• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

0.5ppm ammonia 2 week old tank 0 no2 used old pond media in filter

Tommytwotens

Seedling
Joined
11 Apr 2016
Messages
9
Location
Blackpool
Hi all... I'm just wondering people's thoughtshe on plant ammonia intake. My plant tank is coming up to two weeks old and ammonia is at 0.5 according to my api test kit... 0 no2 and 0 no3. I have added a full bottle of safestart heterotrophic bacteria and used some k1 media out of my existing pond nexus filter... I have a lot of fish in but didn't really expect a cycle due to the media...

Is it true that plants can take in ammonia directly and is this likely to subside without poisoning the fish?

Is the tank heavily planted enough to dodge the coming bullet?

Thanks guys, tom.
d8f28ac3a6a9aaebe08fa4de25421d8e.jpg
257daea31212e617882c1e7f5bcce1c2.jpg
bc85d9dec37a5e14ccb096784d6b31b4.jpg


Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk
 
That's a lot of fish for a two week old tank, If you have another mature tank, i'd move some of them out while the tank cycles. While test kits are rubbish and unreliable, any ammonia is unhealthy for fish.
 
The alternative is to treat the tank using Seachem Prime, which converts ammonia and nitrite to a non-toxic form that is still accessible to your plants and your filter bacteria but is harmless to your fish. Bear in mind that the 'ammonia' will still register on test kits, so don't keep dosing with more Prime when you still see the same ammonia reading from your test kit.
 
Brill thanks guys my buddy has a big bottle of prime I'll see if I can borrow some off him tomorrow :)

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk
 
My only other tank now has turtles in it but they will eat these tetra lol... I'll steal some media from that filter as well and squeeze it over the sponge in my sump

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk
 
Seachem states you can dose 5x the normal dosage of Prime to detoxify ammonia/Nitrogen in emergency situations. But Prime only detoxifies them for up to 24-48 hours, giving the plants and Autotrophic (not Heterotrophic, those break down organic matter into ammonia. Tetra SafeStart contains Autotrophic Nitrifiers) Nitrifying bacteria some time to convert/oxidize the ammonia and nitrites.

I have instantly cycled/stocked many tanks just using seeded biomedia and have zero issue. Maybe you just did not take enough to support the given bioload, or you took biomedia from the top of the pile that only had little amounts of bacteria on it. Or your filter is just underpowered/sized to keep up with the higher bioload in relation to the filters size/flowrate to tank water volume.

However I do notice your substrate. Is the substrate new? What is it exactly? From the rounded beads, it looks like a active substrate, and those commonly leach out ammonia (said to do so for the first month or two, but I think it's all the time, just that after a months time, nitrifying bacteria keep levels undetectable).

That's not very many plants so they alone would not deal with much bioload. And they aren't considered fast growers (some people like to call them ammonia sponges). The faster they grow, the more nutrients/ammonia they use up.

What's your pH at? Not sure if your rocks are inert or not. If they aren't and you also have a acidic buffering substrate, I am not sure what your pH would balance at. pH would determine how deadly the ammonia/ammonium is, and how efficient your Nitrifying bacteria will be.

Either way, water changes need to be done ASAP or you will kill the fish. Answer the questions I have asked and we can figure out what is the main cause of the issue.
 
I always wondered how the bottled bacteria actually operated, as I've used it in the past to great effect. Eventually I found out from one of the larger companies I e-mailed, that by adding it to the lightly stocked tank; it tends to keep ammonia around the 1ppm level, which is a stressor but not an outright killer for most fish, until the bacteria establish.

This makes total sense, as there can't be an established bacterial cycle without ammonia being present to fuel it; therefore it's pretty much marketing jargon that it will instantly cycle; a more apt description would be that it helps speed it up, but still poses risk to fish; especially sensitive types.

In the past I have cycled a dwarf puffer tank with BB, and they tend to be very sensitive; so I'd still recommend it if anyone is interested in the method though, especially if its a first tank; otherwise a preferable option to me, would be to seed filtration in an already established aquarium, quicker and safer
 
I would add sponge or pad from already established tank (If I had access to this), rather than squeezing the borrowed media into the newly established/cycling tank.
The bacteria is clingy to filter media/hard surfaces, and more bang for the buck by inserting the borrowed media into the filtration or tank rather than trying to squeeze it out from where it is presently.
I do not believe enough plant's are present from photo for "silent cycling" with plant's.
 
