Keep adding ammonia ? Or let the Nitrites go to zero?

[HoundsNTrout]

I raise aot of fish or large fish. 300 and 1000gallon tanks.
When cycling a tank in these circumstances. Let's say 500 6 inch in a 300 G tank and 50 larger 2 pound fish in the 1000 tank.
When cycling once the Nitrites hit zero I have always been adding ammonia 3X per day just as though I would be feeding. To get tons more bacteria and to make certain the Nitrites are really gonna get down to zero within hours after a feeding. It will rise a tad after feeding of course.
OR will I be ok just letting the tank zero out then empty water. Add water and I. Good.? Just trying to get as much bacteria going as possible before hand because almost always down the road I get nitrites lingering.

 

[Bigfishnut]

Keep adding ammonia (in the proper dose) until am and nitrite zero out and nitrates rise. Best to keep doing this even after the am and nitrite have zeroed out to insure you have a healthy colony of bacteria and don't end up with a mini cycle after you add fish. A fishless cycle takes no less than 2 months to be done properly on very large tanks. Do not rush this!

 

[eddiegunks]

I add ammonia till nitrates are at 4.

I keep adding ammonia until nitrates and ammonia are zero overnight.

I do not let nitrites ho above 4. So you may need to back the ammonia down on day 2 or 3. Just a bit. Too much nitrites and iy kills the bacteria.

My ammonia is 29.4%. I think i added 2.5ml per day for 17 days in my 90 gallon tank. I added an additional day or two until i acquired my stock.

I have had zero issues. This is the 4th tank i have done this was. I have a 125 working now, and just turned on my pond today. When the temp in the pond gets to 78 i will add ammonia.

I think if you want to set ip for a big bioload, once the tank cycles start adding more ammonia on a daily bassis till you feel you are where you need to be.

Oh! After my tanks cycle i have high nitrates. So i do an 80-90% water change.

Kep us posted

Eddie

 

[Drstrangelove]

I raise aot of fish or large fish. 300 and 1000gallon tanks.
When cycling a tank in these circumstances. Let's say 500 6 inch in a 300 G tank and 50 larger 2 pound fish in the 1000 tank.

500 6" fish in a 300 gallon tank could be around 70 pounds of fish. Assuming a 3% feed ratio with 90% dry, 35% protein food, that works out to 126 ppm of nitrate per day. I assume you are doing either a large amount of drip or 2 or 3 90% WC per day.

50 2-pound fish in a 1,000 gallon tank is of course a lot less. I estimate around 54 ppm nitrates per 24 hours.

In both cases, but especially the first, I think we don't know, since we don't know the feeding pattern or how the water is being handled. The tanks are seeing 40-94 ppm of nitrites and 15-35 ppm ammonia per day. We don't know if that is a spike or is closer to even distribution.

BB are inhibited by ammonia as well. Adding more ammonia won't necessarily make them more productive and in fact may inhibit them further.

 

[HoundsNTrout]

The small tanks have 2 X the volume turned over in fresh every 24. The larger ones maybe 1/2 the volume .
If I see Nitrites for more than 3 hours I turn up the flow...
I can't leave water running constantly is why I use the bio filters
Obviously I would choose to use less well water.
Also temps are constantly changing
Could be 58 at night up to 65 for a while. Whatever it is it is. That in itself has to be tough on bacteria.

 

[HoundsNTrout]

Everything depends on the size of fish. When I start to see anything off or the temp of the well.

 

[eddiegunks]

Could be 58 at night up to 65 for a while. Whatever it is it is. That in itself has to be tough on bacteria.

Yeah. The temps may really have a negative affect on the bb. This maybe where your issues are stemming from.

 

[HoundsNTrout]

Yeah. The temps may really have a negative affect on the bb. This maybe where your issues are stemming from.

Rarely have issues in the Fall Winter r Spring. Temps remain constant in the 55 to 60 range.

 

[HoundsNTrout]

So I guess the biggest challenge for me is to get as many fish to as big as I can get, use as little water as I can possibly get away with yet not have dangerous levels of amm or nitrites.
It's almost always the nitrites when I do have issues, everything spikes for a couple hours after feeding so lately I simply increase the flow rate about 2 hours after I feed. Seems to keep everything down to zero .
Like I said befofe the local college hatchery has the same set up I have, well I "copied" theirs basically. 55G drum with snow fencing 2500GPH sump and my well water set to trickle 300 to 600 gallons every 24 hours in the 300G totes.
Which the well handles fine, its when I need to change a lot of water multiple times per day that I have issues with my well turn-over time.
My 1000Gallon tank I do differently. THose are for brood fish and although some are 2 to 3 pound fish there are never more than 20 fish usually in there and probably half are in the 1 pound size. So I actually simply mannually sump pump out 100G every day or whenever the temperature hits 66 to 68 degrees. Works for the past 6 months anyway.

Oh and yes it took 2 months to cycle that tank. THat is why I was asking originally what could be done to increase the amount of bb. If anything. Fishless of course.

Thanks guys and/or gals.

 

[HoundsNTrout]

500 6" fish in a 300 gallon tank could be around 70 pounds of fish. Assuming a 3% feed ratio with 90% dry, 35% protein food, that works out to 126 ppm of nitrate per day. I assume you are doing either a large amount of drip or 2 or 3 90% WC per day.

50 2-pound fish in a 1,000 gallon tank is of course a lot less. I estimate around 54 ppm nitrates per 24 hours.

In both cases, but especially the first, I think we don't know, since we don't know the feeding pattern or how the water is being handled. The tanks are seeing 40-94 ppm of nitrites and 15-35 ppm ammonia per day. We don't know if that is a spike or is closer to even distribution.

BB are inhibited by ammonia as well. Adding more ammonia won't necessarily make them more productive and in fact may inhibit them further.

Question on this Drstrangelove.

How much ammonia is the 'correct' amount to add in order to get more BB ? Or is there such a thing? I know how much fish and how big they will be for my 1000G tank for my brood fish.

Right now its been a Month and tank has cycled by my method of adding initial ammonia to 2-4ppm. Then let both the am and nitrites and 'ates cycle to zero. Then I keep adding ammonia 2X per day just like I was feeding the fish. However I don't know how much ammonia to add. I just go by what the other tanks do with the fish in them. Two hours after a feeding the ammonia is 1ppm roughly maybe .5 the nitrites rise to maybe the same after 4 hours. THen I feed again. In morning its zero. But who knows how high it went in the middle of the night ya know?

In the past I added ammonia 2X per day regardless of the amount it was. In other words I never let it zero out first. Til I got to zero. While cycling the nitrites got way off the scale.
I figured there was a lot of bb in there.
BUT I had problems as the fish grew. Nitrites came back. 4ppm over night.

THis could have been from a number of factors I understand, but when cycling a tank what is the best way ?

THanks