TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
I recently took apart my last tank of breeding plecos- Hypancistrus L173. I need to pull the recent offspring. I fount 37 fish od which 17 were recent fry sized between 1/2 and 7/ of an inch. The other 21 ranged from and inch to 1.5 inches. Norma;;y I would have returned the fry to the breeder tank as they grow faster there. I was also face with the problem of not having any empty tanks which were fully cyled and ready to go. What I did have were 2 x 33L,
One of these contained the final dozen RB line, super white L236 (now Hypancistrus seideli) parker in a divided 33L. I had recently moved the divider so that the tank was more like 1/3 empty and the other 2/3 held the L236. I had a buyer coming for a few of these in the next few days, so I decided to park the 17 fry in the 1/3 of the tank that was open. I am a believer that there is a decent chance that the offspring will eat some poop from more mature individuals in order to get some of the needed gut bacteria. So I now need to suck some of this from the breeder tak and drop it into the 1/3 of the tank with the 236. I will do this the next time I do maint. on the breeder tank. I had done a major cleaning of the breeder tank when I caught the offspring.
When I pulled the offspring they spent 2 days in a 3.5 gal buket with a heater, and airstone and a kage chunk of Poly Filter to hand the ammonia the 37 gish would be making. I aklso change 1.2 the water over the next 2 days before resettling the fish in morre premanent quartess. The challenge was the other larger 21 fish.
What I had was an 33L which had one of my innovative Matten filter set-ups. Normally, I have a single 3 inch 20 ppi Poret foam sheet powered by air with 2 return tubes over to top of the foam which is my standard set-up for a Matten in a 33L. But on this tank I tried something different. It had two20 ppi Poret sheets, one one each end. One was air powered with a single retrn pver the top/ The other was placed on the opposite end of the tank and I gad drilled a hole throuh the bottom vert cllose to the front glass. Thw ewruen was a small, variable speed Eheim hobby pump. Thise pumped the down the front of the tank towards the Matten on the other end.Thos effectively create a circular folw patter in the tank and also psuhed water across the mouth of the caves arrayer acros the bootm fron of the tank.
The tank still held all the wood plus the slate. rocks and sand bottom that had been in the tank since The dual matten set-up was put in place. This tank had been well stocked for years but had not had any fish in it for many months. I would put a bit of ammonia into it occasionally but nut enough to maintain a cycle. What I did was to add 3+ ppm of ammonia to this tank to get it back to being cycled. The bacteria in the tank should not have died off but should have gone into a state of dormancy. That ammonia dose should have revived them. I was not sure how much ammonoum chloride I was adding as I mix my own and had not used the bottole of it in some time. Over time the ammonia will ecaporate some causeing the concentration fo decline over time.
So I waited a couple of hours after adding thea ammonia and tested. The reading was clearly over 2 ppm and no higher than 4. About 6 hours later I tested it again and the ammonia was clearly 2 ppm. I tested it again the nedt morning and the reading was about .25 ppm. Clearly there had been a fair amount of dormant bacteria in the tank and they had revived and gone back to work. Later in the day I did a 50% water change and added the 21 plecos.
The imporatnat thing here is that those 21 pleacos could be soold for anywhere from $150- $200 each. They would go for a bit less if sombody bought them all and picked them up instead of having them shipped. So, I would not have poyt them into that tank unless I was surethe tank was properly cycled to receive them.
The point here is that there were still enough viable bacteria "sleeping" in the media and sand as well as the rock and wood wher they could be out of the light. That one additionof ammonia was enough to wake them back up and have the tank cycled for the gish I added, In fact, I would bet I could have added even more fish than I did and still been safe.
The ammonia additions I had done early arlier had been done to keep the bacteria awak and ready to go. However, when I had no need for the tank to be ready to use I slacked off and stopped adding any ammonia. So, the bacteria went dormant. But the last addition I did was only about 6 to 8 weeks earlier. I kept the tank running but with no ammonia source in it. But I also knew that meant the bacteria were in the but dormant and nowehre near enough time had passed for them to have begun dying off naturally. My only question was how long and how many ammonia additions O would need to get them awake and working at very close to their ability to return to full viability.
However, the fish load I added was nowhere near the fish load that used to be in that tank for years. This is the norm for that I know happens to the bacteria in a cycled tank when ammonia is no longer there. The bacteria do not die off quickly, they go dormant and can be revived despite the passage of time. I also know there is a limit to the amount of time this will be the case, It is also why bacteria in a bottle can survive for many months. According to Dr. Hoavanec this is 6 months or so at room temp. and almost a year if refridgerated..
However, those times are for the bacteria to wake back up and return to having the same or close to the same oxidizing capacity as they had when they went dormant. There is some degrading as the time period extends and eventually the amount of surviving bacteria will no longer be enough to be of great value in terms of a tank being rapidly cyled. However, a loss of that level of viability does not mean that no bacteria will survive. There will be a number of individuals that will still revive. All it takes to start a new functional colony is a very few individuals. But for them to reach the level of making a tank safe will not help much in terms of jump starting the cycle, But, it will also not be zero survivors. It will just mean that there are enough to form the base of a cycle but the time to reach a full cycle in a tank such that one can stock 100% at the end will be about the same as a standard fishless cycle done with whatever bacteria one might naturally have at the outset. This is why the bacteria have survivie for millions of years even when times Make it impossible fot them to reproduce. All it takes to establish a cycle is a single viable bacterium even if this means it will take many months to reach a sizable number.
