Cycling With Fish?

[Miss Wiggle]

interesting stuff pastabake, i hadn't spotted that topic by bignose, iformative read though, just to clarify a couple of points though

the filter and tank can be cycled but unable to handle a full load of fish, at the start of the thread bignose say's he works on the assumption that the fish produce 1ppm of ammonia. In reality a full load fish produce more like 5ppm, the use of 5ppm in fishless cycling is because you intend to stock with a full load of fish at the end

The tank in bignose’s experiment would be able to handle a fishload producing 1ppm of ammonia, however if you fully stocked the tank and as such had a fishload producing approx 5ppm of ammonia, it would cycle again to catch up. So it is necessary to use 5ppm unless you intend to stock the tank very lightly.

While bignose’s experiment proves interesting reading and makes a valid point (which I have always maintained, when cycling with fish you should do regular water changes) it is an experiment and you need to remember that as an experiment, to translate those results to real fish keeping, some adjustments must be made!

Secondly re the test strips, if you say you give the accuracy of readings a score between 1 and 10, say 10 is wildy inaccurate and 1 is v precise. To start fishless cycling you need about a 6/7, by the time you finish you need a ¾. Test strips I would rate about 9, and as such not good enough for anything! Even liquid tests would come in about 3, because you need a science lab to get truly accurate results.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, test strips are so inaccurate that they are no good for any fishkeeping purposes

 

[waterdrop]

<...> In reality a full load fish produce more like 5ppm, the use of 5ppm in fishless cycling is because you intend to stock with a full load of fish at the end <...>

This is a bit off-topic and detailed but I've been asking around for awhile about how the group consensus arrived at 5-6ppm as the desirable upper limit for the first stage of fishless cycling. Yesterday I received a very interesting answer from backtotropical, part of which I'll quote here:

"What actually happens is that when ammonia reaches a certain level (i believe the level to be around 8ppm, but will most likely depend on other factors), it will encourage the growth of alternative types of bacteria. These bacteria are still ammonia and nitrite oxidising bacteria, so will cycle the filter just the same, but they require a higher concentration of ammonia to sustain their growth.

These bacteria are not desireable in our tanks because as the ammonia level drops, they will die off leaving an uncycled filter. At that point, the common nitrosomonas and nitrospira bacterias found in our aquariums will take over, but will not be sufficiently cultured to deal with the bio-load. Hence, ammonia and nitrite spikes.

In essence, the encouragement of the growth of these alternative bacteria is detrimental to the growth of the desired bacteria, as they will compete for food.

Avoiding the growth of these alternative bacteria by keeping the ammonia level too low for them ensures that the correct bacteria colonise our filters, which in turn ensures that our filters stay 'cycled'.

Also, at even higher ammonia concentrations, i believe the ammonia can start to 'sterilise' the tank and inhibit the growth of the desireable bacteria."

Now I don't know how right this is but backtotropical is pretty good at digging up interesting bit that reach into the science end and this was by far the most detailed sounding explanation I've received.

Any thoughts Miss Wiggle? (BTW, my motivation is just curiosity, I just get interested in the "why" end of it sometimes because it seems fun. I'm repeatedly amazed at how many wonderful and practical procedures have been worked out by hobbyiests and groups like TFF in the years since I did this as a kid!)

 

[backtotropical]

<...> In reality a full load fish produce more like 5ppm, the use of 5ppm in fishless cycling is because you intend to stock with a full load of fish at the end <...>

This is a bit off-topic and detailed but I've been asking around for awhile about how the group consensus arrived at 5-6ppm as the desirable upper limit for the first stage of fishless cycling. Yesterday I received a very interesting answer from backtotropical, part of which I'll quote here:

"What actually happens is that when ammonia reaches a certain level (i believe the level to be around 8ppm, but will most likely depend on other factors), it will encourage the growth of alternative types of bacteria. These bacteria are still ammonia and nitrite oxidising bacteria, so will cycle the filter just the same, but they require a higher concentration of ammonia to sustain their growth.

These bacteria are not desireable in our tanks because as the ammonia level drops, they will die off leaving an uncycled filter. At that point, the common nitrosomonas and nitrospira bacterias found in our aquariums will take over, but will not be sufficiently cultured to deal with the bio-load. Hence, ammonia and nitrite spikes.

In essence, the encouragement of the growth of these alternative bacteria is detrimental to the growth of the desired bacteria, as they will compete for food.

Avoiding the growth of these alternative bacteria by keeping the ammonia level too low for them ensures that the correct bacteria colonise our filters, which in turn ensures that our filters stay 'cycled'.

Also, at even higher ammonia concentrations, i believe the ammonia can start to 'sterilise' the tank and inhibit the growth of the desireable bacteria."

