Cycling a tank and ammonia

Hey guys , well my room is painted and my floor boards are in, my tank just needs water to be added now.

Problem..... My water has .25ppm ammonia....

My knowledge is when you are cycling your tank (fishless) you got to wait a few weeks for bacteria to grow and be able to consume the ammonia..

My question is, will this beneficial bacteria be able to grow in water with this ammonia level and if it does.... will it consumer it after a few weeks so my ammonia with drop to 0ppm.....or am i better off filling my whole 180 litre tank with R.0 water.?

Quick replies would be sweet cause im here staring at my tank and i cannot wait to put water into it!

Thank you

Sean

If you fill the tank with RO water then you will not be able to put fish in it. RO water (unless treated) is not suitable for keeping fish.

Add your water (tap water or whatever....but not 100% RO water).

Turn on heaters and filters.
Make sure that your tank has added aeration in the beginning.

Then add some 'bacteria in a bottle' (cheap enough, and they work) to seed the water and filters with the right bacteria.

The colonies of bacteria that start turning ammonia to nitrite will build up quite rapidly.......within a week to 2 weeks. But if you have seeded your water with the appropriate bacteria, then the colony will develop within hours suitable for a few fish if the fish are not over fed.

BUT, to be effective, the nitrite needs to be removed by a second group of bacteria. Those bacteria take quite a longtime to establish.....a month, 6 weeks....depending on conditions.

If the ammonia stays high then not will the fish be killed but the bacteria that removes ammonia and nitrites will be hampered (especially the ones that remove nitrites).

It takes time.

ian

so the best thing for me to do is fill the tank up, get bottled bacteria and wait 4 weeks ....?

thanks ian

If you test the water to see if the ammonia goes down with time and nitrites start to rise, then if you have some "bacteria in a bottle" then you may find that you tank is suitable to start adding a few fish and with gentle feeding much sooner than 4 weeks.

I'm not sure how much experience you have (and am not going to ask ), but with experience you can add fish very soon after setting up a tank.
It could be within days, but you need to be careful of feeding and stocking levels and keep a more than normal check on ammonia and nitrite levels.

The reason why I'd usually recommend waiting a good few weeks is that during the initial period things can wrong very quickly due to the immaturity of the water.

The danger,also, in recommending rapid set-ups (eg using Bacteria in a Bottle or using products such as Organic Aqua)is that something may get mus-construed and a disaster follow.

One thing that I do, however, always recommend is to buy some ammonia adsorbing zeolite or a 'Polyfilter' to have around in case something goes wrong.
These products do work (as does seeding you water with bacteria).

On the ammonia levels you are getting in your test kit.......get a test done by a different test kit and keep the temperature as it is in the tank when being tested.

Also, if going to fill a tank at this time of year it could be worth filling now before salt is used on the roads.

ian

hi gilly, im in the same situation as u are, im sitting looking at a newly set up but empty tank, mine is 1500l including sump, i read on another forum how to cycle a tank using pure ammonia, its an interesting read and mayb ill try it on my tank,the bacteria in a bottle ian talks about is great and does work but correct me if im wrong,once the bacteria is breeding and set up does it not need food ie fish waste to keep alive and growing.here is the link to the site im talking about. www.oscarfishlover.com/how-to-cycle-a-tank.u may have to cut and paste it. give it a read, it deals with the basics.

Yes, the colonies of bacteria would need a nitrogen source. In Gilly's case, the water already has high ammonia (albeit total ammonia)....so that would supply the nitrogen in the first place.
If fish are added with care then they will supply ammonia.

I am not in agreement with much in the link.
I am also not a great fan of the ammonia dosing fishless cycle method as it is usually presented to be honest.

ian

hi ian, did u ever come across organic aqua start up and maintenance kits? whats your opinion of them?. theres an extensive chat about it here, most of the feed back is positive, but i have doubts about any instant just add water and fish start ups

I've been in the debates on Organic Aqua, and said my bit (which would be very the same now as then).

There are a few basic principles of consideration in using things like OA....

1. There is no 'magical' solution to setting up a fish tank;

2. The Nitrogen Cycle is a lot more complex in its actions than most fish-keeping literature reports;

3. There is a big difference between a stable mature tank and one that has begun a partial 'nitrogen cycle'...ie a so called 'cycled tank' is not cycled and is not mature.

4. I see no scientific reason why products such as Organic Aqua cannot work in principle; whether or not a particular product does work is shown by using it and testing it.

I have not analysed what is in Organic Aqua, but it is fully reasonable that it may be a different kind of "bacteria in a bottle" with some other herbal and mineral additives to help a tank.