Aqua360, I'm curious which company you talked with about bottled bacteria that gave you that answer? I have done quite a lot of research on the Nitrogen cycle and the bacteria (including bottled) that utilize it. Not all of them are the same, they use different bacteria (which is why some work that have the correct bacteria, and some don't). Not trying to bump heads, but what you have said is not true of bottled nitrifying bacteria products. Now for cycling a tank with ammonium chloride (Dr. Tim's has this) or ammonium hydroxide, you would dose that to keep ammonia levels at 1 ppm or maybe even 2 or 3 ppm if you wanted to build a larger nitrifying bacteria colony to support a larger bioload. But that is just bottled ammonia, not bottled nitrifying bacteria. If you did use bottled nitrifying bacteria and you had no fish in the tank yet, you could dose 1 ppm of ammonia to keep the bacteria fed/alive until you get fish, but the bottled bacteria does not contain ammonia (they stay alive in the bottled because their metabolism is slowed to a crawl, essentially hibernation if you want to call it that).
 
Hi all,
I would add sponge or pad from already established tank (If I had access to this), rather than squeezing the borrowed media into the newly established/cycling tank.
The bacteria is clingy to filter media/hard surfaces, and more bang for the buck by inserting the borrowed media into the filtration or tank rather than trying to squeeze it out from where it is presently.
I do not believe enough plant's are present from photo for "silent cycling" with plant's.
I agree with "roadmaster" about the filter media, adding media from the turtle tank would be best. Some floating plants would help, they have access to aerial CO2 (400 ppm) so they aren't carbon limited. Until you can get some (I always have spare), I'd carry on with the water changes and "Prime".

Do you fish have inflamed red gills/opercula? if they do that is a sure sign of high NH3 levels (you can't measure the NH3 levels once you've added Prime).
Now for cycling a tank with ammonium chloride (Dr. Tim's has this) or ammonium hydroxide, you would dose that to keep ammonia levels at 1 ppm or maybe even 2 or 3 ppm if you wanted to build a larger nitrifying bacteria colony to support a larger bioload.
Have a look at <"Bacteria revealed"> it is some of Dr Tim Hovanec's more recent research into nitrifying organisms and has time scales in it.

There is also Sauder et al. (2011) <"Aquarium Nitrification Revisited: Thaumarchaeota Are the Dominant Ammonia Oxidizers in Freshwater Aquarium">, which explains why most supplements don't work.

cheers Darrel
 
Have a look at <"Bacteria revealed"> it is some of Dr Tim Hovanec's more recent research into nitrifying organisms and has time scales in it.

There is also Sauder et al. (2011) <"Aquarium Nitrification Revisited: Thaumarchaeota Are the Dominant Ammonia Oxidizers in Freshwater Aquarium">, which explains why most supplements don't work.

cheers Darrel
Thanks for the links Darrel. I will read through the links in full later today when I have some time.
I am familiar with Dr. Tim's work. From a quick glance over the provided link, it does seem to be another article Dr. Tim has wrote on the actual nitrifiers in aquaria, but cool to see that he explains it in a simpler way to understand.

Here are some publications he had on the studies
http://www.drtimsaquatics.com/wp-content/files/scientificpapers/hovanecAEM_Dec01.pdf

and here are more scientific publications of his
http://www.drtimsaquatics.com/resources/library-presentations/scientific-papers

I have had another person bring up Archaea being the ammonia oxidizers. Here is the article they linked me, but seems you have to pay to view the full article. I still haven't looked into it. Even without having researched into Archaea (Thaumarchaeota) though, from reports of people using Dr. Tim's One and Only, which contains Nitrosomonas (supposed ammonia-oxidizer) and Nitrospira (nitrite-oxidizer), ammonia conversion does take place quite readily so that alone, to me shows that it at least does work for oxidizing ammonia.
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-micro-092611-150128?journalCode=micro

But thanks for bringing it up. Now that I've heard about Archaea from two people, I will be sure to really research into. My thoughts were Archaea might also be an ammonia-oxidizer, but doesn't necessarily have to be the prominent one in freshwater aquaria. I may be wrong though, so I will look into.
 
Hi all,
I'll say straight away I'm not a fan of cycling with ammonia, or with the concept of a tank being either "cycled" or "not cycled". In this case the OP has a heavy bioload present, so needs a rapid solution.

Because of the sump (with a wet and dry trickle filter or just floating cell media?) I'm assuming that oxygen availability won't limit nitrification.
My thoughts were Archaea might also be an ammonia-oxidizer, but doesn't necessarily have to be the prominent one in freshwater aquaria. I may be wrong though, so I will look into.
I think the research is <"pretty unequivocal"> that archaea are the principle ammonia oxidising organisms in freshwater aquaria, and that the conversion of NO2 to NO3 is mainly carried out by Nitrospira spp. bacteria.

I would be very surprised if molecular techniques don't discover a whole range of previously un-identified micro-organisms involved in nitrification.

The Sauder et al. paper is open source, and worth a read.

cheers Darrel
 
Back
Top