Temperature Too High

RobynR

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Haven't posted here in a while, but I just figured something out and thought I'd come share my stupid mistake in the hopes that maybe someone else out there will be able to avoid it. I worked on fishless cycling for about 8 weeks and then my pH started crashing daily. I had gotten some mature media from a generous member of a local fishkeeping group, and even that hadn't cycled the tank. Once the pH was crashing daily I got frustrated and decided to try Seachem Stability since several people recommended it from personal experience. That did actually cycle my tank in a week and I've now started stocking the tank. It was still driving me nuts that I couldn't figure out why my tank just wouldn't cycle normally, and today I finally found the answer.

My heater doesn't have a temperature indicator on it -- you just have to tweak it until your (separate) thermometer tells you the temperature is right. If I'd realized that when I was buying the heater, I'd have gotten a different one, but I didn't and by the time I realized it my baby was down for a nap and I was too impatient to wait to go return and exchange it the next day. Definitely a mistake. The thermometer is a little glass one that sits in on the bottom of the tank. The way the temperatures are indicated, it's a little confusing trying to figure out which line goes with which temperature. I was just looking at the thing today and suddenly realized that I've been reading temperatures 10 degrees lower than they actually are. So I thought I had the tank at 85F to cycle, but it was actually at 95 -- I can't imagine that was a very friendly environment for bacteria. Seachem claims that the bacteria in Stability will tolerate a much wider range of temperatures, which must be why that worked when nothing else would.

Unfortunately this means that the poor corys I added to the tank this weekend have been in 86-degree water instead of 76 like I thought. I've already started to gradually drop the temperature to something more tolerable for them. I feel awful, but at least they haven't been acting stressed. Poor things. I've been watching so closely for ammonia and nitrite, but didn't realize I was making them live in higher temperatures than they like.

Anyhow, I just wanted to share in hopes that at least I can help someone else avoid making the same mistake.
 
I wouldn't worry about it to much. I live in Texas and we have been getting above 100 weather pretty consistantly all summer long. Because of this we can't really afford to keep our house AC on lower than 84 F, so therefor the water in all 3 of our tanks have been at that same temp. Between, the three tanks we have everything from Tetras to Mbunas to Balas to a Puffer (and more) and nothing has behaved as if they were adversely affected.
 
Oh that's quite interesting Robyn! I remember your struggle and your thread here. Actually, the reason I ended up settling on 84F/29C as being a good fishless cycling temperature was because of some reports of possibly having problems at higher temperatures. Certainly 95F would be getting way on up there in a place where not many have experimented! This certainly would explain why your problems seemed different from so many others even though you were being quite careful and were communicating better than many other fishless cyclers do! Thanks for posting. I for one may decide in the future to question some beginners temp a little more closely if they're having mysterious problems we can't diagnose otherwise, so this was valuable info! :)

~~waterdrop~~
 
It really did seem like I was having weird problems. Everything would look good and then I'd be right back to the beginning. I also tried a product called Biozyme that gave me good results for a few days and then stopped working. At the time I assumed the good readings were just some sort of gimmick in the product to temporarily lower toxins, but now I wonder if it did work until the temperature killed off the bacteria. Also, ammonia and nitrites were dropping all along, but really slowly and sometimes more slowly than other times. I'm thinking maybe a portion of the bacteria could handle the temperature but not enough to cycle the tank or keep results consistent. I used the Biozyme in my 5-gallon betta tank because I figured a temporary reduction in toxins would be a good thing with a fish-in cycle. I was prepared to do daily water changes, but never really got ammonia or nitrite readings in that tank but I have seen nitrates... so maybe the stuff actually works.

I was so sure I was doing everything right, so it was really frustrating not get the results I should have. It's kind of irritating to realize what I did wrong and that it was such a stupid thing, but having the answer does make me feel a lot better! At least now I know I probably was doing everything else right. And another plus is that I can say that fishless cycling with Seachem Stability worked for me -- maybe that would be helpful for impatient people who want to start a tank in a week, and keep them from doing a fish-in cycle. I'm still stocking gradually and keeping a close eye on things, but after a week with fish in the tank I've seen 0 ammonia and nitrites, testing every 12 hours for the first few days and every 24 hours after that.

Really do appreciate all of your help and encouragement with the cycling process!
 
Your case does provide another data point to the possibility that the top of the optimal temperature curve drops off like the optimal pH curve does. Its certainly a possibility, since biological systems rarely ever straight-line on these types of things.

One thing to remember that's been brought out in past bottled bacteria discussions is that often the main species of bacteria that's bottled (if there's any species specificity at all) is for one of the other species of autotrophs that also process ammonia or nitrite but are among the species that compete with the ones we want and will finally end up with (an example would be nitrobacter rather than nitrospira for instance.) These bacteria can of course be deceptive (given the tools we hobbyists are limited to) because they will process the same toxins for a while but will then die off when the conditions turn out to be not quite right for them. The very reason that our two (Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira are presumed currently) are "the right" two, is because they are optimal for the same conditions we will run our tropical fish tanks at.

The other interesting tidbit picked up from these discussions in the past is that -some- of the bottled bacteria products don't actually mean that they are bottling -either- of our two species when they say they have bacteria in the bottle, instead they are bottling -heterotrophs,- which are the bacteria that stay in the water, detached from the surfaces and which form the bacterial blooms we sometimes see in new tanks. The theory they are going on is that putting heterotrophs into an empty tank will promote ammonia production as those bacteria find and convert stray organics in the tank. So, what in effect they are saying is that they are selling you a (probably expensive) version of "indirect" ammonia.. ammonia that's not as easily measurable as pure aqueous ammonia.

~~waterdrop~~
 

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