Starting the bio-farm for 6 summer tanks

[TwoTankAmin]

I slept in this morning so I did not test until 11 a.m.- the reading was 0.5 or a tad below. I had to run out to a doctor's appt. at 12:20. I assume the level is now 0 and i will be hitting the tank with 2 gm of ammonium chloride again shortly.

Fishless cycling is a strange process in that we add single large doses of ammonia, However, in a tank the ammonia is constantly being created and used fairly fast. In a 24 day the tank can produce 2 or 3 ppm, but the level will never even register on a test kit because as fast as it is created it is consumed. A fishless cycle is, in essence, nothing like a cycled tank. The cycling is overkill because we add an entire day's worth of ammonia in a single dose. The ideal methodology would be to have an elaborate automated dosing system that basically adds 1/24th of 3 ppm, or .125 ppm, every hour. This is not practical.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I did not add the ammonium yesterday until about 5 p.m. I tested about 45 mins ago- 4 ppm. I think I may have slightly over dosed the ammonium. Also, the tank water temp to about 90F yesterday before the heat wave broke at the end of the day. The water temp was back in the low 80s when I tested today.

Things are a bit crazy around here as this week the central air system is being redone yesterday and today. I only managed to do maint. on 2/6 pleco tanks in the fish space yesterday. I have two tanks in the house that are almost two weeks without a water change as I skipped them last weekend.

"So many tanks, so little time. Since you can't get more time you might as well get more tanks."

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Oy what a week. here is the upshot.

I messed up my bio-farm cycling. It looked like it was going OK and then it stalled. I added some Baking soda and did a WC when the temp went into the low 90s and that seemed to make things OK. Last week I added ammonium chloride for about 5 ppm and it stalled. I did a water change and when it moved again I redosed to 5 ppm and it stalled and was for about 3 days.

I have to admit up front I got too cocky and assumed if I did it, it would work. But the number of filters was high and I have usually managed fine just testing for ammonia after it is added. So I did no other tests. Today I came to my senses and decided to test for KH. 1 drop turned it yellow on my API kit. Very bad fir cycling if accurate. But the kit was very old, so I decided to test for pH. I used the regular range API kit. It read at the very bottom of the scale- 6.0. That confirmed there was likely a KH issue which dropped the pH. I then dosed 1 tsp. of baking soda into the 35 or so gals. I waited a bit and retested for pH- 7.2+.

To raise the KH without raising the GH, add sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), commonly known as baking soda. 1/2 teaspoon per 100 Liters {26.4 gal} raises the KH by about 1 dH. Sodium bicarbonate drives the pH towards an equilibrium value of 8.2.

However, testing for KH it still was 1 drop. Considering I had clouded the water from waving the crushed coral bag in the water as well as adding the Sodium bicarb, the KH should have read higher. So I assumed the kit was bad from age. The local PetCo was out of them.

Here is what had to have happened by my being so cocky and not testing. As the bacteria processed ammonia. They used up the carbonates/bicarbonates. The bag of crushed coral could not dissolve fast enough and the KH dropped. This in turn allowed the acid from the cycle to drop the pH. When the pH is at the 6.0 level in 86F water and it has 5 ppm of Total Ammonia, only 0.0043 ppm is NH3, 4.9957 pp, in NH4.

Many of the ammonia bacteria in tanks prefer NH3 and have receptors for that. they may have some for NH4 as well. Other bacteria will have more NH4 receptors but may not process that as effectively as the ones using NH3 can.

So what I did was to allow the ammonia in the tank to become mostly NH4 and this slowed things way down. I let my hubris overcome my knowledge- call me Homer, DOH!

Ain't fish keeping fun........

I suppose I should test nitrite and even nitrate, but those are old kits too. *sigh*

In my defense I must say that this is the largest number of filters for the most gallons I have tried to cycle from scratch in one smallish tank. I have never tried to go as fast either. It was the wrong time to get cocky......

Here is the new plan:

1. Change about 50% water daily. 30 minutes after refiling the tank, test for ammonia. Add enough ammonium chloride to reach 4-5 ppm.
2. Check the pH after the refill and add sodium bicarb as needed to keep KH and pH up. Add more crushed coral to the bag as needed or add a second bag.
3. By the end of the weekend i should have at least 3 of the other 5 tanks cleaned and set-up for fish. 3 are already cleaned and have the backs and sides wuth black backgrounds. They just need to be filled and set up with wood and some rocks/slate and maybe some sand. I have heaters and therms for them.
4. Once a new tank is up to temp, I will move it's filters from the bio-farm into it. I expect mone of the filters will be fully cycled yet. I will continue cycling in two Poret cubes in the new tanks as well as thiose still in the bio-farm. I should not have issues with KH/pH etc. in the new tanks and they will alleviate the issues in the bio-farm by reducing the needed concentration of ammonia going in.
5. Order a new GH/KH kit over the weekend. I just bought a back-up ammonia kit.


