Dosing Smaller Amounts Of Ammonia At 12 Hour Intervals?

[locust267]

Hi all,

I'm on day 5 of my cycle, and today my nh3 measured 1.5ppm and no2 measured 1ppm.

I'm not in any hurry but I've been thinking and trying to research what the effect of dosing smaller amounts of ammonia at 12 hour intervals would be.

I'm aware that whilst ammonia is present in the system, the nitrobactor/nitrospira cannot transform no2 to no3.

I was wondering if instead of lets say for example:

NH3 measures 0 so bring the reading back up to 4ppm > As NH3 begins to drop no2 goes off the chart and perhaps stalls the cycle > As and when nh3 drops to near 0 (say toward the end of a 24 hour period) the nitrobactor/nitrospira begin to function but not having enough of a break to process the amounts of no2 needed to bring back to scale.

Doing this (literally only initially after you see the first ammonia 0 reading):

NH3 measures 0 so bring the reading back up to 2ppm > NH3 readings drop, but nitrosomas have has their "feed" > Nitrobacter/nitrospira have more of a break, able to process more no2 into no3 > Test NH3 after 12 hours, if at 0 then redose to 2ppm > Would nitrite levels read lower than usual given they have more breaks from ammonia to process??

After the no2 start dropping, you could then assume the nitrobacter/nitrospira are sufficient enough to start upping the nh3 to 4ppm at just 24hour intervals, and then 5ppm.

Sorry, it probably doesn't make much sense, just wondering what the effects of these more frequent breaks on the nitrobacter/nitrospira would have, in term of allowing them to multiply and work efficiently...

Thoughts and opinions please.

Vicki

 

[BigbruiserAl]

From what i can make out your just describing what we do in phase 2. When the nitrite spikes you can reduce ammonia to 2ppm then when your hiting 0 ammonia and 0 nitrate in 12 hours you just dose back to 4ppm ammonia and wait until it can do that in 12 hrs. 1pmm ammonia = approx 2.7ppm nirite so in phase 2 your just feeing bacteria and waiting for nitrites to catch up

 

[locust267]

From the articles i've read it says to up to 3-4ppm and only dose once every 24 hours regardless of what your 12 hour readings say?

 

[BigbruiserAl]

correct 1 dose in 24hr but when in phase 2 instead doing the normal 4ppm ammonia dose you can afford to reduce to 2ppm ammonia to let the nitrite process a bit untill it can hit 0

 

[locust267]

Could you split the 2ppm to do two doses of 1ppm every 12 hours and would that give the nitrite process a bit more "breathing room"?