Cycling to achieve high initial bio load with ammonia.

[JoelA7]

Hi.

I understand the fundamentals of cycling. Had a 65 and 150 back in the day of bio balls and wood air stones in skimmers. So here is the question: How much fish bio load will a cycled tank that can convert 4ppm ammonia in 24 hours handle? Is there a downside to pushing this capacity higher, say to 8ppm prior to adding fish and, if not, adding many more at once? Thoughts welcome.

 

[Reef Frog]

I would imagine it would take more time to process higher quantities of ammonia as larger bacterial colonies need more time to establish & grow. Current methods work well so I was wondering why would one want to do this? To add more fish all at once just after the cycle?

If so I imagine there could be additional ramifications such as rapid build up of PO4. Just some speculation on my part.

 

[madadi]

I would imagine 4ppm of ammonia for 24hours would have a significantly negative impact on tank inhabitants. I cant imagine what 8ppm would do. maybe I'm not seeing where this would be practical unless it was for a commercial holding tank.

 

[JoelA7]

There is a misunderstanding.

4 ppm NH3 > 0 ppm in 24 hours is a good indication that the bacteria colonies are well established (NO2 being 0 ppm)

I'm looking for some quantification of the amount of fish biomass or put differently, how much one could feed in fish food, over the same 24 hour period, not necessarily all at once.

And yes, the idea would be to be able to add more fish all at once so that territories would not be established and, frankly, to have more action in the tank as it matures.

I do see a downside, which is more nutrients to grow algae, but if fish additions included grazers and so did the CUC than this should - in theory - be manageable.

More thoughts?

 

[ArmyGreens]

Hmm, in thought that may seem doable, copepod/amphipod cultures would not exist. IMO it is these lil captives that eat up a lot of the waste an algae.

In hind sight, what fish do you want to add at once? Maybe there is an alternative for introducing your list of captives.

 

[wolfblue]

Are you asking if 1g of food =1g of ammonia? As if this was a fish only you were cycling fishless?

Sounds to me like you want to stock "Tanked" style with a full load all in one day. And knowing what your feed would be you want to know how much ammonia you would need to add in a day. So you have equal or excess bacteria for the load. Is that right?

--John

 

[Fishmommy]

I have done a ton of fresh water tanks this way, where 1 drop ammonia per gallon daily until Nitrite and Ammonia read zero after 12 hours was enough to fully stock a tank.

Now with salt water, I did this for my small QT tank and then put 2 fish in with no problems. The tank is "fully stocked" but I have no idea how this would translate to a larger salt tank with live rock.

 

[JoelA7]

1g food does not = 1g NH3. There are other compounds in food of course, not the least of which are water and carbon.

Not trying to fully stock like Tanked, not at all.

But trying to understand whether the 4ppm processing marker often quoted would make it possible, from the standpoint of the bacteria colonies only, to add the following fish to a fully cycled 130+ gallon system with #120 cured live rock and 2-3" sand, seeded with one of the bacteria products and with one of the livestock kits:

3-5 spotted cardinals
3+ zebra barred dartfish
1 bicolor blenny
2-3 blue gudgeon dartfish

And not to get too aggressive about it but if I thought I could get away with it I would add simultaneously with the above:

1 - royal gramma
1 - black cap basslet

These are not large fish. And I'd then let everything settle and add a round of frags before any more fish.

 

[wolfblue]

IMO that would be fine, seems like a reasonably light stocking. But who am I...

This product says 4-10 ppm with NO animals present.

http://pentairaes.com/ammonium-chloride.html

In the catalogue the same product says maintain 1ppm do not exceed 4ppm with no fish. I do seem to recall some years ago reading that at some point higher NH3 could slow bacterial development. I have done this with fish only salt. No calculating/measuring, just dump some in and test to see how much its is. Household ammonia and I was happy anywhere 2-5ppm.

But if the rock had animals on it I might try for the low end. Hitting it with only 1ppm worth(or less) and more than once a day after it starts disappearing quick. 1ppm would be (130*8.34)*1.0264=1113 pounds*453.592=504,768 grams of water. So 1 ppm is a half gram of ammonia. Is that right guys?

I might try a drip feed if I was doing this with rock. You might even have a diaphragm or peristaltic pump laying around. Dilute and dose and increase the dose as you went along.

Of course I still want to know, how much ammonia would equal 1g of food?

--John