is there a third cycling technique

[Ed4567]

Found another post- this time by Boomer:

Date: 24 Feb 2004 13:19:34
From: Boomer
Subject: Re: [water chemistry] Amquel+ and nitrites

First, Amquel + and Amquel are not quite the same. The + contains some buffers to help
keep the pH up. It is also the + that claims to remove Nitrate, which it doesn't, it just
masks the test kit. giving false readings. If you checked the sample water by other
analytical means the Nitrate is still there. Prime is not the same thing as Amquel and is
more sulfate base than Amquel and is why it smells more sulfate like. SeaChem has never
given an reaction series as to what it is and what the end products are.The dosage
required depends on concentration of the chloramines. High levels of chloramines will not
be removed by a single std dosage of Prime. Prime is SeaChems short answer to Amquel,
which still has patent rights.

Amquel is hydroxymethanesulfonate, which reacts with Ammonia and is a very complicated
chemical issue.Even the inventor is not sure of all the reaction and reaction products. In
short it ends up producing aminomethanesulfonate

NH3 + HOCH2SO3- --- > H2NCH2SO3- + H2O

This product is an Amine.Your tank has many other types of amines.You know what some of
them are, i.e. Vitamins are amines, all of which can go through normal bacterial
nitrification. The ammonia tied up in the amine makes it nontoxic.The normal break down
and bacterial nitrification will not yield all the ammonia at once or cause it to get to
toxic levels later. Ammonia will show up but more than likely will not be enough at any
one time to show measurable amounts. If all the ammonia in the water reacts with Amquel or
Prime there will be none there to measure but it is still there, tied up in the
aminomethanesulfonate and bacteria will still get it,only later.That tells you that if you
were trying to establish a bio-filter and added prime or Amquel, during the cycling , it
would be able to handle only very small bio-load. Similarly the bacterial population
density would be much smaller.Thus it would take much longer in time to get a well
established bio-filter. If you already had a well established bio-filter, in a sense, you
would be starving it, thus lowering its population density. You would not want to use this
stuff when trying to establish bio-filter. Its real purpose is to just remove Chloramines
and Chlorine from tap water or in an emergency, when for some reason, the ammonia levels
have gotten high , i.e.. something died.. Then you should stop using it.

You should not be dosing Prime or Amquel every day, that is not what it was designed for.
If you need to dose it every day there is a problem with you culture system. Some culture
people use it all the time but IMHO the system isn't set up right. If you have no ammonia
and are adding it just in case the ammonia_may_go up, I have seen no data on what happens
to it or how long it remains active. It is pretty much non-toxic from what I've seen.

Here is more on Amquel, which is the same exact thing as ClorAm-X

http/www.cloram-x.com/techdoc.htm

 

[sinistral]

Kind of has a definitive feel to it, doesn't it? Is he still active? I wonder if he knows what Ammo Lock 2 is... Thanks for posting that Ed4567~

 

[Torrean]

wow thanks a ton guys. But to be honest all that kinda made my head hurt a little. From what I took from ALL that was that noone knows a darn thing about ammo lock. But there is a dechlorinator out there (prime wasn't it) that is supposed to bind ammonia that will slow down but will not stop your cycle. ARGH I'm confused. Can someone simplify that. can bacteria eat the ammonia even after ammlock has bound it and if so are there negative effects.

"That tells you that if you
were trying to establish a bio-filter and added prime or Amquel, during the cycling , it
would be able to handle only very small bio-load. Similarly the bacterial population
density would be much smaller."

If this is true about ammolock then my ammonia should have gone up (on the test since it gives false reading for a while) a week or so after I treated with ammo lock. But it didn't. one-two (sorry should have kept better records) weeks after my ammonia spike My nI spiked and then went down. This should have been disrupted right?

 

[sinistral]

Torrean, unfortunately I don't think there is a simple answer, mainly because nobody knows what it is.

If you believe the company line, all of these products will render ammonia non-toxic and will not interfere with a cycle.

If you believe individual reports from chemistry-savvy people on the net, there could be hypothetical problems with using ammonia "locking" products, including delaying the progress of a cycle, promoting growth of bacteria other than nitrosomonas and nitrospira, and inaccurate water testing results.

