you can step the light up and down more gradually also in a simple way.) Two 18w would get you to 1.44w/g which would be just right. Unfortunately though if its a fixture in a full hood then you can't just get a higher wattage bulb because with fluorescent the fixture and bulb capacities are matched more or less.

You're on the right track though. The right light with liquid carbon and ferts is a good plan. I don't know where you are but in the UK you have your choice of Excel or EasyCarb or one of the shop chains even offeres one and then for ferts you've of course got the best in TPN+. In the USA you've the full Excel and the rest of the Flourish line or I think some of the planted folks may have a tropica import source.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[KateT]

Thanks WD, very thorough reply as usual!

I suppose my option (for a lazy, non-DIY inclined person such as myself!) is to buy a new hood entirely. Juwel offer the same sized hood, but with two light fixtures. I assume this is ideal. Luckily I'm a student and as such will get lots of money thrown at me in three weeks

To be honest I was thinking of buying one anyway, as the cord switch on the present hood is a bit 'dodgy' - I have to wiggle it around a bit to get the light to turn on.

 

[KittyKat]

You know, it's funny, I was just sitting here thinking about the plant thing. They are really so slow, at least assuming you're not doing a planted tank with pressurized and all that, which I assume you're not. Roots on submerged plants are such a different thing, somewhat left over or having a lot to do with the period of the year when the plants are emergent (which the vast majority of the selections the hobby has ended up with are (well it would be hard to put a percentage on it, but a lot I'd say.) With non-aquatic terrestrials I think stimulation/need for a big strong root system is driven by the powerful need for water. But once plants evolved back into water environments water became readily available and could be absorbed all over the plant, so you see slower and less root development. Of course it varies widely by species.

WD, I always enjoy reading your posts and right at this moment, I still have water dripping off of my hands as I am half way through replanting my main display tank after an upgrade.. and I'm thinking "I think someone forgot to tell my plants that they're always underwater"! Even my Hygrophila have extensive root systems which keep them anchored in place, and don't get me started on the Crypts et al. I do think that for the most part, the roots' main function is anchorage.. but at the same time, a lot of rosette plants appear to benefit from root fertilisation, so they must retain at least some feeding function.

[I wrote that about 6 hours ago, just never got round to posting, planting is now complete and I'm going to have fun watching the plants survive at 0.6 wpg after they had been used to 1.2 wpg, at least until I can get some new lights. Thank god that the spare tubes which came with the tank were daylight instead of actinic and rosy.]

 

[KateT]

Ammonia has processed within 24 hours for the first time

Nitrates a bit high, but water change tomorrow should sort them out.

 

[waterdrop]

You know, it's funny, I was just sitting here thinking about the plant thing. They are really so slow, at least assuming you're not doing a planted tank with pressurized and all that, which I assume you're not. Roots on submerged plants are such a different thing, somewhat left over or having a lot to do with the period of the year when the plants are emergent (which the vast majority of the selections the hobby has ended up with are (well it would be hard to put a percentage on it, but a lot I'd say.) With non-aquatic terrestrials I think stimulation/need for a big strong root system is driven by the powerful need for water. But once plants evolved back into water environments water became readily available and could be absorbed all over the plant, so you see slower and less root development. Of course it varies widely by species.

WD, I always enjoy reading your posts and right at this moment, I still have water dripping off of my hands as I am half way through replanting my main display tank after an upgrade.. and I'm thinking "I think someone forgot to tell my plants that they're always underwater"! Even my Hygrophila have extensive root systems which keep them anchored in place, and don't get me started on the Crypts et al. I do think that for the most part, the roots' main function is anchorage.. but at the same time, a lot of rosette plants appear to benefit from root fertilisation, so they must retain at least some feeding function.

[I wrote that about 6 hours ago, just never got round to posting, planting is now complete and I'm going to have fun watching the plants survive at 0.6 wpg after they had been used to 1.2 wpg, at least until I can get some new lights. Thank god that the spare tubes which came with the tank were daylight instead of actinic and rosy.]

Yes, that's me with my coffee, yakking about stuff that plant evolutionists talk about and I agree that in practice you don't much of it. My swords and others have extensive root systems too. Anchoring againt water flow is still a big thing and there are also plenty of opportunities for nutrient pickup out in the natural world. For light I'm currently doing 1.04 (probably less because the tubes are old) and I can never keep track of what LL and the planted gang are doing, for all I know they are perfectly happy with things like .6 lol, have you kept up with them? WD