mcozad829
Premium Member
semantics and purpose, lol that is the short answer
curing vs cycling
- Thread starter Johnb123
- Start date
semantics and purpose, lol that is the short answer
stingeragent
New member
Regardless of the rock, they won't process nitrate. The more pouress ( sp? ), the better as it will allow more surface area for bacteria to colonize.
mcozad829
Premium Member
Porous is better. This really is a topic for the chemistry or advanced forum but anaerobic bacteria can process nitrate into nitrogen gas deep inside the rock or in a DSB... The best place to learn about this is in the chemistry forum, Randy has even written articles on it, it is complicated and I would do my research there if your looking into advanced topics like this.
CStrickland
New member
ay jueputa!
I think this stuff is confusing if you try to pick at little pieces of it without understanding the big picture. Most of these questions will answer themselves if you skim through a few articles in the "setting up" sticky at the top of this forum. If you don't have a basic understanding of the nitrogen cycle, you wind up going around in circles like this.
Ammonia and nitrites and nitrates and nitrogen gas are all forms of nitrogen. The bacteria change the forms around. Your nitrogen cycle doesn't ever end, you just get enough bacteria to process the waste. Every time you increase the waste, there's a lag where the bacteria has to catch up. Adding one fish is usually not enough to cause an ammonia spike once the base population is established, so in the beginning you have to cultivate that population. People call that "cycling the tank."
Some of those bacteria "nitrify" because they change ammonia to nitrites and nitrates. Some of the bacteria "dinitrify" because they change the nitrates into gas or back to ammonia etc. The denitrifiers live right underneath the nitrifiers where they are happy because there is less oxygen and they can eat the nitrifiers waste easily. They live together on rocks and sand and glass and pipes and everything. Nitrifiers are better at living in stronger flow than denitrifiers, perhaps because there is more oxygen, or maybe for some other reason.
In addition their ammonia processing, bacteria are separated by whether they can tolerate oxygen: facultative or obligate; and whether they convert carbon from inorganic or organic sources: heterotrophs (and chemoheterotrophs) or autotrophs and further. Our tanks have facultative heterotrophic denitrifiers, and many other kinds of bacteria with long names.
This is not the sort of thing that boils down to simple answers, there are a lot of rabbit holes to go down. That is why the hobby is challenging and interesting. But sometimes you will think you have a simple question and it leads to another and another. If you just read about bacteria for a few days and search the forum for threads where others have already asked the same questions it will build your base of knowledge to where the answers you get make sense and are more helpful. Otherwise it can be very confusing, because it is pretty complicated stuff if you actually want to know why everything happens.
I think this stuff is confusing if you try to pick at little pieces of it without understanding the big picture. Most of these questions will answer themselves if you skim through a few articles in the "setting up" sticky at the top of this forum. If you don't have a basic understanding of the nitrogen cycle, you wind up going around in circles like this.
Ammonia and nitrites and nitrates and nitrogen gas are all forms of nitrogen. The bacteria change the forms around. Your nitrogen cycle doesn't ever end, you just get enough bacteria to process the waste. Every time you increase the waste, there's a lag where the bacteria has to catch up. Adding one fish is usually not enough to cause an ammonia spike once the base population is established, so in the beginning you have to cultivate that population. People call that "cycling the tank."
Some of those bacteria "nitrify" because they change ammonia to nitrites and nitrates. Some of the bacteria "dinitrify" because they change the nitrates into gas or back to ammonia etc. The denitrifiers live right underneath the nitrifiers where they are happy because there is less oxygen and they can eat the nitrifiers waste easily. They live together on rocks and sand and glass and pipes and everything. Nitrifiers are better at living in stronger flow than denitrifiers, perhaps because there is more oxygen, or maybe for some other reason.
In addition their ammonia processing, bacteria are separated by whether they can tolerate oxygen: facultative or obligate; and whether they convert carbon from inorganic or organic sources: heterotrophs (and chemoheterotrophs) or autotrophs and further. Our tanks have facultative heterotrophic denitrifiers, and many other kinds of bacteria with long names.
This is not the sort of thing that boils down to simple answers, there are a lot of rabbit holes to go down. That is why the hobby is challenging and interesting. But sometimes you will think you have a simple question and it leads to another and another. If you just read about bacteria for a few days and search the forum for threads where others have already asked the same questions it will build your base of knowledge to where the answers you get make sense and are more helpful. Otherwise it can be very confusing, because it is pretty complicated stuff if you actually want to know why everything happens.
Quiet_Ivy
New member
Yes. Nitrate reduction requires only that there be a suitable low oxygen area for the bacteria to grow on. They will develop in your aquarium naturally assuming you have hypoxic/anoxic conditions in rock/sand bed. Shallow sand beds work fine.
It's true that nitrate to N2 reduction by bacteria is typically very slow and usually doesn't keep up with bioload. It gets complicated because other organisms in an aquarium can and do take up nitrate, for example micro and macro algae, coralline algae, some corals, etc.
Stingeragent is a bit confused here, vodka/vinegar/biopellet dosing simply provides food (carbon) for existing bacteria. It doesn't add any specific bacteria to your system, and actually is very unlikely to affect any anaerobes.
The nitrogen cycle sure doesn't end at nitrate..if it did we'd all be in big trouble here on Earth.
hope that helps a bit
ivy
mcozad829
Premium Member
Yes. Nitrate reduction requires only that there be a suitable low oxygen area for the bacteria to grow on. They will develop in your aquarium naturally assuming you have hypoxic/anoxic conditions in rock/sand bed. Shallow sand beds work fine.
