Cycling Discussion.
- Thread starter jminick2
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jminick2
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I have no idea how much ammonia is produced by daily feedings nor do I want to know. I trust nature to do its thing. I'm not sure how often you are feeding the tank during the cycle you haven't really specified. I guess I assumed it was often maybe you meant it was one time initially?
Yeah no I didn't actually. I basically combine my feedings with testing. Basically every time the parameters of interest is zero (or low enough), I would test to see if the aquarium can indeed deal with that much food. Which would also be spiking the tank (again).
Hm, one thing I find with adding ammonia, is that if it does take long, then that just means there's not a lot of microbes so they just take time to convert ammonia to nitrite, right?
Hm, one thing I find with adding ammonia, is that if it does take long, then that just means there's not a lot of microbes so they just take time to convert ammonia to nitrite, right?
jminick2
New member
Alright so here's where u are losing me. You say you use food to spike ammonia initially correct? Assuming based on everything you have said you use enough food to support your speculated ending bioload corrrect? We will call that amount X..... SO you did your thing started your cycle fed your tank X and the ammonia spiked to let's say 2ppm and now a week later ammonia and nitrites are 0 and nitrate is 10ppm. By YOUR method the bacteria has successfully converted what you will be feeding daily....it is now established. What more do you want? From this point anymore food (X) you add should be converted within a couple hours if not YOUR theory is flawed in itself right? So hyoptheically You fed X again and the bacteria didn't do its job and you see an ammonia spike So how is that even possible ? You fed the same amount as you did initially to an established population of bacteria.....the initial amount of X has been specifically propagated to efficiently convert X how could there be an ammonia spike???? IMO it is isn't possible which why I don't understand when u say "test the filtration capacity" you are defying the very purpose of the bacteria you just propagated using X.
Alright, so I see where the confusion is now. I agree with everything up until the part in bold (and therefore stuff after). The issue here is that it has taken a week for the bacteria to process a daily feeding, which for me, would not mean that it is 'established'. Established would mean it can deal with a daily feeding in a day, in my opinion. Here, we've only seen that it can deal with a daily feeding in a week.
The issue for me is that an amount added that takes much longer to process could mean that there is not enough bacteria there, hence why it takes so long. This is strictly as an example, but let say a single bacterium takes one day to process one unit of ammonia. If you add in two units of ammonia, then that bacterium would take two days to process it. If there are two bacteria and you add in two units of ammonia, then it would only take one day.
So the fact that it takes longer a day for parameters to zero out (or close enough) could indicate that not enough microbes have propagated yet. Which therefore is why I test the filtration capacity, to determine whether or not this is true. There are many reasons why adding x amount of food may not produce an amount of microbes to be able to deal with said x amount from the first time. Such as usage by other organisms, or the conversion to products that the microbes of interest don't use.
Therefore if it takes longer than a day to get parameters down after a daily feed may mean that there's still not enough microbes yet, hence why it takes longer than a day. Which is my reason to add food in again.
The microbes has only been efficiently propagated when they are able to deal with a daily amount of feeding in a day.
Of course, not all aquariums are equal, and if from the very first feeding the microbes can deal with it in a day, then that's all there is to know. For example the second time I set up my aquarium, that happened. Added a whole bunch of food the first day, the next parameters was close to zero.
The first time though, it took about four days for parameters to lower, two days for the second feeding, and finally after the third time, it was a day to lower parameters after a day's worth of food was added. So initially not enough microbes propagated (for whatever reason) to be able to lower parameters within a day. By the final test, it did.
jminick2
New member
The final paragraph is interesting, I think we just see the process differently. I have always thought the very consumption of ammonia causes the bacteria to multiply. And the reason a days worth of food takes a week initially is because there is few bacteria and they are sluggish and slow then when ammonia is added they start to be more active and more productive and start rapidly multiplying until there is enough to consume X once this happens the bacteria are there to stay at least until they die. Then once you add the food again all of those bacteria that just propagated from the initial food will have a much easier time getting a grip so to say on the ammonia (what I would call established). This is just how I see it in my head so there is probably unknown variables that I'm unaware of.
disc1
-RT * ln(k)
The thing that you're missing is that there isn't a constant relationship between the amount you feed and the end population of bacteria. If you took two aquariums that were identical, and fed one with twice the amount of food, you're going to see about the same number of bacteria in both tanks at the end of the day.