I do not believe the 'science' that the product claims, and I do not like the 'magical' marketing aspect of it either: but that does not mean it cannot work.

The classic fish-keeping notion of a 'cycled' tank (I used the word 'cycled' in quotes because I hate using that word, but have been forced in recent years to use it as so many people have started using it incorrectly) is....

nitrogenous food TO ammonia (either excreted from gills or from a breakdown of fish waste) TO nitrites TO nitrates all in aerobic conditions = "cycled" (not).

(and often with names of bacteria that often are not the species that do that work in a fish tank !!).

and then add to that denitrification (nitrates to nitrogen) and assimilation of nitrates into plants.

But, that is not the complete story. It matters little if writers understand the nitrogen cycle, as it is the fish and the organisms within the tank that have to live with the reality.

Within all the 'Cycle' notions things can go backwards as well eg nitrate to nitrite to ammonia.
Plus you have other nitrogenous compounds being released if something goes astray (quite toxic and will kill fish).

In addition to the standard beliefs in 'cycling' there are bacteria (and processes) that can convert ammonia directly to nitrogen gas (this is anaerobic oxidation of ammonia), and there will be processes that feed nitrates directly to ammonia for the said bacteria to convert the ammonia to nitrogen gas.
When a tank is at this stage, which ordinarily would take 9 months to several years for the colonies to be good enough to handle a tank, then a tank can be said to be mature and 'cycled'.

However, along the way there are other bacteria that will convert nitrates to ammonia....and then assimilate the ammonia for their own growth. This is a very important process in a fish tank, and is probably the process (I'm guessing as I have not analysed OA) that OA stimulates.
Organic Aqua may (?) contain bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis (commonly called the 'Hay Bacteria') plus plants for it to get a grip on.

Using B. subtilis is a nice idea because it is a pretty special bacteria.

ian

thanks ian for your input, i have to agree with u that there is no short instant way to set up a tank and the claims if OA are mostly marketing, but mayb as an aid to starting a tank it has some use, however there is no substitute for regular water testing and allowing the time for a new tank to mature even as u say ian it may take a year or more.their tank maintenance kit is more useful to help a bacteria colony to grow, and if it also helps the fish to settle into a new tank then all the better. ive never tried the OA products so im not talking from experience only from what ive read and others experience. as it was gilly that started this thread several months ago his tank is already full and doing well. id love to know what method he used and how it worked for him.get back to us gilly and lets know how your new tank is doing

I think that the main problem in Gilly's question was the measurement and the meaning of the measurement of ammonia.

From Gilly's reading and other info Gilly gave on another thread, I think I'd calculated that the ammonia levels were actually only about 10% of what the shop had said the ammonia was.
Ideally, the total ammonia (ammonia plus ammonium) should be in the safe zone = zero or 0.025mg/l as a max) but the pH and temperature would mean that the unionised ammonia was just about in a safe zone (so long as the temp and pH did not increase).

From my calculations, there would be no mystery as to why the fish are doing OK.....but the water would be on a bit of knife-edge.

Interpretation of the water test reading is just as important, if not more so, than the reading itself. The term "Perfect Water" is not a valid interpretation though.

ian

Hey guys sorry ive missed out on the discussion been reading everything there, though i see ian was along to save the day with chemistry knowledge again.

Paul my tank is three weeks running now and i tested my water everyday.... after a week of the tank running i took out the filter of my thirty litre tank and through it into a bucket... as the filter normaly let out all the water and gunk it was carrying i them took about the filter media and squeezed the juices into the buck.... i was left with a brown gunky water.... but a bacteria rich brown gunky water . I threw all this water into my new tank onto of the filter and around the gravel.... i checked my parameters carefully over the next days and one test showed ammonia .0 nitrite .0 nitrate.25 .... so i thought i had cycled as my tap water has .25 ammonia ... or my impatience told me i was cycled... i went up and bought three siamese algae eaters and put them in to tank.... but a few days ago i noticed they were hiding in my live plants all day and i never saw them, an easily scared fish is a sick fish ian thought me so i tested the water and to my own mis fortune it turned out i had not cycled.

ammonia 0
nitrite 1
nitrate.25

So immediately i did a 25% water change and dosed the water with prime to help with the nitrite spike... im yet to test the water but will today.....

so my advice to you paul is when you think you have cycled always double check.... if you witness your ammonia go to 0... throw a prawn into the tank... wait until it goes frothy and take it out .... watch your ammonia levels... if the decomposing prawn causes them to spike and then drop again thats a healthy sign. Do not do what i did and run straight to the lfs and buy fish.... cause after two weeks at my level of experience i most certainly was not cycled....

