Ammonia is our Friend: thoughts needed

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm thinking of wring an article on how ammonia has been wrongfully vilified in our hobby, with plenty of ammonia science and literature data, experiences of folks dosing it, etc.

One possible part of it relates to the whole idea that one could start a reef tank without intentionally cycling nitrifiers. No bacteria additives, not sponges or whatever. Live rock is fine, but the goal of it is to have surfaces resistant to algae, not to add bacteria.

For example, starting with plenty of macroalgae, soft corals, and coralline right from day or week one. No fish, or perhaps only an algae eating fish , etc.

The simplistic idea is to have as much or more ammonia uptake capacity than is added from organism feeding. Seems inherently logical, but I'm not certain if there are hidden issues.

This thread is a pre-article idea generating thread to flesh out ideas and problems before writing the article.

All thoughts and ideas are welcome, especially if you do not agree with the premise or believe the concept will fail.

 

[Lavey29]

So basically like using real live wet ocean rock to start instead of fake rock.

 

[GARRIGA]

I’ve started tanks in FW with nothing but plants or green water. Zero ammonia, nitrite or nitrates from day one. Green water first needed to be established. Never tested phosphates. Safe to assume likely zero as well.

Known about plants affinity for ammonia since the 70s but misguided on nitrates until I read Ecology of The Planted Aquarium by Diana Wadley. Then later made the connection coral symbiotic zooxanthella very much act like plants. Utilize co2. Consume nutrients. Just makes logical sense.

I’d still first establish a bacterial colony since plants can go south unless starting with live rock. In essence latter is that bacterial colony. Macroalgae just like plants in their function of utilizing co2 and consuming nutrients plus also utilize metals one might want taken out.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So basically like using real live wet ocean rock to start instead of fake rock.

Maybe. That would not be proof of concept that cycling was not needed, but it would work well.

 

[BeanAnimal]

So Glass box - add water (no rock or dry rock) and soft coral or the "refugium" first.

Or for that matter - just add water and turn on the lights (let whatever spores fall into the water grow).

I think the end result is the same, adding life begets the nitrogen cycle one way or the other, slower or faster and as long as the initial organisms don't care about the ammonia then all they do is live and help complete the cycle?

Am I off base here?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So Glass box - add water (no rock or dry rock) and soft coral or the "refugium" first.

Or for that matter - just add water and turn on the lights (let whatever spores fall into the water grow).

I think the end result is the same, adding life begets the nitrogen cycle one way or the other, slower or faster and as long as the initial organisms don't care about the ammonia then all they do is live and help complete the cycle?

I am off base here?

Yes, that’s the thought. If the addition order is front end loaded with nutrient consumers as opposed to nutrient producers, one can forget about nitrifiers as a needed thing. They will certainly happen, but aren’t needed.

 

[Dburr1014]

I think the thought of adding any live Rock that's already been in a tank for a while can support a few fish instantly in a new tank.
Problem is people using dry Rock and trying to throw a fish in there, obviously that causes harm to the fish. But perhaps adding some macro algae with the dry Rock and fish would be fine.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I do like the idea for sure. When I started my tank 20+ years ago it was all dry. (for those following, not interested in a debate about dry vs live. Context here is Randy's thread and developing his model).

I let it run for weeks with the lights off and was not in any hurry. I did not even have lights yet. I think I added a cup of sand 5-6 weeks in from a club member. It was actually pretty amazing to watch stuff starting to grow and spread out from the small pile of sand (from a club member) I poured into the unlit tank. When the lights arrived, I installed them and added some soft coral that I won at the club raffle. I don't remember adding fish for some time and don't remember doing any testing where I I found ammonia.

The progression deviates a bit from your proposal, in that I did add the cup of live sand, but I did not add bottle back or anything else.

In the purer sense... I think that what you propose (in maturity) is less along the lines of a "reef" tank and more along the lines of a typical "frag" system. A Glass box, frag rack and coral with a skimmer. Very low "surface area" in context to a system full of "porous" (I know context) rock and sand. Maybe these "frag" systems grow coral so well because they do give the coral an actual higher chance at consumption before the "live rock" or "live sand" or huge surface area "live filter". And the "coral" are integral to the nitrogen cycle as much as the colonized bacteria?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Suppose this was the setup. Lets think about a fairly difficult scenario.

