Dodders' Fishless Cycle

[waterdrop]

Good to see a case of it doing well. Maybe Tetra have been playing with their formula and have improved it. It's also useful to have a fishless cycler just using it as an initial supplement to a standard ammonia fishless cycle which is how I always think it should be used (partly because it gives us something to push and compare against.)

It is true that our two species of bacteria are among those who can be in a spore-like state and survive a long time. That's made me think that there has just been something wrong about the storage or the "unlocking" back in to the active state or something of that nature that has given us such universal observations of most of the bacteria-in-a-bottle things rarely working.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Dodders]

A few days ago I changed to testing at 12hrs, dosing in the morning and testing in the evening. Ammonia has been clearing in 12hrs from that point but Nitrite still tests around 2ppm, which didn't really surprise me at the start. What did surprise me a little is that the Nitrite is still reading 1-2ppm at the 24hr mark, when it had been clearing in 24hrs. PH is 7.8, Nitrate is in the >40ppm 'unreadable' zone. Do you suppose that when I changed the dosing from PM to AM, the extra twelve hours of 'starvation' knocked back the N-bacs enough to cause this? Nothing else has changed to the best of my knowledge.

 

[waterdrop]

One of the concerns/discussions in the distant past has been that different species groups gain dominance among the colonies based on different sets of conditions. Two examples, for instance, are when we dose up around 8ppm and when we provide higher oxygen exposure. Kitty Kat has mentioned recently in one of the threads about the possibility that a different variation of autotroph gains some prominance on the biowheels that spin up in the air, as opposed to the fully submerged biomedia. Anyway, the thoughts I'm remembering centered around whether some of the bottled spores might source a different fraction pattern of species or simply different species altogether if the method of growing them in the first place is different or if the ammonia source during storage has to be higher to last longer (think of how will consume x ppm per day - they might be expected to do this during storage also.)

[It's also important to remember that the reason we keep our concentrations below 8ppm is partly because this helps to ensure the Nitrosomonas/Nitrospira dominance rather than what are reported to be different species at the higher concentrations. The concerns are that the different species gains proportion at the higher concentrations (these other species also process ammonia and nitrite) but then dies off when steady concentrations become lower, leaving biofilms with dead cells blocking a percentage of the media surface area.]

So the discussion was that if a different species were sourced or gained percentage during storage, that might lead to different patterns of colony development being seen later once the bottled materials join the traditional freshwater fishless cycling process. And of course we have the usual wide variation in the other input source of Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira and others coming in via the tap water, which we've seen can have a fishless cycling process time between about 20 days and 100 days with no bottled products added.

None of this changes the actions of course. We're still just watching a fishless cycle here and should keep an eye out for the usual things, like pH drops.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[nehpets81]

The concerns are that the different species gains proportion at the higher concentrations (these other species also process ammonia and nitrite) but then dies off when steady concentrations become lower, leaving biofilms with dead cells blocking a percentage of the media surface area.]


~~waterdrop~~

Sorry to hijack this thread a bit but I'm wondering if this might have happened to my filter - would a swish around in the tank water remove biofilms with dead cells or does something else need to be done to remove them?

 

[waterdrop]

The concerns are that the different species gains proportion at the higher concentrations (these other species also process ammonia and nitrite) but then dies off when steady concentrations become lower, leaving biofilms with dead cells blocking a percentage of the media surface area.]


~~waterdrop~~

Sorry to hijack this thread a bit but I'm wondering if this might have happened to my filter - would a swish around in the tank water remove biofilms with dead cells or does something else need to be done to remove them?

Well, you've mixed two different subjects there nehpets. Biofilms on the media in the filter are the significant ones and were the ones I was discussing (most of the types of bacteria we discuss create biofilms.) Biofilms out in the tank, such as on the rubber suction cups or other inside tank surfaces are not of sufficient quantity for us to worry about with respect to cycling usually, so there's nothing wrong with cleaning them any way you wish, although most of us don't bother with that during cycling because you kind of want every little bit of bacteria that you can get, so why not wait until after the big water change plus a couple weeks before cleaning away all the visible biofilms.

If you've allowed your ammonia concentration to be up near the 8ppm range or higher for a significant period during a fishless cycle then there's not a lot you can do about the problem of the wrong species possibly having been established. Usually it just slows the fishless cycle a lot until it clears of its own accord. I suppose if one -knew- that there had been an extensive overdose period then it might help to replace perhaps 1/3 of the media with fresh media. Changing only 1/3 should leave you with plenty of bacteria to continue but taking away some blocked media and replacing it with fresh would provide fresh surfaces for the correct species to spread to.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Dodders]

Quite frustrating this isn't it? (particularly as I have no patience whatsoever!) Ammonia has been clearing within 12 hours for almost a fortnight, apart from a glitch for a couple of days, but nitrite's really hanging in there. Am I right in thinking this is quite common?

 

[KittyKat]

Have you tried a water change? Waterdrop and I think that it is possible to run out of *something* in the water which the bacteria require, most likely it is minerals or nutrients of some description.

 

[Dodders]

Thanks KK, I changed 50% last weekend which certainly appeared to settle the 'glitch' that I was experiencing (with levels starting to go back up again). If nothing much changes I'll try another this week. Do you suppose it could just be a result of the very high nitrate levels in the water? I have stopped testing it regularly as once it's above 40ppm it's so difficult to read the results!

 

[KittyKat]

I wouldn't imagine so, but can't say for certain. If a water change worked last time, I would definitely do another one then!

 

[Dodders]

I wouldn't imagine so, but can't say for certain. If a water change worked last time, I would definitely do another one then!

Ta, sounds like a plan!

 

[Gvilleguy]

I'm going on memory, but I am pretty sure I did a couple of big water changes during my cycle last year that seemed to kick start things when it seemed to stall, particularly during the nitrite phase.

 

[Dodders]

Thanks - looking like another water change may be on the cards for this week then!

I had to laugh at the appearance of a very speedy bladder snail over the weekend chomping away at the algae. Where did he come from?! Everything that went into the tank was sterilised (even the java fern I've stuck at the back) and the water has had nightmare levels of ammonia and nitrite for weeks but he seems happy as anything! If only fish were as easy to please...

 

[Dodders]

Did a big waterchange tonight - around 75%. Hopefully that'll kick it into doing something.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, tons of reasons we sometimes do water changes (although if everything is going ok we avoid them) during fishless cycling: sometimes the pH has dropped and we want to raise it, sometimes the nitrates are very high and we want to lower them and sometimes we think we need to provide fresh traces of things that the tap water has.

Let's look at those in more detail: Most cells, bacteria included, use calcium to help create some of their internal organelles, especially the structures that help give cellular shape or aid in movement. Magnesium is another useful trace and there are probably many others. What about lowering nitrate(NO3)? That's another tip from Hovanec, the scientist who has actually cycled aquariums in the course of published scientific work. He has said that the very nitrates(NO3) that the Nitrospira produce can cause them to slow their reproduction when they are subjected to higher concentrations of it (wouldn't be the first example of it not being good for an organism to swim in it's own waste, lol.) And what about the pH drop? Well, that's usually due also to high nitrate, which puts nitric acid in the tank when it's dissolved in water (as our nitrates always are) and as we know, bacterial growth activities can suffer when the pH drops.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Dodders]

Thanks Waterdrop, having checked the water this evening I think we may have the beginnings of a result!