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Nitrogen cycle discussion

Joined
31 Mar 2019
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11
Location
Serbia
Just want to share some information about nitrogen cycle. Hopefully this picture will help someone...
I would like to know your experience with it, after what time you are adding livestock to your tanks?
 

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usually I add (the first) fish somewhere between 2 days and 2 weeks. With my first few tanks I was measuring for nitrite every day, always without result so I stopped worrying about it, seems to me that in a planted tank without a huge source of ammonia those spikes just don't happen.
 
I just think every planted tank is different so many varietents with substrate filter plants so who you just gotta be patient
 
nitrogen cycle.

Well come to the Green Side.

A tank is never 'cycled' it is constantly cycling. Get the plants growing first, see the Estimated Index (EI) method. If plants are of the 'difficult type' establish with very high levels of CO2. Lean off before adding livestock. I started from the bottom up corys, otos, shrimps and then shoal fish, that way less food in the the substrate.

I do not test the water, over the counter test kits are poor and lab grade ones are very expensive. Nitrate & phosphates are good for plant growth and in general terms harmless to fish. Ammonia/ammonium test are so poor you can see distressed fish before you can get reliable results.

The file you have enclosed is good guide.

Watch you livestock and watch you plants they never lie. Learn to read them.

Good fortune with you tank(s).
 
Hi all,
I would like to know your experience with it, after what time you are adding livestock to your tanks?
I usually wait at least six weeks for the plants to grow in and to make sure that the <"floating plants"> aren't suffering from any <"nutrient deficiencies">.
A tank is never 'cycled' it is constantly cycling
That one really, there isn't a switch fron "non-cycled" (and unsafe for fish) to "cycled" (and safe for fish), it is a constantly sliding scale.

The main point is that "plant/microbe" biological filtration is a lot more efficient than "microbe only" biofiltration, and a lot of this has to do with levels of <"dissolved oxygen">.
Before the development of RNA libraries we were reliant on culturing bacteria (from sewage treatment etc) to find out what organisms were involved in nitrification, which led to many of the assumptions about aquarium cycling that we now know to be incorrect. It isn't surprising, if you look at raw sewage it is a very different medium, from even very polluted, aquarium water. Dr Tim Hovanec talks about this is in <"Bacteria revealed">, and there are a number of papers specifically on the nitrifying organisms in aquarium filters which suggest that their assemblage shows a fluid response to varying ammonia loadings, with a stable core of archaea and an ever changing cast of nitrifying bacteria. This is described in <"Freshwater Recirculating Aquaculture System Operations Drive Biofilter Bacterial Community Shifts around a Stable Nitrifying Consortium of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea and Comammox Nitrospira">.

Have a look at <"New filter - which one?">, <"Filter cycling..."> and <"....Planted aquarium query">.

cheers Darrel
 
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