Why increases tank cycling...

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
johnptc;2829081; said:
i dont think sand gravel rock or bare bottom affect the time to fully cycle.


The bulk of the BB are living on the bio media in the filter where there is a continuous flow of oxygenated water.

Proof:

take any tank with any substrate

put new water in it........... attach a fully cycled filter of the correct size and the system is instantly cycled independent of the substrate

or take the same idea and begin fresh just adding ammonium chloride

you will find all the systems to be fully cycled in about 6 weeks
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-what substrate you have does affect the cycle time. With a bare bottom tank it is recommended to increase the amount of biological filtration in your filter e.g you would compensate for lack of surface area in your tank by adding more bio-balls to your sump.

-if you were to start a tank new with an already cycled filter and the same fish that were in the old tank there would be an ammonium spike (even if it is just a little one).
The bacteria colonized inside the tank also helps break down ammonia. In the hypothetical old tank every single bacteria would help stabilize the water parameters. In the new tank there isn't any bacteria colonized inside the tank so the filter wouldn't be used to handling the entire bio-load on its own.
 
mushroomsoup;2829226; said:
-what substrate you have does affect the cycle time. With a bare bottom tank it is recommended to increase the amount of biological filtration in your filter e.g you would compensate for lack of surface area in your tank by adding more bio-balls to your sump.

-if you were to start a tank new with an already cycled filter and the same fish that were in the old tank there would be an ammonium spike (even if it is just a little one).
The bacteria colonized inside the tank also helps break down ammonia. In the hypothetical old tank every single bacteria would help stabilize the water parameters. In the new tank there isn't any bacteria colonized inside the tank so the filter wouldn't be used to handling the entire bio-load on its own.
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no problem with what you say..............its just not significant to the level anybody or fish would ever notice.


lets say the bio filter handles 99% of the load and the tank interior handles
1%.......so i would GUESS that within several hours the BB in the bio filter will compensate for the missing BB in the tank. imho the reason the tank interior does not do much is that the flat surfaces have almost no surface compared the the bio filter's area and that the substrate which has significant surface area( if present) has no significant water flow thru it.
 
mushroomsoup;2829226; said:
-what substrate you have does affect the cycle time. With a bare bottom tank it is recommended to increase the amount of biological filtration in your filter e.g you would compensate for lack of surface area in your tank by adding more bio-balls to your sump.

-if you were to start a tank new with an already cycled filter and the same fish that were in the old tank there would be an ammonium spike (even if it is just a little one).
The bacteria colonized inside the tank also helps break down ammonia. In the hypothetical old tank every single bacteria would help stabilize the water parameters. In the new tank there isn't any bacteria colonized inside the tank so the filter wouldn't be used to handling the entire bio-load on its own.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I just recently took all of the gravel out of my tank and replaced it with sand. There was no spike in ammonia or nitrite, and according to your theory there should have been.
 
I have removed the substrate in 4-6 tanks and every time there is a mini cycle. They only way there would not be is if the substrate coming out was not fully colonized yet ( like less than 6months old). It does not matter how much bio media you have, you can only grow so much bacteria. And it will grow every where.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------i have also taken a fully cycled filter and placed it on many new tanks that it would filter just fine and had the same mini cycle.
 
hybridtheoryd16;2830138; said:
I have removed the substrate in 4-6 tanks and every time there is a mini cycle. They only way there would not be is if the substrate coming out was not fully colonized yet ( like less than 6months old). It does not matter how much bio media you have, you can only grow so much bacteria. And it will grow every where.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------i have also taken a fully cycled filter and placed it on many new tanks that it would filter just fine and had the same mini cycle.
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I didnt have a mini cycle. The gravel was in the tank for about 7 months, I just switched it over to sand a week ago.
 
hybridtheoryd16;2830138; said:
I have removed the substrate in 4-6 tanks and every time there is a mini cycle. They only way there would not be is if the substrate coming out was not fully colonized yet ( like less than 6months old). It does not matter how much bio media you have, you can only grow so much bacteria. And it will grow every where.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------i have also taken a fully cycled filter and placed it on many new tanks that it would filter just fine and had the same mini cycle.
Click to expand...


the mini cycle might be because you stirred up the dirt and bio waste and not that you removed hundreds of sq feet of active media with great circulation going thru it.

see what type of mini cycle you get if you disconnect the bio filter :eek:
 
^^^ I did ---well we had a large ice storm and the power was out for 10-11 days straight. This happened a month or so ago in Kentucky. And after that the ammonia was reading for about 2 weeks or a little less. But i also put in some safe start though.--------------------But they way i see it the only way to turn off the bio filter is to unplug every piece of circulation equipment. Because I guess my entire tank is a bio filter.:naughty:
 
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