Experiment: Does nitrifying bacteria survive a month without ammonia or other supplementation

[brandon429]

so that means if you feed your cycle it's no harm and will work. it will sustain until you reinstate fish bioload

but

if you wanted to make a point in science, don't feed it. on day 25 add your fish and post pics of them ten days later. let's see if they live.

I put all chips in they live based on all cycling I've ever seen. I'm voting they'd live because in all charted cases, bioload is carried and lives past day 25. I'm aligning by bets with the only searchable outcome results on file.

 

[ColorMeGone]

ColorMeGone

there's not a time anyone on our reef board has seen a cycle fail + inability to carry life after day 25 in reefing. it's never been found in any digital testing for nh3 control ever uploaded to the web


any arrangement we can use for cycling, nobody has seen one take longer than 25 days to handle a common starting reef bioload. Any question about cycle starvation implies the respondent has seen an example of a cycle starving, and none have.

not one poster, not one book author, not one youtuber, not anyone. the reason your tank would be ok if you didn't feed it is because at no time has anyone here seen any starved cycled at day 25, to be able to assign a cause. would appreciate seeing the link if so.

This means that any variation in bacterial population up or down that occurs within the confines of a home reef tank won't degrade a cycle by day 25 after establishment. The cycle will just hold until you request it to step up and handle more loading on demand with bioload reinstatement. you would need to dry it, freeze it, boil it or give it sustained antibiotics to kill the biofilter, starvation doesn't occur in a home reef tank.

in order to demonstrate cycle starvation in a reef tank, a reef tank that is cycled must be the testbed.

The cycle took 25 days, but I want to keep the cycle up for at least 60 more days. It is just rock with no sand. Should I feed it, or can I leave it and just keep temps and salinity stable? Thanks

 

[brandon429]

what most people would do is toss a small pinch of food in there and that would hold it months. one single small pinch of any fish food=months of sustenance

but since this is the experiment forum...

 

[brandon429]

the specific mechanism by which that particular cycle/tank above would never fail to carry bioload after the initial cycle is due to the rare extra surface area in tow. that's a good degree of rock surface area, it would take extreme settings to sterilize that rock by mere withholding of food after the cycle sets

a mini side experiment could be for you to feed nothing the whole time

then add some life and give it 4 days to seat in. any failing cycle will show in 4 days load testing. post an updated ammonia pic on that day 4 = a heck of a cool test you could run off your particular setup.

 

[ColorMeGone]

Ok then, now I understand but I need some cycled rock when I get my new house so I will add a few fish to keep what I have now going but I only need a small portion of this rock for my 8.3 gallon AIO display tank so what if I set up another 10 gal. tank with at least half of this cycled rock and do nothing. 60 days in I will add a few fish and 4 days in I will record an ammonia test. I will be keeping this 10 gal. tank for a QT/ Frag set up which was the plan all along. I can set up another 10 tank tomorrow.

 

[ColorMeGone]

what most people would do is toss a small pinch of food in there and that would hold it months. one single small pinch of any fish food=months of sustenance

but since this is the experiment forum...

I can do that no problem.

 

[Dr. Reef]

In an experiment I took a blackout bottle and kept bacteria alive for 1 year without any food water light or anything. i just simply topped it off with rodi water when it evaported to a marked spot on the bottle and thats it. Bacteria was well and alive after 1 year and when ammonia was intorduced it repaired itself and then consumed ammonia and brought it to 0 in 2 days. Thus bacteria can live for a long time in a tank with no fish.
Just for security measures pinch of food every 2 weeks or so will keep them alive for ever.

 

[GARRIGA]

I would dose ammonium chloride periodically as that will continue to grow the bacterial colony. I wouldn't want to yet encourage heterotrophic bacteria and why I wouldn't actually feed it. Fact is I stress test my cycle by continuing to increase the dosage of ammonium chloride to confirm it can handle larger inputs. Just add same dosage every few hours after confirming first dosage has been converted fully to nitrates. I'm confirming zero or near zero ammonia and nitrites. Keep both under 5 ppm at a maximum. Dose if it gets down to 2 ppm or less. Dosage I shoot for creates 2 ppm therefore giving me a cushion but after day four the ammonia is being processed rather quickly and day 9 the nitrites same. At least last cycle went that way. Then day one life is added it should be able to handle a larger population.