The end population has far far more to do with the available surface areas for colonization and the environmental factors like temperature than it does about the amount of food. Bacteria aren't like us. A human eats one hamburger for dinner. I you have two hamburgers then you need two humans to eat them both. It's not that way with bacteria. If there is extra food they'll just process more and save up the energy or multiply. As long as there is some food they will multiply to find a good equilibrium population.
When you add more animals to the tank, sure there is a change to the system. And sure the population dynamics change a little. But not to the extent that you're suddenly going to start seeing ammonia unless you make some radical change with way too many fish ala Tanked. And those population changes happen very rapidly.
The point is that this theory that haw much food you add in one day is all your tank can handle and to add any more (within reason, let's don't dump the whole box of food in there) would require the addition of a proportional number of bacterial cells completely ignores the very real nature of the bacteria that we are talking about.
The end population has far far more to do with the available surface areas for colonization and the environmental factors like temperature than it does about the amount of food. Bacteria aren't like us. A human eats one hamburger for dinner. I you have two hamburgers then you need two humans to eat them both. It's not that way with bacteria. If there is extra food they'll just process more and save up the energy or multiply. As long as there is some food they will multiply to find a good equilibrium population.
When you add more animals to the tank, sure there is a change to the system. And sure the population dynamics change a little. But not to the extent that you're suddenly going to start seeing ammonia unless you make some radical change with way too many fish ala Tanked. And those population changes happen very rapidly.
The point is that this theory that haw much food you add in one day is all your tank can handle and to add any more (within reason, let's don't dump the whole box of food in there) would require the addition of a proportional number of bacterial cells completely ignores the very real nature of the bacteria that we are talking about.
But that's assuming it's at the limit of living space, wouldn't it?
So for example there are two identical aquariums, both can harbour say a million bacteria.
If say ten units of food is needed to be fed to an aquarium to generate a million bacteria, then yes, either way it'd only going to generate that many bacteria if one feeds ten units of food. But if it's the difference between 4 units of food and 8 units of food, then there would be a difference. Which is what I am getting at. The sole reason why people say 'add things slowly' is for microbes populations to catch up, which basically means two things:
1.) They haven't reached the maximum amount of microbes that can be achieved.
2.) It does take time - slowly or quickly - for microbial populations to build up.
So what happens is instead of having microbial populations build up after live stock additions, I prefer for it to be built up prior to live stock additions.
And to check that there is enough microbes, it is a matter of well, testing it with food additions and to see if it can be dealt with in a specific amount of time.
Your analogy with humans is something I found a bit odd.
Yes, if there is extra food, bacteria will just process more and build up energy and all that, to a certain extent. Same with humans. A human can eat two hamburgers and store energy and all that. Of course there are some lag time between when a human eats one hamburger and the next, but that's just as with microbes. That's why for aquariums with low microbe numbers, it takes time for the microbes to clear ammonia and stuff - they may be able to process it anyways, but over a certain amount, it takes quite a duration of time.
On the other hand, sure a bacterium can process two units of ammonia, much as a human can process two hamburgers, but if you have two bacteria, then those two will process two units of ammonia in the time one bacterium processes one unit of ammonia, much as two humans will process two hamburgers in the period of time one human processes one hamburger.
The fact is I am saying that if population of microbes normally handle 1 unit of food but can actually handle 2 units of food in a reasonable period of time, then what we're doing should be to train them to handle those 2 units of food, so that when we only add one unit of food, or even when we bump it to two units of food, it'd still be fine. Because that'd be what happens. Say the absolute maximum amount of food a bacterium can handle is 2 units, and you add in 4 units, then that'd be too much for that bacterium. Once there are 2 bacteria, they'd be able to take care of those 4 units. And then later on, you can feed 2 units of food. Or 4 units. Or 1. Or whatever. The maximum they can handle is 4, and you've made sure they can do that, so from then on it's fine.