Now I don't know how right this is but backtotropical is pretty good at digging up interesting bit that reach into the science end and this was by far the most detailed sounding explanation I've received.

Any thoughts Miss Wiggle? (BTW, my motivation is just curiosity, I just get interested in the "why" end of it sometimes because it seems fun. I'm repeatedly amazed at how many wonderful and practical procedures have been worked out by hobbyiests and groups like TFF in the years since I did this as a kid!)

http/www.fishforums.net/content/forum/22...icial-Bacteria/

(took me ages to find that again)

 

[waterdrop]

<...> In reality a full load fish produce more like 5ppm, the use of 5ppm in fishless cycling is because you intend to stock with a full load of fish at the end <...>

This is a bit off-topic and detailed but I've been asking around for awhile about how the group consensus arrived at 5-6ppm as the desirable upper limit for the first stage of fishless cycling. Yesterday I received a very interesting answer from backtotropical, part of which I'll quote here:

"What actually happens is that when ammonia reaches a certain level (i believe the level to be around 8ppm, but will most likely depend on other factors), it will encourage the growth of alternative types of bacteria. These bacteria are still ammonia and nitrite oxidising bacteria, so will cycle the filter just the same, but they require a higher concentration of ammonia to sustain their growth.

These bacteria are not desireable in our tanks because as the ammonia level drops, they will die off leaving an uncycled filter. At that point, the common nitrosomonas and nitrospira bacterias found in our aquariums will take over, but will not be sufficiently cultured to deal with the bio-load. Hence, ammonia and nitrite spikes.

In essence, the encouragement of the growth of these alternative bacteria is detrimental to the growth of the desired bacteria, as they will compete for food.

Avoiding the growth of these alternative bacteria by keeping the ammonia level too low for them ensures that the correct bacteria colonise our filters, which in turn ensures that our filters stay 'cycled'.

Also, at even higher ammonia concentrations, i believe the ammonia can start to 'sterilise' the tank and inhibit the growth of the desireable bacteria."

Now I don't know how right this is but backtotropical is pretty good at digging up interesting bit that reach into the science end and this was by far the most detailed sounding explanation I've received.

Any thoughts Miss Wiggle? (BTW, my motivation is just curiosity, I just get interested in the "why" end of it sometimes because it seems fun. I'm repeatedly amazed at how many wonderful and practical procedures have been worked out by hobbyiests and groups like TFF in the years since I did this as a kid!)

[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/forum/22...icial-Bacteria/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/forum/22...icial-Bacteria/[/URL]

(took me ages to find that again)

Very interesting, BTT,
I took a look at Hovanec's article in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, the most cited one in 1996 (he has a bunch of them so I can't tell if this is the critical one BigNose is referring to, its called "Comparative Analysis of Nitrifying Bacteria Associated with Freshwater and Marine Aquaria"). My last Limnology course was in the early 70s and this made me realize I certainly don't remember anything useful! Its a long leap to where these guys are.

So, couple questions:
1) Is the Applied and Environmental Microbiology journal a frequent place where we find refs to the bacterial types of interest to aquarists? I assume that journal has a much wider range of topics but I'm guessing most of the freshwater aquarium related articles tend to be confined to relatively small number of journals.
2) Newcomer ignorance #1: "Nitrification" -- I guess I had slipped into thinking this referred only to the ammonia to nitrite step but it is really a term that refers to the entire sequence from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate, right?
3) Newcomer ignorance #2: (this is really just laziness on my part, but..) I don't know my nitrosomonas from my nitrobacters from my nitrospiras (Hovanec refers to 6 types of AOBs and 5 types of NOBs!) At least this article contains a nice list so you can untangle them.
4) Newcomer ignorance #3: What's the difference between Chemolithoautotrophic bacteria and Heterotrophic bacteria? This seems pretty basic.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Any thoughts Miss Wiggle? (BTW, my motivation is just curiosity, I just get interested in the "why" end of it sometimes because it seems fun. I'm repeatedly amazed at how many wonderful and practical procedures have been worked out by hobbyiests and groups like TFF in the years since I did this as a kid!)

sounds reasonable to me, while i am interesting in the 'why's' and i always think we should question methods (otherwise we'd all still be using old water andd salt religiously) i'm not the most scientifically minded person on this forum by far!!

i know that there's is definatley a different species of nitrifying bacteria which grow in a lower pH (and doesn't a high concentration of ammonia increase the pH somewhat.... or have i made that up from somewhere ??? lol) than we conventionally use, therefore i see no reason why other species of bacteria will not grow in other conditions doing the same job. And likewise with the low pH bacteria if the pH rises they will die off leaving the tank uncycled.

for me the reason we stay at 5ppm is because as bignose said in the linked post above what we aim for in a cycled tank is for the rate of consumption to equal the rate of production.