BTW, Something that helped me was keeping salinity near 12 ppt and temps 84 or above. Seems salinity swings don't bother bacteria since I went to 35 ppt post cycle then quickly dropped it back to 12 ppt because I wanted to introduce FW sailfin mollies and my cycle never suffered from the swings. Brought them up to 35 ppt within a few days. Bacteria likely not as fragile as many seem to think.

NoPox and introducing phosphates solved my nitrates which rose above 160 ppm post last rise to 35 ppt although I had already stopped testing nitrites therefore that number might be lower in reality yet the point being that stress testing was to the point large amounts of nitrates produced and solved without a single WC other than initially dropping salinity to 12 ppt. Nitrates were post that elevated which proved to me the Redfield my not matter to fish keeping but the absence of phosphates kept me from reducing my nitrates. I know this is a tangent but felt it's good information worth sharing since I don't feel one is fully cycled until nitrates get solved. New school thinking.

 

[reefsUP2]

Hypothesis: Though potentially delayed, a tank that was able to process 2 ppm ammonia within a day - will continue to be able to do so after not being 'fed' for 4 weeks.

Rationale: There has been, for some time, been a debate as to whether nitrifying bacteria can 'surivive', go dormant, or die off without feeding. This will test whether a known experimental system will allow 2 ppm total ammonia to be processed after a month

Method:

1. 2 tanks 1 containing live rock from a dark sump, the second containing rock from a display tank (see pictures). Identical power head, heater, rock weight/density, and water volume. Identical HOB filter with no media. Lights off.
2. Ammonia will be added on day 1 to 2 ppm - to each tank, and a control vessel.
3. Ammonia will be measured daily to determine the time required to process 2 ppm total ammonia

Experiment Day 1:

This is going to be fun.

 

[MnFish1]

This is going to be fun.

Curious - what is going to be fun?

 

[MnFish1]

so that means if you feed your cycle it's no harm and will work. it will sustain until you reinstate fish bioload

but

if you wanted to make a point in science, don't feed it. on day 25 add your fish and post pics of them ten days later. let's see if they live.

I put all chips in they live based on all cycling I've ever seen. I'm voting they'd live because in all charted cases, bioload is carried and lives past day 25. I'm aligning by bets with the only searchable outcome results on file.

You should also add the fact - that its well known - that obligate autotrophs can go dormant - without food - only to quickly reestablish

 

[MnFish1]

the specific mechanism by which that particular cycle/tank above would never fail to carry bioload after the initial cycle is due to the rare extra surface area in tow. that's a good degree of rock surface area, it would take extreme settings to sterilize that rock by mere withholding of food after the cycle sets

a mini side experiment could be for you to feed nothing the whole time

then add some life and give it 4 days to seat in. any failing cycle will show in 4 days load testing. post an updated ammonia pic on that day 4 = a heck of a cool test you could run off your particular setup.

This was done in the current experiment... right?

 

[brandon429]

Dan P has a seneye now. We are about to get fact checked across a large swatch of debated topics over the course of 2024. I thought your test did well with the tests available for the time it was ran. seneye will audit the current approach we all take to marine tank cycling.

 

[brandon429]

there is a multi-month starvation study underway and once those results are posted there won't be any wiggle room for the outcome one way or another.

the outcome will be a nice supporting angle for your investigation thread here in my opinion.

having a digital readout for a cycled tank as a baseline, an actual number the machine assigns to the nh3 reading/objective/and then subjecting that calibrated test tank setup to various cycling insults including starvation, only for another set of numbers to be spit out on the other side will shore up so many things we've pushed and pulled about over the last several years. it'll be rule-changing stuff in my opinion.

I think it's hard to discern using api when something is dormant, waking up due to a feed event or when the organisms weren't dormant and just handled the event as normal. API color changes don't work on the same timescale and precision scale a calibrated seneye works on/ we've needed this new tool in the hands of a scientist for sure.