P.s if your thinking of a good idea to speed you the tanks cycle.... go to your fish shop with your filter media.... ask them pretty please if they will throw your filter media into the media of there filter system... preferably the gold fish one as the bacteria in that system would need to be at its strongest... go home for a day and pick it up the next day... you should have filter media with a high level of bacteria.... but only really sound fish shop owners would do this favor for you im sure....and make sure you bring it home in a bag of water and get it home quickly as bacteria can begin to die after a while without the flow of water.....

I know the big dogs might tell me im completely wrong as im only a fry in this forum but thats just my experience as you asked for

I don't think the 'big dogs' would have much of a leg to stand on as you're going about learning about all this the correct way.

ian

Hi Gilly,

My apols for not getting back to you.

It is not a good idea to put your Filter Media into a LFS Tank in order to seed it, you don't know what pathogens lie within it, white spot, Velvet, Flukes, Worms etc, etc.

Stick to the tried and tested methods and only use seeded material from someone you know or can trust.

Kev.

Valid statement kev. There is always a chance to be taken from any tank really.

Ive got a question for you guys.... i had the nitrite spike the other day it went to 1 ppm... i test my water there

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate is present but colour is not dark enough to suggest .25.

In order to get my nitrite down i used prime.... To the best of my knowledge prime disables the toxicity of nitrite , but does it destroy it?

Id love to throw 4 of my kerri danios into my tank but im afraid nitrite will spike again when the prime loses its affect... or does it?

Can i trust that nitrite has been lowered permanently ?

Prime is not an antedote for nitrite or for nitrate poisoning.
It is the levels of nitrite or nitrate within the fish that is important.

Methylene Blue is, however, an antedote. But I do not recommend using it unless there is clear evidence of nitrite or nitrate poisoning.

The process of ammonia to nitrite (nitrosofication) is relatively rapid; the process of nitrite to nitrate (nitrification) is quite slow and is the rate limiting step in the complete process of ammonia to nitrate.

Hence, until the nitrification system is well developed to keep up with the nitrosofication process then you are going to get nitrite spikes.

If the nitrite does not go down or keeps rising then you have a problem.

ian

Jesus ian your some man for making me think

Sooooooooo ....do i put 4 kerri danios in or not ?

surely if ammonia and nitrite has gone to zero and nitrate is showing... the process is complete?

Gilly wrote:

Jesus ian your some man for making me think

Sooooooooo ....do i put 4 kerri danios in or not ?

surely if ammonia and nitrite has gone to zero and nitrate is showing... the process is complete?

Good fish-keeping is about thinking

And you are thinking.

I can't take responsibility for saying 'put the danios in' as I am not sure of other conditions (and anything can happen anyway).

But, I would add the few fish you mention carefully and feed carefully (do not feed on the first day though).

A tank will only truly start to mature when it has livestock in it.....up until that time it is nothing more than a giant test tube for doing chemistry tests up. Who wants a 160 litre test tube?

But, as with any new tank set-up, always take care and don't rush with feeding or stocking levels.

Go on....get the tank going and get some pics up here. There's only so much chemistry I can talk about without wanting to say "nice tank".

ian

Ok Ian as requested......

The four kerri danios sweating for their new home....



And then them in the tank with the siamese algae eaters schooling with them

"nice tank" quoting ian i intend taking the same route as u did gilly and use filter dirt and bacteria from another working filter to kick start my new sump, im lucky ive a eheim 600 external filter that needs cleaning out so ill transfer the sludge from that into my new sump along with water change from 2 other tanks about 130l in total, its not much to add to a large tank with 1500l but hopfully it will start of the bacterial colony and with careful water testing i can add some adult oscars in a month or so. i also intend using bacteria in a bottle and mayb the OA start up kit, ill post up pics but ill wait till i have fish to look at not just water and roots

One day I'll get a tank as big as 1000 litres and I will rescue a few goldfish from bowls in neglecting homes and watch them live their lives in gratefullness ...that's ten year plan

gilly i like the idea of a rescue center for goldfish unless u have a small army of helpers i wont not buy a second monster tank, mine is still sitting on the floor waiting for guys to help me lift it on the cabanet . my wife must be a saint to put up with it please god this coming sunday i can get 4 or 5 men to help me.then i can do the pipe work and start a water fill. if i ever go bigger tank ill build a ply wood tank, first i need to build a bigger house

I bought my first tank to rescue 2 goldfish, OK they were my fish but still. If my wife only knew what she was doing when she bought 2 goldies and a plastic bowl, she didn't know what she was starting