One of these contained the final dozen RB line, super white L236 (now Hypancistrus seideli) parker in a divided 33L. I had recently moved the divider so that the tank was more like 1/3 empty and the other 2/3 held the L236. I had a buyer coming for a few of these in the next few days, so I decided to park the 17 fry in the 1/3 of the tank that was open. I am a believer that there is a decent chance that the offspring will eat some poop from more mature individuals in order to get some of the needed gut bacteria. So I now need to suck some of this from the breeder tak and drop it into the 1/3 of the tank with the 236. I will do this the next time I do maint. on the breeder tank. I had done a major cleaning of the breeder tank when I caught the offspring.
When I pulled the offspring they spent 2 days in a 3.5 gal buket with a heater, and airstone and a kage chunk of Poly Filter to hand the ammonia the 37 gish would be making. I aklso change 1.2 the water over the next 2 days before resettling the fish in morre premanent quartess. The challenge was the other larger 21 fish.
What I had was an 33L which had one of my innovative Matten filter set-ups. Normally, I have a single 3 inch 20 ppi Poret foam sheet powered by air with 2 return tubes over to top of the foam which is my standard set-up for a Matten in a 33L. But on this tank I tried something different. It had two20 ppi Poret sheets, one one each end. One was air powered with a single retrn pver the top/ The other was placed on the opposite end of the tank and I gad drilled a hole throuh the bottom vert cllose to the front glass. Thw ewruen was a small, variable speed Eheim hobby pump. Thise pumped the down the front of the tank towards the Matten on the other end.Thos effectively create a circular folw patter in the tank and also psuhed water across the mouth of the caves arrayer acros the bootm fron of the tank.
The tank still held all the wood plus the slate. rocks and sand bottom that had been in the tank since The dual matten set-up was put in place. This tank had been well stocked for years but had not had any fish in it for many months. I would put a bit of ammonia into it occasionally but nut enough to maintain a cycle. What I did was to add 3+ ppm of ammonia to this tank to get it back to being cycled. The bacteria in the tank should not have died off but should have gone into a state of dormancy. That ammonia dose should have revived them. I was not sure how much ammonoum chloride I was adding as I mix my own and had not used the bottole of it in some time. Over time the ammonia will ecaporate some causeing the concentration fo decline over time.
So I waited a couple of hours after adding thea ammonia and tested. The reading was clearly over 2 ppm and no higher than 4. About 6 hours later I tested it again and the ammonia was clearly 2 ppm. I tested it again the nedt morning and the reading was about .25 ppm. Clearly there had been a fair amount of dormant bacteria in the tank and they had revived and gone back to work. Later in the day I did a 50% water change and added the 21 plecos.
The imporatnat thing here is that those 21 pleacos could be soold for anywhere from $150- $200 each. They would go for a bit less if sombody bought them all and picked them up instead of having them shipped. So, I would not have poyt them into that tank unless I was surethe tank was properly cycled to receive them.
The point here is that there were still enough viable bacteria "sleeping" in the media and sand as well as the rock and wood wher they could be out of the light. That one additionof ammonia was enough to wake them back up and have the tank cycled for the gish I added, In fact, I would bet I could have added even more fish than I did and still been safe.
The ammonia additions I had done early arlier had been done to keep the bacteria awak and ready to go. However, when I had no need for the tank to be ready to use I slacked off and stopped adding any ammonia. So, the bacteria went dormant. But the last addition I did was only about 6 to 8 weeks earlier. I kept the tank running but with no ammonia source in it. But I also knew that meant the bacteria were in the but dormant and nowehre near enough time had passed for them to have begun dying off naturally. My only question was how long and how many ammonia additions O would need to get them awake and working at very close to their ability to return to full viability.
However, the fish load I added was nowhere near the fish load that used to be in that tank for years. This is the norm for that I know happens to the bacteria in a cycled tank when ammonia is no longer there. The bacteria do not die off quickly, they go dormant and can be revived despite the passage of time. I also know there is a limit to the amount of time this will be the case, It is also why bacteria in a bottle can survive for many months. According to Dr. Hoavanec this is 6 months or so at room temp. and almost a year if refridgerated..
However, those times are for the bacteria to wake back up and return to having the same or close to the same oxidizing capacity as they had when they went dormant. There is some degrading as the time period extends and eventually the amount of surviving bacteria will no longer be enough to be of great value in terms of a tank being rapidly cyled. However, a loss of that level of viability does not mean that no bacteria will survive. There will be a number of individuals that will still revive. All it takes to start a new functional colony is a very few individuals. But for them to reach the level of making a tank safe will not help much in terms of jump starting the cycle, But, it will also not be zero survivors. It will just mean that there are enough to form the base of a cycle but the time to reach a full cycle in a tank such that one can stock 100% at the end will be about the same as a standard fishless cycle done with whatever bacteria one might naturally have at the outset. This is why the bacteria have survivie for millions of years even when times Make it impossible fot them to reproduce. All it takes to establish a cycle is a single viable bacterium even if this means it will take many months to reach a sizable number.
from https://www.drtimsaquatics.com/products/one-and-only-live-nitrifying-bacteria/
