Fritzyme 9 modified cycle

[Garf]

It wasn't a criticism. - Just - trying to figure out what you're trying to prove?

Nothin to prove, just a ramble, I find rambling sends me off in interesting tangents. I do find it interesting that the nitrifiers appear to still work though, once the carbon source is removed, not suffocated, maybe.

18 hrs after carbon source removed.

 

[Lasse]

from here

Yes - you will aerate out som NH3 - hence lower the NH3+NH4 concentrations with time.

Nothin to prove, just a ramble, I find rambling sends me off in interesting tangents. I do find it interesting that the nitrifiers appear to still work though, once the carbon source is removed, not suffocated, maybe.

18 hrs after carbon source removed.

If I read the tests right - you have 2 ppm NH4+NH3 and 5 ppm NO2?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Garf]

from here

Yes - you will aerate out som NH3 - hence lower the NH3+NH4 concentrations with time.



If I read the tests right - you have 2 ppm NH4+NH3 and 5 ppm NO2?

Sincerely Lasse

Indeed. The higher the pH the better as more NH3 is available to gas off. Some freshwater streams are treated to pH 10 and are fully gassed off in 4 hrs it seems. Which raises another tangent to go off in. Lower pH aquariums and such have a tiny fraction of NH3 compared to NH4 available to nitrifiers at any one time, good for fish, not good if you want a solid nitrifying community. Another good reason to have a lot of agitation or aeration I reckon. (I’ve just had a thought, lol), when dosing Kalk at night and the pH increases, all the Stoney coral polyps expand just like folks describe when dosing ammonia, hmmm.

Looks to be just under 2ppm Total Ammonia, 0.5ppm nitrite. Ammonia alert is reading blueish when lit from the front, yellow when lit from the back, lol. You’ve gotta forgive me about the chart it’s a freshwater chart.

 

[Lasse]

Which raises another tangent to go off in. Lower pH aquariums and such have a tiny fraction of NH3 compared to NH4 available to nitrifiers at any one time, good for fish, not good if you want a solid nitrifying community.

IMO - there is a myth/misunderstanding that low pH stop the nitrification bacteria. Its true the you have a low to zero nitrification rate in many low pH waters like natural low pH bodies -but IMO and IME - low nitrification rate is not a direct function of low pH but a function of low Bicarbonate/carbonate alkalinity. Low pH is often a function of low alkalinity of this type - hence - IMO - a misunderstanding of cause and effect have lead many to believe that it is the low pH itself that cause low nitrification rates. There is one situation there you can have a low pH and enough of carbonate alkalinity for the nitrification to have a high rate. It is when the pH is lowered by carbon dioxide. I have seen this in fully stocked fish farms there nitrification works well in pH below 7 with alkalinity around 2-3 dKh (around 1 mekv). However - if pH stands still but alkalinity goes below 2 - the nitrification rate goes down. And its easy to understand - the chemoautotrophs need inorganic carbon and IMO - they seems not to be able to use CO2 direct as inorganic carbon source - its seems - IMO - that it has to go through a bicarbonate/carbonate step before they can use it. I have run fully stocked fish farms in pH around 6.9 - 7 (after rissel filters) and with a pH-controller controlling the input of bicarbonate/carbonate (using bot NaH2CO3 and Na2CO3) as sources for inorganic carbon controlling around 6.9 to 7

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Garf]

IMO - there is a myth/misunderstanding that low pH stop the nitrification bacteria. Its true the you have a low to zero nitrification rate in many low pH waters like natural low pH bodies -but IMO and IME - low nitrification rate is not a direct function of low pH but a function of low Bicarbonate/carbonate alkalinity. Low pH is often a function of low alkalinity of this type - hence - IMO - a misunderstanding of cause and effect have lead many to believe that it is the low pH itself that cause low nitrification rates. There is one situation there you can have a low pH and enough of carbonate alkalinity for the nitrification to have a high rate. It is when the pH is lowered by carbon dioxide. I have seen this in fully stocked fish farms there nitrification works well in pH below 7 with alkalinity around 2-3 dKh (around 1 mekv). However - if pH stands still but alkalinity goes below 2 - the nitrification rate goes down. And its easy to understand - the chemoautotrophs need inorganic carbon and IMO - they seems not to be able to use CO2 direct as inorganic carbon source - its seems - IMO - that it has to go through a bicarbonate/carbonate step before they can use it. I have run fully stocked fish farms in pH around 6.9 - 7 (after rissel filters) and with a pH-controller controlling the input of bicarbonate/carbonate (using bot NaH2CO3 and Na2CO3) as sources for inorganic carbon controlling around 6.9 to 7

Sincerely Lasse

I also noticed bacterial (presumably) growth in super low pH when I was dosing an algae scrubber with CO2, never did find out if it was the extra algal exudate feeding them or a direct uptake of CO2, or something else.

 

[Garf]

Allowing for a 30hr doubling time (and ignoring nitrite) this tank is gonna be ready in a few days, I may replicate the cycle in a bucket (I’ve got another ceramic rock), but this time not messing around with vinegar, just to see how much I delayed it.