1. Dry rock in the water. No display lights yet.

2. Get a refugium or ats or algae rector set up and running.

3. Put some easy corals on the rocks. Fast growing ones preferred.

4. Lights on in the display.

5. N and P dose the tank to feed the corals. Could be nitrate or ammonia or urea for N. Could be a fixed dose, just as one might feed foods, without tracking anything by testing.

6. Slowly expand dosing and organisms. Maybe add in an algae eating fish if needed.

7. As consumers of nutrients expand in numbers, add more producers such as fish, crabs, shrimp, etc

So what things are likely to go wrong, or at least are likely to be worse than dry rock cycling with bacteria additions?

 

[BeanAnimal]

I am not sure what would "go wrong" per-say. I think this is how many of us "old timers" pretty much started without the specific N and P dosing outside of just "fish food" when the fish arrived. Of course there was the "dead shrimp" or "pinch of hamburger" folks.

I think the dry rock will go through the progression of diatoms then maybe cyano and then the brown algae, green/brown and finally macro algae stages. The macro stage may be somewhat abated by the refugium but I don't see the other progression from diatom to green/brown disappearing. I think (my opinion) that is a somewhat inevitable progression.

I say this because to this day, if I toss a lump of "dry rock" into the 20 year established system, that is exactly what happens to it. Every time.

I would like to to see this side by side with the exact same volume and organisms without the rock or substrate. The "frag grow out" system. I do believe that the corals themselves would benefit from less ammonia competition (if in fact they present a large enough and fast enough competitor to the nitrifying system).

 

[GARRIGA]

Prior to adding fish and just ammonium chloride my alkalinity would crash because plants absent co2 stripped that from carbonate or carbonic acid (no clue and not needed to know) and wasn’t until adding a substantial load of fish did plants do well. Thinking same would happen in tanks absent fish and just corals and macroalgae. The algae would likely outcompete the corals for nutrients and available co2.

In other words, based on experience. Can’t just supply an ammonium source and at some point fish or other co2 contributing organisms need to be added to balance the ecology. The co2 contributed during lights out by plants only likely not sufficient to replace the amount stripped lights on. Why that is unknown but was what I saw happen and might be due to lights on longer than lights out and perhaps 12 on and 12 off sees different results. Too many variables I believe to make blanket statements and all variables need to be accounted for otherwise false assumptions might be attained.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Prior to adding fish and just ammonium chloride my alkalinity would crash because plants absent co2 stripped that from carbonate or carbonic acid (no clue and not needed to know) and wasn’t until adding a substantial load of fish did plants do well. Thinking same would happen in tanks absent fish and just corals and macroalgae. The algae would likely outcompete the corals for nutrients and available co2.

In other words, based on experience. Can’t just supply an ammonium source and at some point fish or other co2 contributing organisms need to be added to balance the ecology. The co2 contributed during lights out by plants only likely not sufficient to replace the amount stripped lights on. Why that is unknown but was what I saw happen and might be due to lights on longer than lights out and perhaps 12 on and 12 off sees different results. Too many variables I believe to make blanket statements and all variables need to be accounted for otherwise false assumptions might be attained.

Are you talking about fresh water?

No reef system is deficient in CO2, which would be indicated by very high pH.

 

[Jari]

If you decide to write an article, one discussion point could be the amount of ammonia produced by adding fish vs. dosing (for example ammonium bicarbonate). One frequent counter argument to dosing is "just add more fish". Although might be difficult to calculate, would be interesting to discuss would adding fish be actually feasible to get the same amount of ammonia.

 

[ReeferZ1227]

So ive gone through alot of changes in the past 9 months or so. I had a heavy metal issue (tin) resolved by multiple 40% water changes.

I started ammonium bicarbonate dosing. A month later i started DIY concotion dosing. I noticed significant improvement in growth. No instances of burnt tips, greater consumption, color was not where i wanted it.

