how much ammonia?

i am trying to plan ahead, so when i break down my set-ups and put a new stand in it goes as smooth as possible

all the fish i am keeping will be housed in the empty tanks, but the dilemma i have is: how do i keep the bacteria alive on 6 sheets of foam and 6kg of ceramic???

so i thought i will keep the sump "alive" with ammonia from the chemist, just using a small powerhead to circulate the water around from one end to the other.
but how much ammonia should i use each day?
i will be continuing the "fishless cycle" when the tank is back together and planted out, for a few weeks while everything settles and than plan to put the fish back in so i would like to "feed" enough ammonia to have the filter ready for this bioload to go straigh in the day after the last "feed"

but how do i work out how much ammonia is enough to support such a big colony of bacteria? or should i just "overfeed" anyway?

Are you talking about getting some ammonium hydroxide solution (aqueous ammonia)?

I'm not too sure that is a great idea unless you have some pretty accurate measuring and test equipment.

If you overdose (and that would be pretty easy to do) then you may kill off the nitrifying bacteria, and even the nitrosofying bacteria (the ones that convert ammonia to nitrites) may be killed off by an overdose.
Not only that, but an overdose of ammonia may result in water that may take a very long time to get the levels down to anything that a fish can tolerate.

To calculate, there are many things that you'd need to know eg pH, temperatures, bacterial load and oxygen supply.

I'd probably recommend using a milder method....eg seeding with old water etc.

ian

you mean putting in some dirty water each day from the holding tanks to keep the sump bacteria alive?

i thought i'd be ok using the ammonia that people use for fishless cycling

Could you not divide up the media and keep it in the tanks where the fish will be temporarily housed near an airstone, either way you will find it hard to avoid some bacteria loss.


How long will the transfer from the old to new set-up?



Mark

thats a good idea mark, and i was also thinking of keeping some fish in the sump. i expect that once the other holding tanks are empty, i can move the fish then it will take around 3-4weeks to have them back in the new setup as i will need to let the tank settle after planting before i can introduce fish again. just worried about cycling it all again. i forsee a massive pain in the ass

joey wrote:

you mean putting in some dirty water each day from the holding tanks to keep the sump bacteria alive?

i thought i'd be ok using the ammonia that people use for fishless cycling

Yep. But you'r still need to feed the dirty water.

Adding ammonia directly?? what sort of concentration stock solution is to be used?

Ammonium hydroxide solution will raise the pH (the extend depends upon the buffer capacity of the water)....that raise will probably kill off most of the bacteria on the filter beds anyway as the filter-bed bacteria are much more sensitive to changes in pH than those in the bulk water.

ian

basically my original idea was to just lift out the sump, with water in, and feed the bacteria in there (using powerhead to transport the water from the end chamber back to the first) with some sort of ammonia solution/dilution, of which i dont (yet?) have, and wanted to use enough of said solution to feed the bacteria colony enough to sustain it, so that when the tank goes back together it is able to support the re-introduction of fish with no (or very little) mini cycle that could potentially harm the fish

phew!

always easier to explain 2nd time round when you realise how stupid the original blurt reads! (slaps self on head)

Ammonia is toxic to nitrosofying and nitrifying (very sensitive) bacteria.
If we consider that the maximum upper limit for even tough fish is about 0.05mg/l of unionised ammonia, then nitrosofying bacteria (the free swimming ammonia to nitrite converters) can only take 200 times that concentration safely, but the nitrifying bacteria (the ones on the filter converting nitrite to nitrate will only tolerate about 2 to 20 times the concentration of ammonia that the toughest fish can tolerate. And that tolerance is only tolerated if the change in ammonia and pH is a gradual change (they really don't like anything sudden).