 

[MnFish1]

there is a multi-month starvation study underway and once those results are posted there won't be any wiggle room for the outcome one way or another.

the outcome will be a nice supporting angle for your investigation thread here in my opinion.

having a digital readout for a cycled tank as a baseline, an actual number the machine assigns to the nh3 reading/objective/and then subjecting that calibrated test tank setup to various cycling insults including starvation, only for another set of numbers to be spit out on the other side will shore up so many things we've pushed and pulled about over the last several years. it'll be rule-changing stuff in my opinion.

I think it's hard to discern using api when something is dormant, waking up due to a feed event or when the organisms weren't dormant and just handled the event as normal. API color changes don't work on the same timescale and precision scale a calibrated seneye works on/ we've needed this new tool in the hands of a scientist for sure.

I'm guessing that the results will be confirmed.

 

[brandon429]

I won't buck the results for sure.

it's fun to have the upcoming data to fact check stuff we'd been pressing on for a while, some good pressure. you logged your findings well I thought, nice thread.

 

[PotatoPig]

I saw this thread linked on a cycling help post and had a vacant QT tank set up that I ended up not using so decided to try it out.

Tank: 10g with HOB filter
Set up date: March 2024
Cycled media: Filter sock piece cut to fit the HOB filter and left in the DT sump for about a week.
Cycle verification in March: Dosed 10ml ammonia as prepared using Randy’s dosing mix. Tank processed down to zero in two days. Dosed again (also in March) and it processed down to zero in one day.
Lights: None (it’s in the basement utility room with no windows)
Other Media in tank: None
Other filtration: None
Fish that have inhabited tank: None
Feeding tank: None since two ammonia doses in March.

This week:
I dosed 10ml of Randy’s ammonia dosing mix on July 2. Tested concentration using Red Sea on July 2, tested again on July 3. Results below. Almost all ammonia seems to have been processed. Bacteria are alive and well with minimal loss of functionality over 3 months of neglect and no obvious food source.

Tank:

Test after adding ammonia:

Test next day:

 

[Rjukan]

I saw this thread linked on a cycling help post and had a vacant QT tank set up that I ended up not using so decided to try it out.

Tank: 10g with HOB filter
Set up date: March 2024
Cycled media: Filter sock piece cut to fit the HOB filter and left in the DT sump for about a week.
Cycle verification in March: Dosed 10ml ammonia as prepared using Randy’s dosing mix. Tank processed down to zero in two days. Dosed again (also in March) and it processed down to zero in one day.
Lights: None (it’s in the basement utility room with no windows)
Other Media in tank: None
Other filtration: None
Fish that have inhabited tank: None
Feeding tank: None since two ammonia doses in March.

This week:
I dosed 10ml of Randy’s ammonia dosing mix on July 2. Tested concentration using Red Sea on July 2, tested again on July 3. Results below. Almost all ammonia seems to have been processed. Bacteria are alive and well with minimal loss of functionality over 3 months of neglect and no obvious food source.

Tank:

Test after adding ammonia:

Test next day:

Wild.. so this is with zero LR or LS and the only media is a piece of filter sock from an established system?

 

[PotatoPig]

Wild.. so this is with zero LR or LS and the only media is a piece of filter sock from an established system?

Yep.

So - for my QT tanks I take a cloth filter sock and cut a rectangle the same size as the HOB insert then let it soak in the DT for a week or so then put it in the QT HOB. It’s easy and cheap to obtain cycled media that won’t absorb copper. Just this time around I ended up going with pre quarantined fish so never used the tank.

 

[MnFish1]

Yep.

So - for my QT tanks I take a cloth filter sock and cut a rectangle the same size as the HOB insert then let it soak in the DT for a week or so then put it in the QT HOB. It’s easy and cheap to obtain cycled media that won’t absorb copper. Just this time around I ended up going with pre quarantined fish so never used the tank.

I'm not sure how to explain your results - and I might not be understanding your methods. There is no question that ammonia reducing bacteria can go dormant for considerable periods of time - so the 3 month time period is not a surprise I believe the experiment that I did was 2 months dormant and there was no real reduction.

Back to your test - if I'm reading it right - you have a bare tank, a small piece of filter material that was new, put into a display tank or a week - and then in the bare tank and it was able to process what looks like 1.2 ppm ammonia in a day? Is that correct?

What doesn't make sense is using the small piece of filter sock. Unless there was other bacteria on other parts of the tank (ie. not just the filter sock) to start with.