How Fast Will Bacteria Die Without Ammonia Source?

[MikeO]

My tank has now cycled after just over 50 days of fishless cycling (yay!) and I am trying to source my fish - Difficult getting everything I want in one go from one place at the moment, but thats another story.

I am ready to do my final water change, but as I am having mbuna I need to let the limestone and my cichlid sand substrate (pH buffering) do their work in getting the pH and hardness of the water up to 7.5 - it is 6.5 out the tap and currently being held down to 7.0 by the nigh level of nitrate following the cycle.

How long will the bacteria survive without having ammonia added daily? I want to leave the new water time to get to a reasonable hardness and pH before I add the fish, but I obviously dont want the bacteria to die off in that time.

This must be a problem that has been come across before for a new mbuna setup?

Cheers

 

[waterdrop]

The big water change is mostly to get nitrate(NO3) out. At the end of the cycle both ammonia and nitrite are being reduced to zero within hours, so are not a big factor. You can actually add ammonia again a couple of times after the big water but before getting fish and in your case you could do these adds every other day to buy a few more days. Keep an eye on the nitrates and see if they build up.

~~waterdrop~~