Hence, if using a concentrated ammonia source, you'd need to be very careful.

ian

so would it be safe to dose 0.05mg/l to the sump as a free standing unit, calculating the amount from the concentration of the ammonia solution? like if it is a 10% solution i add 0.5mg/l to the sump. if the water volume in the sump is, say, 100l i would add 50mg to it?
or is it just too darn risky and i'm better off dividing the ceramic media between the holding tanks, as all the ceramic will be going back to the main tank once it is ready, and i can run just foam in the sump (as the complete unit) when it is set up and planted out for tyhe 4 weeks settling down period and as i add fish i put in the media from whichever tank the fish are being moved from

i was going to hold the fish as follows (bear in mind this is temporary, there will be no substrate in most only caves and wood as dividers and hiding spots, and water changes will be done 2 or 3 times per week with rigirous testing to monitor cionditions all the time):

45l:
5 cory's
cae (2")
4 otto's
2 amano shrimp
2 bamboo shrimp
hillstream loach

100l: (2 1/2')
9 denisonii (3")
rainbow shark
cae (6")
pleco (4")

100l:
3 archer fish (4")
cae (7")
6 clown loaches (2 1/2")
flying fox (3")

that is the best i can do with what i have, although i was thinking of putting the 2 bigger cae's in seperate chambers in the sump as there is still a fair bit of foam and bacteria on that. the risky thing is that they will will have to help with the cycle of the system once the tank is filled to overflow point (i can partially fill and run an external before connecting sump)

any thoughts on this plan?

been going over this in my head for the last 2 weeks and is the best idea i have to keep them alive and stress free as possible, and as holding tanks are small i have split up fish that would be territorial in such conditions (cae's)

The max estimate for ammonia for a fish at 0.05mg/l is an estimate for the toughest of fish....hillstream loaches are not that tough (I don't believe that they can adjust their brain chemistry as can goldfish) and I gather that the shrimps would be a delicate matter to boot.

Now, if you have a 10% solution, then that depends on whether or not it is a 10% w/v or 10% w/w or 10% v/v as to how much (in theory) you would add.
I gather that you are talking about the standard 10% stuff...and that may actually be between 10 and 30%.

You'd be getting to a trickier set of calculations that simply multiplying up by 10.
And adding something like 10mg or 50mg is an extremely small amount to measure considering the exact nature of the solution (eg if the density is 0.9 g/ml then 1ml would weigh 900mg, so roughly you'd need 1/100th of a ml to get 9mg...that is a small volume)

(I hope that I have that right)

Remember that 5ml of 10% aqueous ammonia (or 10 to 30% ammonium hydroxide) would weigh approx 4g.....and that is enough to kill a human if ingested.

This stuff is not easy to work with in exact figures due to the nature of the solution.

Do I sound as though I'm being negative and trying to put you off the idea of directly adding ammonia solution?

I am.

ian

no not negative at all you are making me realise what harm i could cause. i dont know tho if i was clear about one thing; i will not be keeping any fish in the sump IF i use ammonia solution to keep the media alive. i was aiming for a fishless cycle situation so i dont lose bacteria in all the sump media and the sump would be running as a stand alone tank while the revamp happens.

but you are right it is too complicated either way to bother so i will divide the ceramic up between the holding tanks and stick airstones in them to have some sort of circulation over it and hopefully wont lose too much bacteria, and keep 1 or 2 fish in the sump as another holding tank

I'd gathered that your weren't going to have fish in the system.
The ammonia could easily kill off the bacteria, and then you may have residual amount hanging around when you do plan to add fish (and how much hanging around would be difficult to a calculate as ammonia is a pretty soluble gas).

I've worked with ammonia in research, and it ain't nice stuff. One time a high pressure system with boiling ammonium hydroxide failed and sprayed ammonia everywhere, I was wearing a full safety suit and a self-contained respirator but still I got a nasty whiff of ammonia. At higher enough concentration it is possible to have your neck broken by the involuntary backlash of whiffing ammonia.

If you had a massive system, then errors in calculations might be evened out. eg it is much easier to add 10 kilogrammes to the sea than it is to add a microgram to 1000 litres.

yeah i'll just use fish to keep it cycled.

just noticed my 2nd last post has smileys instead of close brackets... stupid!