So what we effectivley need to achieve is a bacteria population that can consume as much as a fully (sensibly) stocked tank of fish can produce, if you work at 1" per gallon (although as we know it's not always the best measure, if sensible for new tanks) then your fish will produce no more than 5ppm per day, therefore the cycled bacteria colony will support a full load of fish. A fully stocked tank may not produce 5ppm, so you will get some bacteria die off, the bacteria dying off in itself can produce ammonia and nitrite, so you've got your ammonia production going up, but consumption going down.... well you can see how that will end up, tank will start to cycle again. The die off from 5ppm of ammonia is gonna be relativley small, if you cycled a tank to consume 8ppm of ammonia the die off when you lightly stock it will be more considerable and that in itself could cause problems.

 

[waterdrop]

<...>
sounds reasonable to me, while i am interesting in the 'why's' and i always think we should question methods (otherwise we'd all still be using old water andd salt religiously) i'm not the most scientifically minded person on this forum by far!!

<...>

I know what you mean MW, going way off in scientific papers is a hit or miss thing for me, sometimes gets quite engrossing and other times it is too much - can be so time consuming trying to figure out one of those papers...

<...>

A fully stocked tank may not produce 5ppm, so you will get some bacteria die off, the bacteria dying off in itself can produce ammonia and nitrite, so you've got your ammonia production going up, but consumption going down.... well you can see how that will end up, tank will start to cycle again. The die off from 5ppm of ammonia is gonna be relativley small, if you cycled a tank to consume 8ppm of ammonia the die off when you lightly stock it will be more considerable and that in itself could cause problems.

<...>

Hovanec's work was kind of interesting because what he was showing was that if we fishless cycle up at about 8ppm a different type of bacteria altogether will bind to our substrates, eat our ammonia and out-compete the desirable bacteria. This "wrong" bacteria also converts ammonia to nitrite but as soon as we do our big water change (or otherwise provide less than about 8ppm ammonia) it will have a big die-off and we will be left with -less- ammonia oxidizing bacteria than we would have had if cultivated at the 4-5ppm level and maybe not even enough for a lighter fish load. (same effect as you describe above but due to a different reason (not enough of the right species got to grow in the first place.))

(oh well, as we were saying, mighty picky )
~~waterdrop~~

 

[pastabake]

Interesting reading and I'll be changing my plans a little.

I totally take your point about the strip tests and would whole heartedly agree if I thought degree rather than effect was what we were looking for during the cycling period. Of course I totally agree that you need the confirmation of the liquid tests at the end of the cycle and definitely before you put the fish in.

I'd say that because you're adding 1ppm a day and the bacteria needs time to establish, your concentrations will easily exceed 5ppm before they start to come down ... maybe for those that enjoy testing they should start around day 7 to make sure that 5ppm are always in the water. It also occurs to me, and taking the other comments into account, that it may be a better bet to cycle on 1ppm and then ramp up at the end when the now established bacteria can easily double up to required concentrations in a matter of days?

As I've just started cycling a tank - using the 1ppm method - I'll let you know how it goes and I'll ramp up the ammonia at the end +1pmm daily until I'm adding 5ppm to see if the bacteria responds quickly enough. That should still only make it a 25-6 day cycle which from reading a lot of cycling threads seems very reasonable.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Interesting reading and I'll be changing my plans a little.

I totally take your point about the strip tests and would whole heartedly agree if I thought degree rather than effect was what we were looking for during the cycling period. Of course I totally agree that you need the confirmation of the liquid tests at the end of the cycle and definitely before you put the fish in.

I'd say that because you're adding 1ppm a day and the bacteria needs time to establish, your concentrations will easily exceed 5ppm before they start to come down ... maybe for those that enjoy testing they should start around day 7 to make sure that 5ppm are always in the water. It also occurs to me, and taking the other comments into account, that it may be a better bet to cycle on 1ppm and then ramp up at the end when the now established bacteria can easily double up to required concentrations in a matter of days?

As I've just started cycling a tank - using the 1ppm method - I'll let you know how it goes and I'll ramp up the ammonia at the end +1pmm daily until I'm adding 5ppm to see if the bacteria responds quickly enough. That should still only make it a 25-6 day cycle which from reading a lot of cycling threads seems very reasonable.

regarding the highlighted bit above, this is essentially why most people recommend the 'add and wait' method as opposed to the 'add daily' method. If you add daily it'll ramp up to way above 5ppm to start off with, with add and wait you add to 5ppm, then when it drops singficantly you top it back up to 5ppm.

I'm interested to see how it works going from 1ppm then increasing it to 5 at the end, please keep a journal of your readings and how much you add each day then post it up when you're done