After 2 months i discontinued ammonium and kept concotion. Ive tried various different bacteria for concotion with no real obserable difference. Cyano has started to be an unwelcomed guest.

I resumed ammonium 2 months ago, and kept DIY concotion and i feel this is the healthiest my tank has been. Additionally in that time i have kept Iodine at ~90ug/L, manganese ~1ug/L, daily doses of iron. Noticed color improved but nothing drastic.

Corrected my flouride about 10 days ago from .6 to 1.5ug/L and noted better/new color in acropora. I also noticed my 10" valida colony has just about stopped shaded recession that has been plaguing it for ~6 months.

Heres a 90 day growout during the above:

I plan to cycle a tank in the coming week. Intend to dose alot of bacteria and ammonium to jumpstart it. Minimal now dead rock in a bare bottom frag tank (72x25x16). I also intend to add a tricolor valida and garf bonsai within the first week as canaries.

 

[jabberwock]

I have done both marco dry rock, and ocean live rock builds. The differences were amazing. I totally agree with the thought that ocean live rock minimizes surfaces that are available to grow nuisance algae.

The fine folks at Tampa Bay Saltwater advise to only add their premium ocean live rock to an already cycled system to minimize die off. I had algae growing on the cord to my power head because there was no where else for it to take hold.

My other strategy in my ocean live rock build (maybe it worked, maybe it didn't) was to try and boost the diversity of the biome. I used small amounts of wet live rock from two different LFS, and some ceramic media to increase surface area. Then I added Dr. Tim's ammonia to initially cycle the tank, but no bottled bacteria. After 4 weeks added ocean live rock and slowly removed the initial media. Ran a regular light cycle from day 1. Not sure if this is useful input for your article. Here are pics of both builds at roughly the same maturity of 6 months.

 

[Formulator]

I think what you are trying to show is that nitrifying bacteria are not the only viable means of ammonia export/conversion. The problem I see is that by the time the tank is producing enough ammonia to validate your claim, you will have cultured the nitrifying bacteria in the tank via spores in the air, so what have you really accomplished with the experiment? I think to really do this right you would need a way to inhibit bacterial growth in the tank.

 

[jabberwock]

Ammonia is the coal; the tank is the furnace.

 

[twentyleagues]

Bringing in coral or macro algaes will also bring in bacteria, right? I dont see a way to separate them and or test to see if there is a bacterial population growing. Of course, you can limit the surface area that will readily support a large bacterial colonization by using frag racks and the like but those surfaces will supply some surface area.

I have seen frag systems started with no live rock no bacteria added. Just fresh saltwater, frag racks, chaeto fuge, and lots of coral frags. Then they tossed in a couple tangs and a hand full of snails next day. Start up the skimmer. System ran fine from day 1. Bare bottom zero live or dry rock. My assumption on this was bacteria on frags and the frags themselves used the ammonia created from the 5/6 fish and x amount of snails.

 

[brandon429]

macroalgae, soft corals, and coralline right from day or week one = immediate inoculation of cycling bac clades which by day ten a cycling chart says (and any calibrated seneye post I've ever seen) have populated the surface area well enough to downslope and not come back up (under normal running of course, crashes don't count)

so it seems after day ten naturally-imported bacteria are a confound to intended ammonia reducers? how will we rule out nitrifier uptake and prevent the experiment from being like all other tanks after day ten running/inoculated, bacterial-driven uptake. all the initially inert surfaces not directly seeded become that way via water transmission in just under a couple weeks

 

[GARRIGA]

Are you talking about fresh water?

No reef system is deficient in CO2, which would be indicated by very high pH.

Speaking to how plants in general behave in the absence of co2 which in a reef tank would be in lower numbers when pH is high. In respect to using a refugium to start a tank absent bacteria one might see a reduction in co2 as I’d expect that to behave same as in freshwater. Assuming lights on longer than off and fact any added corals likely small frags have little impact on photosynthesis and mostly controlled by amount of macroalgae present.

Would my hypothesis not hold in salt?