Hi all,
My piece of Red Moor wood has been soaking outside for around 3 months in a plastic tub full of tap and rain water so hopefully there will be some bacteria on that to help kick-start the process.
I'm sorry to say this but no, this will not help you. The cycling process involve a substrate where bacteria can fix themselves.
Depending on temperature (& pH & oxygen levels) there likely are some "bacteria of interest" on this wood - add water to any container & various bacterial populations will establish over ensuring weeks, they won't be at the same sort of population densities or rapid growth phases associated with specialized filter media, but any adherent surface in a "cycled" tank will sport some "bacteria of interest"
I think that
"@alto" is correct.
The best solution is to put some plants inside, preferable floating plants that are fast growing and can be removed/replaced after.
That is the one, floating, and/or emergent, plants are really important in the set-up stage, because they have access to aerial CO2.
If you let the plants grow in for ~ 6 weeks then your tank will have a robust and flexible micro-organism assemblage, that can respond to changes in the ammonia supply. You don't need to do anything else, the secret ingredient is just time.
Using commercial "cycle bacteria" products can be an effective way to jump start a tank - pay attention to brand instructions as proprietary bacteria preparation vary considerably (I'd not depend on them for shrimp success)
They aren't going to do any harm, but they may contain an assemblage of micro-organisms that are adapted to a much higher levels of ammonia than your tank contains.
All the recent research suggests that "Ammonia Oxidising Archaea" (AOA) are the principal organisms at low ammonia loadings, and that the subsequent conversion of nitrite (NO2) to nitrate (NO3) is carried out by
Nitrospira spp. bacteria. It is also know known that
Nitrospira spp. can directly oxidise ammonia to nitrate (complete ammonia oxidisers "comammox").I think people should have access to <"
Freshwater Recirculating Aquaculture System Operations Drive Biofilter Bacterial Community Shifts around a Stable Nitrifying Consortium of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea and Comammox Nitrospira">?
How the companies produce their "cycle bacteria" products is a commercial secret, but I would suspect that it is under high ammonia loadings.
As long as you have a filter with some kind of ceramic rings or lava rocks (even sponge works, even if it's less effective) and you have a source of ammonia, your tank should cycle.
Yes, I'm a fan of sintered glass and alfagrog, I also think that sponge is a lot more effective as a biological medium, than it is usually given credit for
, <"but oxygen is really important">.
Because we keep planted tanks we don't have problems with rising NO3 levels, so we can ensure that all the filter media is aerobic to give us the maximum biological filtration capacity.
Best way to know if you have ammonia in the water it to test it
If you have an
<"ammonia ion selective electrode"> testing is a good way, if you have to rely on
<"colormetric methods">, it isn't as good.
<"Because of the problems with testing for a lot of parameters"> we might be interested in I use a different approach, where the health and colour of a floating plant is used as a proxy for nutrient status. I called it the
<"Duckweed Index">, because I originally used
<"Lemna minor">, and it was an alternative approach to
<"Estimative Index"> "EI" for adding nutrients.
The duckweed index is a simple method for ensuring some plant growth, and it works in hard water, soft water etc..
cheers Darrel