Can I crash my tank's cycle by dripping too much water?
- Thread starter Dégatdeau
- Start date
Sure can… Esp. If ur starting with a fresh setup i.e. new sump/bio media. Ive found when “starting new” with everything it can take quite some time for the initial cycle…3-4 months to have the water/tank actually b “dirty” enough to harbor life if ur drippin.
If ur already well established on the setup u still can drip too much causing a re cycle. The tank will stay cloudy/milky white and just never get clear. Its “too clean”…Theres a fine line of “perfection” when it comes to dripping, ur stock, bio media and substrate/deco amount can all affect it. Empty tanks with no substrate, little deco and say 1 fish dont need as much drips. Ive changed stock before and add/lower my drips as needed.
General “rule of thumb” for me personally on autodrips is roughly 1gph per 100 gallons of water for solo specimen or light stock tanks… 2gph per 100gal for heavier stocks. More or less depending on everything i mentioned earlier. I drip 6gph on a 500gal, ive dripped 8gph on the same tank during heavier stock times or when i dont feel like cleaning anything ??…
Another piece of advice is piece together some kind of pressure regulator with a guage to monitor what ur actually dripping or atleast get an idea. Typically i run at 20psi. My water pressure fluctuates every day. U could be dripping more or less if ur unregulated. Most emitters are rated to 30-40psi. If ur over that they wont run “true” and could b adding more water than u need.
If ur already well established on the setup u still can drip too much causing a re cycle. The tank will stay cloudy/milky white and just never get clear. Its “too clean”…Theres a fine line of “perfection” when it comes to dripping, ur stock, bio media and substrate/deco amount can all affect it. Empty tanks with no substrate, little deco and say 1 fish dont need as much drips. Ive changed stock before and add/lower my drips as needed.
General “rule of thumb” for me personally on autodrips is roughly 1gph per 100 gallons of water for solo specimen or light stock tanks… 2gph per 100gal for heavier stocks. More or less depending on everything i mentioned earlier. I drip 6gph on a 500gal, ive dripped 8gph on the same tank during heavier stock times or when i dont feel like cleaning anything ??…
Another piece of advice is piece together some kind of pressure regulator with a guage to monitor what ur actually dripping or atleast get an idea. Typically i run at 20psi. My water pressure fluctuates every day. U could be dripping more or less if ur unregulated. Most emitters are rated to 30-40psi. If ur over that they wont run “true” and could b adding more water than u need.
I would say the tank is lightly overstocked. I have 8 bichirs from 8 to 16", a couple florida gars and 5 altus tinfoil barbs. It's a 225g with a 30g brute sump. I have not fed a lot lately, been pretty busy. I think I have been dripping too much water. I did a nitrate test and they were basically 0. I did ammonia and nitrite too and they were zero as well. I dialed it down a bit, I will test more often in the upcoming days.
I didn't install a pressure regulator when I first setup my drip. I thought a small valve would do the job. I used polyethylene tubing and compression fittings so I wasn't much worried about the pressure blowing the tubes or the emitters off. I measured and calculated it to around 3gph. Pressure around 60 65 psi
I didn't install a pressure regulator when I first setup my drip. I thought a small valve would do the job. I used polyethylene tubing and compression fittings so I wasn't much worried about the pressure blowing the tubes or the emitters off. I measured and calculated it to around 3gph. Pressure around 60 65 psi
To me, "crashing" a tank implies that the tank is already fully cycled and mature, and if that's the case then you aren't going to cause a crash by flowing through too much water. Sure, it might slow down the cycling process in a new set-up, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Filters are simply a substitute for a constant supply of clean water; change enough water fast enough and you don't need filtration at all, except for perhaps mechanical filtration to achieve the desired clarity.
The bacterial population in a tank is controlled by the available ammonia and by extension nitrites. Change water fast enough to dilute that ammonia and you will have less bacteria; add a large number of large fish all at once and you can get an ammonia spike until the bacterial colony catches up by exoanding to utilize it, but that's not a crash. The same thing happens in any tank, continuous change or not. Suddenly switching off a continuous change system can have a similar effect even without adding more fish because the same production of ammonia will no longer be diluted and will temporarily spike...but again, that's not a crash.
I once had a continuous change system when I had very inexpensive and essentially limitless good water available to me. No "dripping" going on...it was a continuous flow from an artesian well/spring and I had an almost complete turnover of the entire system every day. Minimal filtration, no biomedia at all...and unmeasurably low ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Setting it up initially was a pleasant chore. Maintaining it was, aside from occasionally wiping the front glass and changing a bit of mechanical floss...nonexistent. it was the easiest, most rewarding and most trouble-free fish-keeping I have ever experienced. I wish I had never sold that house.
It's certainly possible to change more water than you need to, but I don't believe you can cause any harm by changing too much.
The bacterial population in a tank is controlled by the available ammonia and by extension nitrites. Change water fast enough to dilute that ammonia and you will have less bacteria; add a large number of large fish all at once and you can get an ammonia spike until the bacterial colony catches up by exoanding to utilize it, but that's not a crash. The same thing happens in any tank, continuous change or not. Suddenly switching off a continuous change system can have a similar effect even without adding more fish because the same production of ammonia will no longer be diluted and will temporarily spike...but again, that's not a crash.
I once had a continuous change system when I had very inexpensive and essentially limitless good water available to me. No "dripping" going on...it was a continuous flow from an artesian well/spring and I had an almost complete turnover of the entire system every day. Minimal filtration, no biomedia at all...and unmeasurably low ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Setting it up initially was a pleasant chore. Maintaining it was, aside from occasionally wiping the front glass and changing a bit of mechanical floss...nonexistent. it was the easiest, most rewarding and most trouble-free fish-keeping I have ever experienced. I wish I had never sold that house.
It's certainly possible to change more water than you need to, but I don't believe you can cause any harm by changing too much.
Looks squeaky clean to me ??… nice setup with the pre filter and regulator also ?… stock dont look crazy at all either. Ive found tanks with substrate are a bit more “stable” when dripping but like u most all mine are bare bottom. Looking at it 2gph would prob b plenty. Ur in the right range tho. Ive dripped 2-4gph on 180-230 gal tanks for 8+ yrs and lots of different setups/stock. Ive always ran actual emitters but u can dial in a free flow like that with a timer and a bucket lol. 60psi seems pretty high. Will account for when a toilet flushes or pressure changes but it might b puttin in more than 3gph. Even a light “sprinkling” of substrate will curb the issue also to hold more bacteria and counteract the fresh water.
If your tanks is already fully cycled I don't see crashing a problem. The only exception to this would be if you are not pre treating the water supply if your local city uses chloramine to treat.....dripping with chloramine treated water means u are constantly dripping ammonia into the system which can crash the tank if you do not have enough bb to keep up with the pace
My water comes in on the side opposing the tank's overflow and the excess water goes out of my sump through a bulkhead. I did the plumbing myself, that's why it looks amateurishhi