The only way to establish whether these will work in the way you proposed I think is to design an experiment and run some trials.

 

[Torrean]

So has anyone out there used ammolockand nI lock through an entire cycle and if so how long did it take? When did you quit using the stuff and how did you know it was cycled?

 

[Opcn]

the ammolock locks up the ammonia and as a result does not allow the bacteria to put the Nitrogen throught the cycle, as a result it cannot be considered a cycle. however biospira can be considered a third form of cycle as it is acctualyl seeding the gravle with bacteria and all that jazz

 

[Torrean]

not trying to second guess you so don't take offense. But what do you base this on? How do you know the ammonia is not still eaten by the bacteria.

 

[Opcn]

Because ammolock puts it into a form were it is not in the water column, you have to replace the ammolock every month or so, that how it works. Right on the box it probably tells you that it traps the ammonia.

 

[sinistral]

Actually, as I mentioned above, the company suggests that Ammo Lock won't interfere with the formation of the biological filter:

Can I use Ammo-Lock while my biological filter is developing?

Yes. The ammonia level will rise and fall as the biological filter forms in a new pond or at the start of each pond season. Ammo-Lock will protect the fish from ammonia while the biological filter becomes established. Ammo-Lock does not inhibit the development of the biological filter.

The rest of the thread was devoted to a discussion of whether this was true, and if it is true, if it's possible to cycle a tank using this product.

 

[Opcn]

ah, gotchya, the thing is that while the ammolock is still working it will keep the NH3 concentration far to low to for an adequit biological filter, I do know people who have lost fish by forgetting to replace there ammolock.

 

[sinistral]

Yeah, that's an excellent point-- I think Chris Cow mentioned that in his article on fishless cycling. Torrean has wondered if perhaps the ammonia might rise anyways, as he noticed his ammonia and nitrites rising and falling as one might expect in a regular cycle.

I maintain that until somebody does a study we won't know the answer-- we just don't have enough information about this particular application of the product.

 

[Torrean]

Would that be ethical? How could I go about it since the tests won't read correctly? I'd be willing to try it, since the ammolock keeps the fish from being hurt. But what about when I stop using the stuff. I have a 5 gallon betta tank that needs a small filter. I could cycle that using the ammo lock and nI lock and see if it works. Only problem is I don't know how I'd know if the cycle was complete. I suppose I'd use the stuff for 2 months then stop. Then I'd check my readings in 1-2 weeks and see if the cycle was a success? Any suggestions? I couldn't do a fishless cycle cause the readings would be off.

 

[Opcn]

something like 85 percent of scientists say there are things they would like to explore but don't because of ethics,if someone performed the study on say 1000 neons then potentialy tens of thousands of other fish could be saved, on your small scale however no scientifically vialble data could be gleaned from such a test and as a result any fish lost would be fish lives wated.

IMO anyways

 

[Mr Miagi]

To conduct experiment like that you would also recquire more tanks than just one or two, (called sample space). And all external and internal factors would need to remain constant if the experiment was to be a sucess in concluding accurate data.

Opcn is right, alot of scientists wish to conduct more experiments on animals, and like opcn's example showed, results from neons would likely vary from species to species, so no accurate or conclusive data could be synthesised from the experiment. Hence being a waste of time.

Every year more and more regulations are tightened and made to control, prehibit, and regulate the use of animal testing and experiments.

 

[sinistral]

I'm not suggesting that you or any individual ought to be the one conducting the experiment, but the reason people design experiments is to get around problems such as the ones miagi and opcn have pointed out.

One alternative is to have a fish tank that you add ammonia to over time, add ammo-lock 2 and then test using a non-Nessler ammonia reagent. After all, the test subject you are looking at is the bactera, not the fish.

That's just a suggestion off the top of my head. This way no fish gets harmed and you expose the bacteria to similar conditions. The ammonia testing apparently still won't be 100% accurate. I'm sure there is still a way to calculate how much ammonia is in the tank. I'm also sure there are problems with this thought, but that's why I'm tossing it out there