 

[brandon429]

Garf what is your summary on the effects of peroxide in the cycle so far

 

[Garf]

Garf what is your summary on the effects of peroxide in the cycle so far

Didn’t notice anything, at all. I can play with that in a bucket at a later date though because @MnFish1 s concern over the strength of the peroxide and the fact the first cycle was heterotrophic is a valid one.

Edit - not buying a seneye though, lol

 

[brandon429]

you are commanding the API just fine it's nice to see inherent strength of whatever bacteria are in place

 

[Garf]

May as well add today’s tests, never know, may be useful later on;

 

[Garf]

I think my nitrifyers have gone on a “go slow” for the weekend;

 

[Garf]

Dr Reefs quick assessment is here;

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

OK guys an update I did a reset and use the following bacteria. 1. Turbostart 900 cold 2. Bio Spira 3. Dr Tim 4 ATM Colony 5 Microbelift 6 Fluval Cycle I setup each tank with new dry sand and ring and dosed ammonium chloride to 0.5ppm then added 15 pallets of fish food in each tank and then...

www.reef2reef.com

Today’s pic;

 

[Garf]

Ok, had a good read up. Seeing as I’m in the UK, and the journey from manufacturer to my tank is fraught with potential nitrifying bacteria killing conditions, I’m going back to heterotrophic. Today’s pic is from before the addition of 1ml vinegar per 10ml tank water. See if I get a bloom, or not;

 

[Garf]

+ 8 hrs, no bloom yet (by torch light), but looks like ammonia is down a little, maybe; now it looks like 1ppm on the freshwater card.

 

[Garf]

For reference I raised pH of a sample to 10 with sodium hydroxide and bubbled it through for 4 hrs to see if the ammonia would be driven off. Tested the same as previous, so did nothing, I’m guessing it must be a bit more complicated than I thought as the solution went a little milky. Also tested some brand new water as a target; pic below.

 

[Garf]

+ 8 hrs, no bloom yet (by torch light), but looks like ammonia is down a little, maybe; now it looks like 1ppm on the freshwater card.

A further 12 hrs on, absolutely no change in test results. Assuming 0.5ppm ammonia was consumed with the last dose of 1ml vinegar per 10 liters of tank water I’ve added another 2ml of vinegar per 10 liters. Looks like whatever gets used up doesn’t get released back into the water after 12hrs of starvation (probably obvious to most, not to me). I’ll see what happens in 8 hrs. No bloom in the water yet.

 

[taricha]

Ok, had a good read up. Seeing as I’m in the UK, and the journey from manufacturer to my tank is fraught with potential nitrifying bacteria killing conditions, I’m going back to heterotrophic. Today’s pic is from before the addition of 1ml vinegar per 10ml tank water. See if I get a bloom, or not;

so by my reckoning, after you removed the water, the remaining bacteria took 6 days to bring ammonia down from 2ppm to what's pictured.
So clearly you still had nitrification without the carbon source, ammonia dropped and NO2 went from low to off the charts, but it was very slow compared to the initial quick drop of ammonia with the big vinegar dose in the first 24 hr.
That how you see it?

 

[Garf]

so by my reckoning, after you removed the water, the remaining bacteria took 6 days to bring ammonia down from 2ppm to what's pictured.
So clearly you still had nitrification without the carbon source, ammonia dropped and NO2 went from low to off the charts, but it was very slow compared to the initial quick drop of ammonia with the big vinegar dose in the first 24 hr.
That how you see it?

Well, after 100% water change, the next ammonia dose at 2ppm dropped, nitrite went up for probably 36hrs, then everything stopped for 5 days. After adding small doses of vinegar over 28 hrs or so, the ammonia dropped to the same level as when I overdosed the vinegar as below, the nitrite hasn’t budged though and there’s a slight mist in the water but not a full on storm, like last time.

 

[Garf]

Didn’t add more vinegar last test. Tested today and predictably got exactly the same results as previous. Slight misting has cleared, so added another 1 ml vinegar per 10 liters of water.

 

[taricha]

Thanks. I enjoy your results.
Looks like a couple of patterns establishing now. None surprising, but interesting to see in practice.
Now seem to have reached a phase where the processing of ammonia looks tightly tied to the vinegar dosing - suggests when the carbon runs out, the main actors are not doing much to the leftover ammonia or NO2. (though when NO2 is high, it's really hard to see any change in the test color.)

Also looks like there may be less bang for the buck at low ammonia vs higher. Meaning that your vinegar additions when you had ~2ppm ammonia look more effective at removing ammonia than similar sized additions of vinegar at low ammonia (0.25-0.5ppm).
You can see stuff like this in published lit on the heterotrophic nitrifiers. They often show them remediating wastewater bringing down sky-high ammonia to low values, but usually not to zero.
Like this chart from link posted earlier.

Ammonia lines are the open diamonds that drop from 10ppm to 1-2ppm but stay there.
So if the action here is heterotroph-driven, then subsequent additions of vinegar may still leave a little bit of ammonia laying around.