Now for some interesting news. Yesterday I was doing the weekly cleaning and water change on my Budrovcan line 236 grow tank and was surprised to spot several newly free swimming fry. I have not added any of these sized fish to that tank in about 8 months. This means the oldest six fish in that tank must be a spawning group. This is not really what I needed to see as I am trying to downsize big-time not go in the other direction.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

So much to do and so little time. Yesterday morning the reading was just under 1 ppm. However, I had no time to deal with a water change etc. hat is on today's agenda. I spent most of my time prepping the rest of the summer tanks. I am getting ready to test shortly.

My normal water change practive is to fill large cans with water at temp= I have a 32 gal, 4 x 20 gal and 8 x 5 gal cans. My well water is loaded with co2 which needs to outgas some and I also oxygenate the water by pumping into the containers. To do main on the terrace tanks I have to move some contained there and then filling them means running close to 100 ft, of hose from a bathroom at the opposite end of the house.

I have two sets of hoses and pumps. One is for refilling and uses drinking water safe hoses and the other is for emptying and uses Python hoses. Our well water is excellent for soft water fish and most of the fish I keep will spawn in it. I have told folks for years that I have no special fish keeping skills but I do have well water that appears to contain a natural fish aphrodisiac.

Just as an FYI- 20+ years ago when I put up my first tank my tanp water was about 115 ppm TDS and the pH was 7.3 - 7.4. Today the pH is dead neutral and the TDS are never above 83 ppm. If we get a serious amount of rain over a week or two I have seen the TDS drop into the low 50 ppm range. In my fish space with 6 pleco tanks I have a hose connected to the faucet and will sometimes do a top-off directly from the tap. However full refills are always well oxygenated using the pump system and fan type hose nozzle like this.

I also recently purchased the Python return hook which I use on larger tanks (I use Python adapters, hoses and the hook but not the rest of the Python system).

I work in two buildings and for years would lugh the 5 gal buckets and other needed supplies back and forth every week. Last year I finally wised up and let old age dictate things. I bough duplicates of almost everything so i did not need to lug it all back and forthh. Unfortumately I must carry things out to the terrace to work on the summer tanks. I thought I was done with these until the year+ of living Covidly.......

 

[fishguy1978]

Sounds like a good reason to run a water line to the terrace .
Carrying 5g buckets caused me to injure my back and so I moved to a 40g trashcan on wheels with a mag drive pump. That was nearly 20yrs ago when I lived in NYC and was working for the aquarium maintenance company. Now I have a dedicated room with a 20ft python attached to a shower valve. I also have a cold water tap that provides constant supply to my 260, 220, 120 and rack system.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

This house is great for my brother and me- two old bachelors- we inherited it. it was built to be used for summers and weekends. It has no basement. it is limited in space and consists of two buildings joined by a covered walkway. I have tanks in both buildingsa and in total of 4 rooms, the summer set-up was supposed to be over for good until Covid. I had just started selling off fish when it hit. I am trying to work my way out of the hobby over the next 3 years. The summer set-up if for fish to be sold. I hope to sell all of the tanks and equipment out there as well.

I will list fish here in the for sale scetion in the not too distant future.

Now back to the bio-farm.
1. Tested Ammonia at 0.0 ppm, TDS at 195 ppm, pH at 7.0 and temp. at 29.6 C (just over 85F).
2. Changed a bit over over 50% of the water. Waited and tested TDS at 145 ppm.
3. Concluded the crushed coral and baking soda as well as some level of nitrate and maybe even a snall amount of nitrite were also in the water. Neither could be high enough to be a problem. Clearly things appeared to be on track.
4. Added 1.7 gm of ammonium chloride and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to the tank.

It's time to do normal tank maint. I will test the ammonia level in the farm first. It has been raining a bunch here the past few days and has been humid. All my stuff is on the terrace including the jug of ammonium chloride. i have no idea if it has absorbed some moisture and is not as heavy as the scale says? I do keep the lid screwed on.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The test mentioned in the post above was at least 4 ppm and likely higher. The API kit goes from 4 to 8 ppm in its final step and trying to determine where the test color may be between those two bars is almost impossible.


