Will The Bacteria Die?

[Jason1039]

My 10 gallon tank is now pretty much empty due to the fact that my betta died not too long ago. All I have left is some java fern, and driftwood.There are of course no other fish in my tank.I was wondering if my beneficial bacteria will starve to death since there is no source of ammonia for it to feed on.I don't know when I'll be getting more fish,so is it OK to use some pure ammonia after every water change or even just once a month?Just about 1ml (or just enough to get my ammonia to 1ppm).
*If it helps,I cycled the tank to 4ppm*

Is there something else I could do or add (besides fish *for now*) to feed the bacteria?

I still continue to test the water once a week,along with water changes,as if there were fish in the tank.

AMMONIA=0ppm
NITRITES=0ppm
NITRATES=5ppm

 

[starlitsunrise]

Hello

Sorry to learn about your betta. I would follow this from the cycling guide:

"If for any reason you are unable to stock the tank when it is cycled, you can continue adding ammonia to keep the tank cycled. For this you should add the 1/3 snack amount every 2-3 days. The bacteria do not need to be fed every day and will be fine. Dont forget the water change before adding the fish."

The 1/3 amount would be enough to get to about 1ppm.

Hope this helps!

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Yes you can kep your bacteria active by dosing ammonia ever few days. The problem is that he longer you do this, the greater the likelihood the tank will develop algae, perhaps a lot of it. There is no way to work out how much ammonia one can dose for how long before this happens.
 
If you plan to stock fully down the road in one go and more than a couple of weeks have e;apsed. I suggest you up the dose to 2 ppm about a week before the new fish come in. This will insure the tank is for sure up to strength.
 
As for cycling the tank to 4 ppm. There was no need for that level. The extra bacteria you colonized died back to match the bioload of the tank over time. The more ammonia one uses, the longer any given tank takes to cycle. It takes longer to cycle a tank to process 4 ppm of ammonia to nitrate than to do the same with 2 ppm.

 

[Jason1039]

Thank you both for your replies.I assume if I add more ammonia I will get nitrite and higher nitrate readings. So basically this means that every time I add more ammonia I would be getting a mini cycle everytime.Correct?

Yes you can kep your bacteria active by dosing ammonia ever few days. The problem is that he longer you do this, the greater the likelihood the tank will develop algae, perhaps a lot of it. There is no way to work out how much ammonia one can dose for how long before this happens.
 
If you plan to stock fully down the road in one go and more than a couple of weeks have e;apsed. I suggest you up the dose to 2 ppm about a week before the new fish come in. This will insure the tank is for sure up to strength.
 
As for cycling the tank to 4 ppm. There was no need for that level. The extra bacteria you colonized died back to match the bioload of the tank over time. The more ammonia one uses, the longer any given tank takes to cycle. It takes longer to cycle a tank to process 4 ppm of ammonia to nitrate than to do the same with 2 ppm.

Hello
Sorry to learn about your betta. I would follow this from the cycling guide:
"If for any reason you are unable to stock the tank when it is cycled, you can continue adding ammonia to keep the tank cycled. For this you should add the 1/3 snack amount every 2-3 days. The bacteria do not need to be fed every day and will be fine. Dont forget the water change before adding the fish."
The 1/3 amount would be enough to get to about 1ppm.
Hope this helps!

 

[Gruntle]

You wouldn't be getting a mini-cycle every time. The bacteria would be doing their job.

 

[RobRocksFishTank]

In a way, he is right about the "mini-cycle". The ammonia to nitrate "cycle" does happen, only a lot quicker once the appropriate colony has been established.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Once you have established your nitrifying bacteria, you should never see ammonia or nitrite, only nitrate and in some systems, especially ones with live plants, you may not even see that either.
 
In order to get a nitrite reading in a fully cycled tank, you need to put in more ammonia than the ammonia bacs can handle. You need to cause them to reproduce to handle it and that would mean the greater numbers would be producing nitrite faster than the nitrite bacs could convert it. And this would produce a nitrite reading. In a fully cycled tank there is a "proper" balance between the two bacterial colonies such that the nitrite bacs can handle as much nitrite as the ammonia bacs can produce.
 
There is one big difference between adding ammonia to a tank to get it cycled and the way ammonia is produced in that tank after it has been cycled  and then fully stocked. In the case of cycling we add a full day's worth of ammonia which would result from full stocking all in one go. In a stocked tank it takes about a day to produce that total amount of ammonia. This is why in cycling one is told to add 2 or 3 ppm and then test in 24 hours. If you wanted to replicate while cycling how things would actually happen in a tank, you would be dosing very tiny amounts or ammonia every few minutes all day long that combined would equal that 2 or 3 ppm.
 
Once you have finished cycling the tank but have not stocked it, the bacteria need some ammonia to keep them going. So you dose an amount greater than what they can handle instantly. So you will have some ammonia reading while all that ammonia is waiting to be converted. But as it is converted the nitrite bacs will immediately do their part. Unlike the ammonia which enters the tank all in one go, the nitrite is created over time by the ammonia bacs. The nitrite bacs are able to handle that amount as it is produced.
 
The end result is you will be able to test ammonia in the tank from the time you add it until it has all been processed some hours later but you wont get any test results for nitrite. However, if you added 1 ppm of nitrite to the tank instead of ammonia, you would test that for some hours just as you could for the ammonia.

 

[Jason1039]

I added some ammonia the day before yesterday to about 2ppm. When I checked the ammonia and nitrite reading the very next day it said the ammonia was .50ppm and nitrite were 1ppm. TODAY I check the ammonia and nitrite readings and the ammonia was .25ppm with nitrite being .25ppm also. I'm very confused since I thought the ammonia and nitrite were supposed to be able to drop down to 0ppm within 12-24 hours while rising the nitrate. But instead it took more like a day and a half. So now I really dont know what's going on in my tank. I'm contemplating whether or not I did something wrong.

