cycling with fish

[laughing tang]

It is probably zero then

Ha! while I would be delighted, I cannot image two Hanna tester failing on me (and the Master Hanna is only a few months old). I am truly at a loss. Meanwhile fish is happy as can be ...

 

[Spare time]

Ha! while I would be delighted, I cannot image two Hanna tester failing on me (and the Master Hanna is only a few months old). I am truly at a loss. Meanwhile fish is happy as can be ...

I would think the other test to show something if the hanna is being accurate

 

[taricha]

I spoke with the owner of the LFS (who is very knowledgeable), who mentioned ammonia burn and suggested we cycle with Turbostart 900.

this was good advice.

But, on Sunday ammonia was 0.34 and we did a 20 gallon water change. Ammonia was 0.26 after that and 0.27 yesterday morning.

Questions: are we pulling out live bacteria when we do water changes? Should 0.30 ppm TAN and NH3 0.01 concern us.

The answer is no. Hanna usually reads 0.1-0.2 on totally mature, zero ammonia tanks. Same with API, this slight flush of green that people often report as 0.25 on API should be considered zero.

It is probably zero then

agreed with this.

 

[laughing tang]

this was good advice.




The answer is no. Hanna usually reads 0.1-0.2 on totally mature, zero ammonia tanks. Same with API, this slight flush of green that people often report as 0.25 on API should be considered zero.


agreed with this.

@taricha thank you so much, that is very helpful. We did end up leaving it alone as after feeding last night it was still 0 31. It's higher then I like, but not going up. Monitoring again today in the hopes it will go down. The API dus show some green; i have a hard time reading it but the beau had the marvellous idea of doing a zero sample and the it was easy to see. The Salifert though was between 0.15 and 0 5, not hugely helpful. Appreciate everyone's help.

One thing we thought of is if you pull water out, to save it, heat it and hope the bacteria do their job to get ammonia to zero, then you could use it later for a water change and not waste the bacteria. Not sure if it would work. We are trying it on a different tank.

 

[GARRIGA]

Gang of Nassarius snails solve dead fish and properly cycled tank with enough biological media should settle back quickly.

As for WC and bacteria that seems a moot point since bacteria we need for nitrification settles on surfaces although heterotrophic are pelagic and benthic. Personally wouldn't use WC to solve ammonia and rather rely on supporting nitrification via bacteria in the bottle as done. Never know what broke the cycle or stressed it.

Never used Turbo but have some in the fridge for next build and emergencies. Studies on this forum shown that to be the most effective at getting process started quickest but have used One and Only along with Bio Spira and both solved ammonia within four days.

Randy posted a thread on whether fish survive higher levels of ammonia and why perhaps these binders can claim they solved it when reality being fish survived without them.

I no longer use binders but still use bottled bacteria. Plus binders such as Prime can quickly drop oxygen levels. Something I've experienced now twice experimenting with tap and both resulting in loss of fish. Nothing else used and both cases showed signs of gasping for air although I'm not a fish doctor so take that with a grain of salt.

 

[laughing tang]

Thanks. We can't use any binders as per the vet. Turbostart requires you shut down your filtration and skimmer for 5 days, and although I cannot get an answer on this, I presume it is because the bacteria are in the water column for that time period before settling. If someone has another theory, I welcome it. For the boxfish, ammonia was 0.31 this morning so holding steady. We are day 3-4 from the first turbostart dose but did dose 3 days in a row to get to the full 5x dose.

 

[laughing tang]

I got an answer from Fritz regarding Turbostart; indeed it is expected that in the first 5 days after dosing, the bacteria are in the water column. Water changes would remove bacteria, as would running the skimmer, so that is not recommended. You can, however, run filtration they said. I am guessing the expectation is that you would not clean the filter during the 5 days and that the bacteria would simply populate the filter.