CStrickland
New member
I hear this a lot, but then I see dope minimalist tanks
Of course anything can limit bacteria, so maybe there's too much light here, or not enough flow there, maybe this tank has the ratio of nitrates to phos screwed up... But for a new tank it does seem like the first limiter that would come up is ammonia to me. Surface area and temp being static, the tank would never adapt right? So no matter how long you ghost fed, you could never add the next fish because the bac would be maxed out for its surface area.
We do put a lot of fish in our boxes though, maybe it's cause we are trying to do an unnatural thing in the first place.
CStrickland
New member
Double post. Edit is different than quote :headwally:
JimSWreef
New member
Heh my post really sparked a debate. Love it though, this is how you learn. Just commenting back on my basic parameters... Did some water changes and now I am reading 0s across the board and between 10-20ppm for nitrate. I'd say things are looking good. Boy my knowledge of cycling has grown like crazy reading this thread. Aze and jmi, you guys are definitely knowledgable and experienced in what you do. My hats off to you!
disc1
-RT * ln(k)
No no no. Billions of trillions.
No there isn't a lag. The microbe will just divide and the two will keep eating.
You keep talking about doubling the food. Do you know how long it takes to double a microbial population? Minutes in some cases. Hours I would guess in the case of the denitrifiers in our tanks. Don't forget how exponential growth works. We're only talking about a single doubling time. Ramping up from a few to billions of trillions takes some time. Going from billions of trillions to twice that number takes at most hours.
disc1
-RT * ln(k)
If you were to take a culture of bacteria and feed them and measure the levels of nutrients over time, you'd find that it decays in a logarithmic fashion. Bacteria don't eat breakfast lunch and dinner like we do. They are chemical machines with a whole bunch of processes all running in equilibrium. The thing about the rates of chemical reactions is that they are dependent on the amount of the reactants. So if you double the amount of ammonia, you only speed up the process. Once the population is established and has stopped actively growing, it will take them roughly the same amount of time to clear half of 2ppm as it would to clear half of 8ppm.
You find this when you grow cultures in the lab. You have to come in and baby sit them every day. You can't feed them extra and expect them to last over the weekend. The culture will explode and start dying off.
You have to think less in terms of individual creatures eating meals of a specific size and think more in terms of chemical reaction kinetics.
You find this when you grow cultures in the lab. You have to come in and baby sit them every day. You can't feed them extra and expect them to last over the weekend. The culture will explode and start dying off.
You have to think less in terms of individual creatures eating meals of a specific size and think more in terms of chemical reaction kinetics.
disc1
-RT * ln(k)
But there's not a maximum that they can handle. At least within reason. Sure if you go 20 or 100x the amount of food you'll throw things out of whack. But ask anyone who's done that, the bacterial bloom comes on in hours. The tank will be milky by the next day.
You keep applying this idea of "units of food". But that idea isn't reality. Bacteria don't eat in units. They consume what's there.
JimSWreef
New member
disc1
-RT * ln(k)
Again no. The rate will be determined by the amount of ammonia, not the number of bacteria. For an established population anyway.
When you are starting a cycle and have almost no bacteria, then it takes them some time. But once the population is established, it takes nothing for them to clear any amount (again within reason we're not adding 40ppm of ammonia).
Furthermore, you have to realize that ammonia isn't their only source of energy. It's just their favorite. They aren't limited by ammonia.
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disc1
-RT * ln(k)
I get where you're coming from. It makes intuitive sense. But in the world of real science so few things are so intuitive.
If you were looking at a population of dogs and saying it would take them twice as long to go through two bags of food as it did to go through one bag, then you'd have a point. But these aren't animals. They're bacteria. They work differently.
If you were looking at a population of dogs and saying it would take them twice as long to go through two bags of food as it did to go through one bag, then you'd have a point. But these aren't animals. They're bacteria. They work differently.