About 90 minutes ago I tested:
Ammonia 0.0 ppm, pH 7.0 ppm, TDS 154 ppm. temp 29.8C (just under 86F)

I did the following:
1. Did not change water. Determined this time I could do two additions of ammonia before it would need a change.
2. Added 2 gm of Ammonium chloride.
3. Added 1/2 tsp of sodium chloride.
4. Waved the bag of crushed coral around the tank letting clouds come out.

I will test before dark and plan to wc if i can add more ammonium chloride.

Things have been complicated by needed to treat a larger clown loach with wasting disease. I had to press the 2nd 40B into service as an H tank. I am treating with flubendazole. I had two sets of instructions I mixed up. One said dose 1/2 gram per 20 gal. and the other (on the bottle) said 2.5 . the tank was not filled and I estimated it held about 33 gals.

Before i added the fish I wanted to run carbon for about an hour. I planned to remove the carbon before i added the med. In went the fish, in went 1.5 gm of Flubendazole and i was done.This morning having double cheacked i realized I need to add another 3 grams of the med as per the label. When I did so I went to find a lid for the AC 300 running on the tank to move and oxygenated water. When i retur ned with it I discovered I have not taken the carbons out. DOH!

I removed the carbon.

Because of the need to deal with the clown, I only manage to clean the 150 yesterday. I no have 13 tanks to do main on that are normally handled on weekends and mayb0 some on monday. I am getting too old for this ? .......

 

[C. Breeze]

Bio farm seems like quite a hobby unto itself. Big fan of cycling with fish, right here.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Bio farm seems like quite a hobby unto itself. Big fan of cycling with fish, right here.

I am a big fan of not cycling with fish. I wonder how many fish have been harmed, had their life shortened or been killed by a fisH-in cycle? I would bet it is way more than have met such fates from a fishless cycle. Most folks whose first cycle is done with fish do not pull it off properly and do not keep the fish safe.


Here is the thing, you cannot do what I am with fish. The goal was to cycle 14 filters to go into 6-8 tanks (max. of 210 gals) fast. Moreover, those tanks must be safe to recieve a full load of fish all at once. This is as different from doing a fish-in cycle on one tank as night is to day.

1. The individual tank will only create bacteria sufficient for the stocking of that tank. The bio-farm will create enough bacteria in enough filters to cycle at least 6 to 8 tanks.
2. The bio-farm filters can be ready in anywhere from a week to a few weeks. The fish-in cycled tank might be fully stocked in about 3-4 months.
3. The fish-in tank cycles filters to keep that number of gallons safe in that number of gallon. The bio-farm cycles filters to keep 6 to 8 times that number of gallons safe and does it fewer gallons than will be in 1/6 to 1/8 of all the tanks into which the filters will go.
4. A bio-farm can hold the filters cycled until needed. A fishl-in cycled tank can only create enough bacteria in its filters for that tank's bio-load. You can only get more ammonia by adding more organics to this tank- normally fish.
5. A bio-farm can be disease free if one does not use seeding from existing tanks. Plants or fish in a fish-in cycling tank may bring in problems. (I used media from other tanks because the fish going into the tanks with bio-farm filters will be fish from those donating tanks.)
6. I spend more time posting in this thread than I do on the actual process of getting the filters cycled in the bio-farm.

My goal in making this thread was to illustrate what is actually going on when it comes to various methods for cycling. There is an interplay between nitrogen, pH, temp. carbonates, hardness etc. Moreover, there are ways to deal with issues in pretty much all of these things.



Anyhow, back to the details of the project. I slowed myself again by second guessing my recent plan and not water changing. Last evening Ammonia was about .25 ppm and should have been 0. So I tested the ph and, sure enough 6.6 and the TDS were 185. So I did a 50%+ water change, refilled the tank, swished the bag of coral, added a second bag of the coral and then added 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. Then in went 2.1 gm of ammonium chloride. This was at about 7:30 last night.

This morning about 10:30 the reading was 0.0 ammonia. I have been keeping a 20 gal can of water on the terrace. I have a 300w heater and a small pump in it. I refilled it last night after the wc on the farm but had to use it this morning on the 40b serving as a hospital tank for the clown loach. I am waiting for the refill to get to temp before i cange water and redose the bio-farm. I am hoping to be able to get a couple of the terrace tanks running with filters in the next few days and to be moving fish. My plan for now is to move Budrovcan line 236 and true F1 L173. I may need to use the bio-farm tank and that means I need to set up a smallr tank elsewhere to maintain the filters not yet used. The H tank is not going to be freed up until Sat. It is uncycled but gets 50% wc every other day.

 

[C. Breeze]

Thanks.
Check it out -found an incremental ammonia doser like you were talking about being the way to go- even better- it doses bacteria simultaneously!!