A Little Thought Here

Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
4,502
Reaction score
1
Location
Calgary Alberta
I was thinking, when you add new fish your always get a nitrogen spike, due to excess ammonia and not enough bacteria in your tank to take care of it. I was thinking there might be a way to help the mini cycle, theoretically, a few water changes before you add new fish, what if you slowly weened down the amount of water/gravel you siphoned per water change? A little extra debris (slowly built up) would cause more bacteria to grow and break it down, if you did it slowly there wouldn't be much of a spike. When you are ready to add the fish you can do a large water change, but you would have more bacteria built up to help process the new fish. What do you guys think, would it work?
 
That sounds somewhat logical.

At first I misunderstood you and thought you meant that if you let a cycling tank get dirtier, the cycle will go faster, and was about to jump on it and get ready to explain that the bacteria don't necessarily eat all of the available ammonia...

But I see that you mean, when an already-cycled tank, with fish in it, is expecting a new arrival, you purposely let the tank get a bit dirtier in order for the bacteria to reproduce to a larger level, then clean up after adding the new fish?

I wonder too, would that be feasable? Sounds like it could be bang on, or totally off the mark. I can't tell which. :crazy: lol
 
Thing is - the debris (fish poo etc) would likely build up far more than to cover the amount of new fish waste introduced.. The stuff we see on the gravel is only half the story. There is waste from the fishes gills, and any liquid wastes that are passed. The poo on the bottom of the tank is only an indication of the waste.

Plus debris from other tank stuff like wood being chewed up and leaves decomposing creates another type of water pollutent (extra tannins are released - phosphates etc are produced/released) which could add to fishes stress and your stress "Ugh - my waters going brown"

I think it would work better (although you gave the idea so well done!) to simply reduce the feeding of the fish on the day that the new fish arrive. This would mean the current stock would not be producing as much waste as normal, and the new fish's waste would add up to the full bio-load. You can then increase feeding gently and so increase the number of bacteria in the filter.


Mind you - it all depends how long it is left uncleaned. Great ideas - never ever even thought about it.
 
The problem is that a spike here or there does not equal a sustained increase in production. The bacteria count levels off at a level where the amount of nutrient consumed by the bacteria is exactly equal to the amount produced by the fish. When you get spike up, the amount of bacteria will increase, but then once that spiked level is not sustained, the amount of bacteria will die back down again. In the end, you are exactly where you started -- at the level where consumption equals production.
 
I see. Just a little food for thought. Wasn't going to try it but thought it would be a good theoretical discussion. I see now that it is probably not feasible. :good:
 

Most reactions

Back
Top