I just set up a 200 gallon tank all new. I rushed it and added one large fish and now my nitrite is high. ammonia is .25. nitrate 5.0. Should i perform major water changes and sacrifice my cycle?
high nitrite
- Thread starter turtlepower
- Start date
Doing water changes does not "sacrifice your cycle"...
Keeping ammonia and nitrite in low concentrations is a must when cycling with fish...
Keeping ammonia and nitrite in low concentrations is a must when cycling with fish...
I feel smaller and more frequent changes in this case would be best, massive water changes would slow your tank cycling.
congofeet;3630820; said:
Can you, or anyone else who supports this belief, explain precisely how doing water changes will slow down the cycling process?
I hear this alllll the time but am not aware of any evidence to support it...
nc_nutcase;3630923; said:
It has to do with cycling a tank for a certain bio load.
In this case if he does daily water changes and removes say 50% of the ammonia and nitrite build up in the tank, then he is also removing 50% of the bacteria's food. And 50% of the bio load. There for the bio filter would take alot longer to populate itself enough to support the current bio load because its only seeing around 50% of the true bio load.
Another example would be doing a fish less cycle and adding 2ppm ammonia daily until the cycle completes. And then the day after it completes you add fish that add up to a 4ppm ammonia daily bio load.
In that case the bio filter would not beable to handle a larger bio load than it was cycled to and there for would go back into a cycle to repopulate to handle the extra bio load.
But water changes must be done when cycling with fish or they die. So you just have to suffer with a longer cycle time or add a bio booster.
Thanks for steppin in and sharing your thoughts on the subject...
But as long as there is any detectabel level of ammonia in the water, then there is more food than the bacteria can oxidize... Therefore the colony is growing...
So if there is .05 ppm ammonia, the colony is growing... If there is 5 ppm, the colony is growing... If there is 5 ppm and you do a water change reducing it to 2.5 ppm... you did not "slow down the cycle" because the colony is still growing...
I have read absolutely no evidence that higher concentration of ammonia nor nitrite cause bacteria to reproduce faster...
I do think we can all agree that:
You need to do wter changes to keep ammonia/nitrite levels low...
Something else to keep in mind... If the fish are producing ammonia at a rate that is higher than the bacteria can oxidize... and you do a 100% water change thus reducing the ammonia & nitrite to zero... Then 30 seconds later you will have ammonia in the water... because going back to step one, the fish are producing ammonia at a rate that is higher than the bacteria can oxidize...
I know I am referencing ammonia here and the theory is true in regards to nitrite as well, it just takes more words to create the explaination and the wordiness takes away from the flow makign it harder to see the simplicity in it...
hybridtheoryd16;3630983; said:
But as long as there is any detectabel level of ammonia in the water, then there is more food than the bacteria can oxidize... Therefore the colony is growing...
So if there is .05 ppm ammonia, the colony is growing... If there is 5 ppm, the colony is growing... If there is 5 ppm and you do a water change reducing it to 2.5 ppm... you did not "slow down the cycle" because the colony is still growing...
I have read absolutely no evidence that higher concentration of ammonia nor nitrite cause bacteria to reproduce faster...
I do think we can all agree that:
You need to do wter changes to keep ammonia/nitrite levels low...
Something else to keep in mind... If the fish are producing ammonia at a rate that is higher than the bacteria can oxidize... and you do a 100% water change thus reducing the ammonia & nitrite to zero... Then 30 seconds later you will have ammonia in the water... because going back to step one, the fish are producing ammonia at a rate that is higher than the bacteria can oxidize...
I know I am referencing ammonia here and the theory is true in regards to nitrite as well, it just takes more words to create the explaination and the wordiness takes away from the flow makign it harder to see the simplicity in it...
x2nc_nutcase;3631024; said:
No problem at all. I did alot of thinking and research back when we all started doing fishless cycling some years ago, to try and figure out why we needed to add 4ppm of ammonia and not .5 or 1ppm.
I think what I am gathering from reading your post is that you are saying that a bacteria colony large enough to handle 1/2 or .5ppm daily NH3 would also have no problem with 5ppm daily. And I do not agree with that.
If that were the case you could take a fully cycled tank and double the stock and have no ammonia or nitrite problems or whats known as stock induced mini cycle. Because I break that theory on a monthly basis with new batches of feeders.
(VV fish in place of bacteria colony VV)
It would be like taking 10 fish and only feeding what 5 fish need to survive. 1 of 2 things will happen. You will get weak/sickly thin fish or dead fish after a while.-------The same thing happens to your bio-filter if you remove some of its food (fish or ammonia).
Bacteria are micro-organisms that raise and lower there population numbers to meet there food source.