Ammonia - Not enough Filtration
- Thread starter dr exum
- Start date
Do you know which one? Or some places use both. You can get a water report online from your water supplier.
guess it’s chlorine,
im gonna try the fritze 7, add 200g purigen to hobs, after water change on Wednesday...
ill hold off on 3rd fx6... probably overkill... my ammo has gone down after each addition of filters, I did start I think with a sponge n an hob in a 75, thinking that was enough....
hopefully his tank will be here soon....
How do you add water for water change? Do you have a way to let it off gas for 24hrs instead of using prime?
usually via mixed hot/cold tap via “ok google turn on fish tank water”
usually take out 75 gallon
then add 5ml-7ml prime
I’ll have a spare 75 adjacent....
I could probably hold the water in bins for 24 hours prior, it would be cold, then pump it in...
Wasn't sure how you did it. I used a 3 stage filter sediment, granular carbon, and a coconut carbon block to reduce chlorine to near 0. Granular carbon is supposed to last 6000 gallons and coconut carbon block when used in conjunction with sediment filter and granular carbon 20,000g. Never had a significant chlorine reading after the filter.
I'm a bit out of my depth here; I use well water, don't need to treat for chlorine, chloramine or anything else. I am also a dinosaur who has never believed in bottled miracles.
But...maybe I am reading the picture wrong, but the test tubes pictured don't indicate a cycled tank to me. Looks like zero nitrate; a cycled tank can certainly show ammonia if something spikes it, like a massive increase in bioload, but there should always be some indication of nitrates. I'd expect a brand new uncycled tank to show results like those in that pic, a few/couple days after adding fish. Why is everybody assuming the tank is or was cycled?
Starting with mature media from a cycled tank should provide an "instant" cycle, which may or may not be sufficient to accommodate a moderate bioload in a new tank. Generally I expect a mini-spike for a day or two while those bacteria reproduce (quickly!) to meet the demand in the new tank. But, if for some reason that seeding method fails, you will get what that pic shows: increasing ammonia, zero nitrites, zero nitrates. Looks like starting from scratch.
But...maybe I am reading the picture wrong, but the test tubes pictured don't indicate a cycled tank to me. Looks like zero nitrate; a cycled tank can certainly show ammonia if something spikes it, like a massive increase in bioload, but there should always be some indication of nitrates. I'd expect a brand new uncycled tank to show results like those in that pic, a few/couple days after adding fish. Why is everybody assuming the tank is or was cycled?
Starting with mature media from a cycled tank should provide an "instant" cycle, which may or may not be sufficient to accommodate a moderate bioload in a new tank. Generally I expect a mini-spike for a day or two while those bacteria reproduce (quickly!) to meet the demand in the new tank. But, if for some reason that seeding method fails, you will get what that pic shows: increasing ammonia, zero nitrites, zero nitrates. Looks like starting from scratch.
Using mature bio media from an existing filter to achieve an instant cycle is a myth imo. There are too many variables involved for it to work with 100% success rate.
If you add media from the filter only, in effect, you are only transferring a fraction of the BB over because you've also got BB in your substrate, ornaments, pipework, glass etc etc. This is where many experience spikes. You'd stand a better chance of success if you added everything from your old tank into your new tank to maximise BB transference. The thing is, if you are setting up a new tank, and you still need the old one, who's going to transfer all their stuff over into their new tank? Not many I bet.
Granted, just transferring some seeded media can work, indeed it does for many, i've done it myself but it never surprises me when people sometimes scratch their heads because it hasn't worked for them.
And just to be clear, the BB needed to make up the slack DO NOT reproduce "quickly". They reproduce very slowly even with optimum conditions.
Sorry, but this "myth" has proven true for me for the past 30 or so years. A cycled tank is one that will immediately cycle ammonia through to nitrate; I am not suggesting that the capacity to do so is unlimited; it's obvious that the capacity to do so is limited by the total amount of bacteria transferred by this practice. I always keep an extra sponge filter in most of my tanks, so when I set up a new one and utilize one of these filters I am only gaining the capacity of the bacteria on that filter...which is naturally a fraction of the total bacterial population of the original established tank. Typically, the original tank won't even show a blip in ammonia, although in a tank that is more crowded than mine tend to be, a "mini-spike" is certainly possible.
The new tank now has a significant bacterial population, and that population includes those utililzing ammonia and also nitrite; this alone is a huge head start, rather than waiting for the first type to start from scratch, with the second not even appearing until sometime later...which is why so many new tanks experience both an ammonia spike and a subsequent nitrite one.
"Quickly", of course, is a relative term. Tanks that I start in this way typically show a brief and moderate ammonia spike, and no nitrite spike whatsoever; they are almost always completely cycled...to the point where no ammonia is detectable...within a week. So, compared to the alternative...I call that quick.
That observation alone tells me they reproduce rapidly, by anyone's standards. Casual research on bacterial generation time indicates that it is somewhere on the order of 1-2 days, so the significant population of bacteria that one of my tanks begins with doubles every 2 days...which seems in keeping with the water test results. It will naturally seem very slow when the raw tank starts with no introduced bacteria; why would anyone do that? Because they want to buy their bacteria in a bottle? I don't know why anyone would buy canned peaches if they happen to have a peach tree with mature fruit in their yard...so why buy bottled bacteria if you have a mature tank already populated with same?
Thanks for the input; always nice to hear opposing viewpoints and to have a chance to consider alternate ideas. When...if...I have a failure with my method, it will be the first in many dozens of tanks cycled over the years. I'll check back then...just to be clear.
The new tank now has a significant bacterial population, and that population includes those utililzing ammonia and also nitrite; this alone is a huge head start, rather than waiting for the first type to start from scratch, with the second not even appearing until sometime later...which is why so many new tanks experience both an ammonia spike and a subsequent nitrite one.
"Quickly", of course, is a relative term. Tanks that I start in this way typically show a brief and moderate ammonia spike, and no nitrite spike whatsoever; they are almost always completely cycled...to the point where no ammonia is detectable...within a week. So, compared to the alternative...I call that quick.
That observation alone tells me they reproduce rapidly, by anyone's standards. Casual research on bacterial generation time indicates that it is somewhere on the order of 1-2 days, so the significant population of bacteria that one of my tanks begins with doubles every 2 days...which seems in keeping with the water test results. It will naturally seem very slow when the raw tank starts with no introduced bacteria; why would anyone do that? Because they want to buy their bacteria in a bottle? I don't know why anyone would buy canned peaches if they happen to have a peach tree with mature fruit in their yard...so why buy bottled bacteria if you have a mature tank already populated with same?
Thanks for the input; always nice to hear opposing viewpoints and to have a chance to consider alternate ideas. When...if...I have a failure with my method, it will be the first in many dozens of tanks cycled over the years. I'll check back then...just to be clear.
Like you, i've had lots of success cycling new tanks with mature media from an existing set up, and on the odd occasion, due to my impatience and adding fish too quickly, there's been the odd time where my parameters went haywire.
I realise now that by using the word "myth" has made me look like i'm not a believer in this method at all, far from it.
But I do stand by my statement about there being too many variables involved for it to be considered 100% trustworthy. Especially for people who are pretty new to the hobby. An element of expertise is needed to understand what's going on.