It's true that nitrate to N2 reduction by bacteria is typically very slow and usually doesn't keep up with bioload. It gets complicated because other organisms in an aquarium can and do take up nitrate, for example micro and macro algae, coralline algae, some corals, etc.
Stingeragent is a bit confused here, vodka/vinegar/biopellet dosing simply provides food (carbon) for existing bacteria. It doesn't add any specific bacteria to your system, and actually is very unlikely to affect any anaerobes.
The nitrogen cycle sure doesn't end at nitrate..if it did we'd all be in big trouble here on Earth.
hope that helps a bit
ivy
Think of it in the scope of a "new to the hobby thread", for all intensive purposes in regards to aquarium use the nitrate cycle ends at nitrates... Anything beyond would fall into the advanced category and carbon dosing which is extensively covered in the more advanced forums. Throwing too much at a new reefer at once will do nothing but lead to confusion.
Yes. Nitrate reduction requires only that there be a suitable low oxygen area for the bacteria to grow on. They will develop in your aquarium naturally assuming you have hypoxic/anoxic conditions in rock/sand bed. Shallow sand beds work fine.
It's true that nitrate to N2 reduction by bacteria is typically very slow and usually doesn't keep up with bioload. It gets complicated because other organisms in an aquarium can and do take up nitrate, for example micro and macro algae, coralline algae, some corals, etc.
Stingeragent is a bit confused here, vodka/vinegar/biopellet dosing simply provides food (carbon) for existing bacteria. It doesn't add any specific bacteria to your system, and actually is very unlikely to affect any anaerobes.
The nitrogen cycle sure doesn't end at nitrate..if it did we'd all be in big trouble here on Earth.
hope that helps a bit
ivy
so that's why vodka/vinegar/biopellets clears nitrates because they provide food for other bacteria to eat nitrates?
so after nitrates dissipates from nitrogen gas off anaerobic filtration that's not the end of the nitrogen cycle?
Quiet_Ivy
New member
Essentially yes.
mcozad829 pointed out, and they're right, that I was being excessively pedantic. I don't want newbies to see nitrate building up and think they can't do anything about it.
If you are cycling an aquarium you are "done" when you see nitrates being produced and ammonia and nitrites are zero. You can add cuc, fish-slowly. But really, an aquarium is never in a steady state, there are all kinds of cool things going on.
After nitrates are produced they:
-float around dissolved in the water
-are consumed by various bacteria, microcritters, microalgae, macroalgae, corals
-are converted to n2 gas by those anaerobic/hypoxic bacteria (the process has the fascinating side effect of stabilizing alkalinity)
N2 gas can be "fixed" ie converted back to ammonia (or nitrite or even nitrate) by everyone's favourite aquarium annoyance, cyanobacteria. Otherwise it goes off into the atmosphere and gets involved in the terrestrial N cycle.
Reef tanks are a rocking mix of chemistry, biochem, ecology, and biology, and aesthetics eh?
Ivy
Quiet_Ivy
New member
You're right that I was probably giving too much info. I jumped in because there were posts saying that there's NO nitrate reduction without intervention.
Having a basic grasp of the n cycle makes it SO much easier to figure out what is going on in our tanks.
ivy (also it makes me nuts when people talk about a cycle ending, but that's a personal issue. )
CStrickland
New member
meh
I think for most *intents and purposes* it's better not to oversimplify to the point of inaccuracy. It was inaccurate to say that the cycle ends at nitrates, it was inaccurate to confirm that skimmers work by removing protein waste before it breaks down, it was inaccurate to say that denitrification generally occurs deep in the rock or a dsb.
If a new reefer gets a little confused, that's not a bad thing. This is confusing business; but misrepresenting the biological process is not a good shortcut because then they just have to unlearn the bad info later. That's a whole lot more confusing than being humbled by the nitrogen cycle and sent off to read the stickies.
It's also pretty confusing to explain, which is another argument in favor of referring them to the stickies where this stuff is broken down by experts. But you can't make someone read the stickies, so as long as they know they are there I think trying to explain it is good practice for the rest of us too. Sometimes when we try to help others understand things we realize the limits of our own comprehension. Explaining stuff is a great way to learn. So it's no biggie that stinger got the nitrate bit a little mixed up, we're here to help each other.
I just don't think that there's really such thing as giving too much info. OP can take what they need from it and if it gets too messy they can hit the setting up sticky. OP got their original question answered in the first few posts and then was asking for more in depth info on how the nitrogen cycle works, I don't see why people shouldn't tell them. They don't need us to baby them.
I think for most *intents and purposes* it's better not to oversimplify to the point of inaccuracy. It was inaccurate to say that the cycle ends at nitrates, it was inaccurate to confirm that skimmers work by removing protein waste before it breaks down, it was inaccurate to say that denitrification generally occurs deep in the rock or a dsb.
If a new reefer gets a little confused, that's not a bad thing. This is confusing business; but misrepresenting the biological process is not a good shortcut because then they just have to unlearn the bad info later. That's a whole lot more confusing than being humbled by the nitrogen cycle and sent off to read the stickies.
It's also pretty confusing to explain, which is another argument in favor of referring them to the stickies where this stuff is broken down by experts. But you can't make someone read the stickies, so as long as they know they are there I think trying to explain it is good practice for the rest of us too. Sometimes when we try to help others understand things we realize the limits of our own comprehension. Explaining stuff is a great way to learn. So it's no biggie that stinger got the nitrate bit a little mixed up, we're here to help each other.
I just don't think that there's really such thing as giving too much info. OP can take what they need from it and if it gets too messy they can hit the setting up sticky. OP got their original question answered in the first few posts and then was asking for more in depth info on how the nitrogen cycle works, I don't see why people shouldn't tell them. They don't need us to baby them.