Once you have established your nitrifying bacteria, you should never see ammonia or nitrite, only nitrate and in some systems, especially ones with live plants, you may not even see that either.
 
In order to get a nitrite reading in a fully cycled tank, you need to put in more ammonia than the ammonia bacs can handle. You need to cause them to reproduce to handle it and that would mean the greater numbers would be producing nitrite faster than the nitrite bacs could convert it. And this would produce a nitrite reading. In a fully cycled tank there is a "proper" balance between the two bacterial colonies such that the nitrite bacs can handle as much nitrite as the ammonia bacs can produce.
 
There is one big difference between adding ammonia to a tank to get it cycled and the way ammonia is produced in that tank after it has been cycled  and then fully stocked. In the case of cycling we add a full day's worth of ammonia which would result from full stocking all in one go. In a stocked tank it takes about a day to produce that total amount of ammonia. This is why in cycling one is told to add 2 or 3 ppm and then test in 24 hours. If you wanted to replicate while cycling how things would actually happen in a tank, you would be dosing very tiny amounts or ammonia every few minutes all day long that combined would equal that 2 or 3 ppm.
 
Once you have finished cycling the tank but have not stocked it, the bacteria need some ammonia to keep them going. So you dose an amount greater than what they can handle instantly. So you will have some ammonia reading while all that ammonia is waiting to be converted. But as it is converted the nitrite bacs will immediately do their part. Unlike the ammonia which enters the tank all in one go, the nitrite is created over time by the ammonia bacs. The nitrite bacs are able to handle that amount as it is produced.
 
The end result is you will be able to test ammonia in the tank from the time you add it until it has all been processed some hours later but you wont get any test results for nitrite. However, if you added 1 ppm of nitrite to the tank instead of ammonia, you would test that for some hours just as you could for the ammonia.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Your tank is not fully cycled based on what you just reported. It looks to be close though. You are about here:
 

 
After the maintenance feeding (snack Dose #3), whenever you test and ammonia is .25 ppm or lower and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, it is time to add another full ammonia dose (Dose #4) and then test in 24 hours.
 
 If ammonia and nitrite both read 0 ppm, you are cycled. Do a large water change, be sure the water is the proper temperature, and add fish. The odds are this will not be the case quite this soon.
 
 If ammonia and nitrite do not both read zero, continue to test daily. Whenever ammonia is again at .25 ppm or less and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, add the full amount of ammonia (Dose #5) and test in 24 hours. Follow this pattern of testing and adding (this would be Dose #6, #7 etc.) until both tests do read 0 ppm within 24 hours. The cycle should not take much longer to be completed and even with slower tanks one should not need to go beyond Dose #6 or #7.

 
I would say you are at the final paragraph stage or just about. At .25/.25 you are ready to dose ammonia again and test in 24.
 
Forget the 12 hours, work with 24. As I posted above, cycling cannot exactly replicate how a tank works. We add a single dose to achieve what a tank might make in a full day.

 

[RobRocksFishTank]

Isn't it possible that his tank was cycled for a smaller amount of ammonia and the reason for the delay in processing is because the tank was not ready for the extra load?
 
I would still proceed as instructed to get ready for re-stocking. I was just looking to clear things up for the OP.

 

[Jason1039]

Considering the fact that it is a 10 gallon tank cycled to 4ppm with just one betta as source of ammonia, I do believe that my betta could not produce no where near 4ppm, so the extra bacteria defiantly died off.

Isn't it possible that his tank was cycled for a smaller amount of ammonia and the reason for the delay in processing is because the tank was not ready for the extra load?
 
I would still proceed as instructed to get ready for re-stocking. I was just looking to clear things up for the OP.

Your tank is not fully cycled based on what you just reported. It looks to be close though. You are about here:
 

 
After the maintenance feeding (snack Dose #3), whenever you test and ammonia is .25 ppm or lower and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, it is time to add another full ammonia dose (Dose #4) and then test in 24 hours.
 
 If ammonia and nitrite both read 0 ppm, you are cycled. Do a large water change, be sure the water is the proper temperature, and add fish. The odds are this will not be the case quite this soon.
 
 If ammonia and nitrite do not both read zero, continue to test daily. Whenever ammonia is again at .25 ppm or less and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, add the full amount of ammonia (Dose #5) and test in 24 hours. Follow this pattern of testing and adding (this would be Dose #6, #7 etc.) until both tests do read 0 ppm within 24 hours. The cycle should not take much longer to be completed and even with slower tanks one should not need to go beyond Dose #6 or #7.

 
I would say you are at the final paragraph stage or just about. At .25/.25 you are ready to dose ammonia again and test in 24.
 
Forget the 12 hours, work with 24. As I posted above, cycling cannot exactly replicate how a tank works. We add a single dose to achieve what a tank might make in a full day.

They problem is, the first time I cycled this tank I did in fact fully cycled it. My ammonia and nitrite both dropped to 0 within a day of adding the lowered 3ppm dose. My nitrates were about 80ppm and then I did a water change. So I now believe that a good amount of the bacteria have died off and they are building up again.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It doesn't really matter if one is starting with an uncycled tank or has a cycled tank in which a some or all of the bacteria are killed off. Getting the tank to or back to fully cycled are pretty much the same process. The one difference is how much time that might take. I do not think all of your bacteria was lost but it is also not at the same level otr there would be neither ammonia or nitrite.
 
I would still recommend you proceed as I suggested above.
 
Once a tank is fully cycled for its fish load, the only ways to see an ammonia reading is either for something to be done which increases the ammonia- usually adding too many more fish at once or else something is done to kill off part or all of the bacteria. Of course, a combination of the two is also possible.