daggaz

One day, the aquariumist was tending to his tanks when a fish jumped out and started flopping around on the floor, begging for help. The guy quickly scooped up the fish and exclaimed, "Oh poor fish! What is wrong in there, that you jumped out, how can I help you?" To which the fish answered: What's wrong? Where do I begin, man? You know... I wake up everyday and swim to the factory to work for Gregory Illinovich... I work all day for the man, and he doesn't even know my name. He doesn't even know what I do for him. I don't even know what I am doing anymore all day. But he knows I work for him, and that's all that matters, that kind of power over me seems to give him happiness. There is no happiness in my life. My life is a blur... I toss and turn all night, and sometimes I wake up and look at my wife as she sleeps, and I don't even recognize her anymore, I can't even remember the last day I loved her. She's just some old lady I used to know, I don't know where to turn anymore... "Ok," said the man, very concerned... Yeah, and it gets worse. One of my daughters, Anastasia.. she fell last winter, and the cold took her. And my wife's eyes are as dead as I am inside after it. And my son, Nikolai.... I look at him, and I do not love him anymore. I look at him, and I see myself in his worn eyes, and it is repulsive. I see the same tired fish, like looking in a mirror, so helpless and pathetic and weak that I cannot even reach under my rock at night and put my fin on that revolver that is lying there just waiting for me, and just end it all, once and for all. But I can't, because I am so weak.. "Jeeez," said the man. "You poor fish, man you have got problems, fish! You have some serious problems! But why the hell did you jump out to tell me, you need to see a psychiatrist, I am just an aquariumist! All I can do is change your water!" "Yeah," said the fish, "but the lid was off."

I cycled my tank in three weeks, fish in, no chemical additives or whatnot. I used a lot of living cultures to get it going, no access to any old tank filter material but you dont need it because AOB and NOB are literally everywhere. Then some fish died when it crashed for a number of reasons, some totally avoidable because im new, some because it just wasnt seasoned yet. So I got it under control and got some more fish (and shrimp!) and it is very smooth sailing so far. I'm at a five and a half weeks, now. There's two hillstream loaches, three siamese algae eaters, 20 CPD's, 1 chilli rasbora (what a champ, he's worth like a hundred bucks now -RIP all his friends), 12 cherry shrimp, two extremely active amaro, one nerite snail, and five glass catfish at the moment, and a ton of plants. Ammonia, nitrite is under the radar, nitrate is around 5 to 10 ppm even tho I am dosing fert twice a week. pH completely stable. I'll probably buy a bunch more parameter tests, just to scratch my chemistry itch, but honestly my fish and shrimp are thriving, my plants are growing, and the water is crystal clear. The next tank, I doubt I will season it per se, but I will definitely start with a fishless "dry" cycle to get some carpet plants well established, then let it go wild and get some shrimp and snails going before I start adding fish. This hobby is addictive. I can understand why people end up owning aquarium shops.

I've got a 50 gallon with CPDs, neo shrimp, and some rasbora. I was strongly considering a single pearl but ouch, five inches? That's practically a discus 😞

But spending a few months growing plants and algae IS a form of cycling.

Murder beans.

Ooh, i've got those (or something that looks a lot like them), too. They float around in the current in my tank and grow just fine, I have no idea what they are but mine came in with some of my last plants I bought. I'm letting them grow out a bit before planting one, they clearly have a root system and a top, but seem to do just fine in the water column.

Yup. Can't wait for the first black-smoker aquascape. Anyhow, check out my new tank, can anybody tell me what this weird thing is?

I'd wager it has to do with their size and metabolic rate. Tiny fry don't actually need a lot of oxygen, thus they don't breathe much. Decreased flow over the gills means decreased exposure to harmful molecules in the water column. Being able to see the paramecium you feed on has its upsides. They probably also have an insanely increased regenerative rate. Life uhhh.. finds a way.

I'd say it was the continuum between living healthy and death, but yes. Results may vary. I doubt 40 ppm is even a noticeable effect without rigorous statistical control, but who knows. And for all we know, the captive bred species may have already developed resistance to increased nitrate levels. Who knows? If your fish are thriving and healthy and living well into their breeding age, nobody can shame you for causing them harm. Not everything in the environment is good for you. Perfect health doesn't exist.

Google scholar is your friend. Works just like Google, tho it helps to use more technical terms if you can. Searching "nitrate toxicity aquatic" gives me the following review (a paper that builds a larger overview of many other papers published in the field stretching over some relevant time span, often done by a prominent researcher in the field): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653504009993 Research indicates that nitrate concentrations over 10ppm can harm freshwater fish, invertebrates, and amphibians over long-term exposures, however the toxicity is greatly affected by the cationic composition of the water (exactly how is behind the pay wall, unfortunately). Nitrate toxicity occurs primarily thru reactions that disable oxygen binding molecules like hemoglobin, however because adsorption into the gills is greatly reduced by the aqueous environment, fish and other organisms can tolerate 5x or more higher nitrate concentrations than terrestrial organisms.

Are the pearls that chasey? Was considering getting one for my 50 gallon nano community.

Here's an interesting one on nitrite. They go from 200 ppm inlet flow concentration of nitrite to 500 ppm, but its into a big reactor bed that can convert everything under both conditions, so no info on overloading, unfortunately. They do however confirm the r/K competition hypothesis between nitrospira and nitrobacter populations, and show that under heavier nitrite loads, the nitrobacter dominates, nitrobacter being the one that can metabolize nitrite faster, and nitrospira being specialized in dealing with very low concentrations (somehow). Effect of nitrite concentration on the distribution and competition of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria in nitratation reactor systems and their kinetic characteristics - ScienceDirect

Is it controversial? There seems to be a wealth of related information in various journals, indicating that increased free ammonia concentrations can have an inhibitory effect on nitrite oxidizing bacteria. Here is one in particular that happens to not be behind a paywall (hurray!) Mechanistic understanding of the NOB suppression by free ammonia inhibition in continuous flow aerobic granulation bioreactors - ScienceDirect This paper comes from the waste-water treatment industry, where they actually don't want to produce all those nitrates. A secondary finding is that low oxygen saturation will also inhibit NOB. Now what exactly are the upper limits, or the optimal ppms to shoot for, is probably not easily shown due to the wide biodiversity of bacterial organisms and the various genomes and thus competing metabolisms they represent. It's gonna vary somewhat from tank to tank, especially if you compare an inert substrate to an aquasoil to a natural dirted tank, for example. But still, I am curious.

I like those ceramic cups on the front page... I wonder is it a good idea to try to replicate that, using wooden branches of various diameters that I hollow out on a drill press? I've got all my plants established, so I wanted to start adding some more rock piles, flat covers, and other hidey holes in various places to give my fish and shrimp more apartments, hopefully also for spawning. I just want to keep things more natural, tho I did consider tossing an old beer bottle in there to really complete the whole "bottom of the pond" look. Also in the market for a miniature shopping cart and/or rusty bicycle.

a) I don't think the tank will ever look anything like the drawing, so as far as models go, it's only helpful to get an idea of how things are going to be placed and then the vaguest idea of how it will actually look b) Plants take and create space. The contrast between open space and greenscape is one of the things that makes tanks visually appealing, and as well they give room for fish to interact and thus interesting fish behaviors, again increasing visual appeal of the tank. So theres a little bit of that going on with the short carpets, but I would try to accentuate it with purposeful placement of tall plants (so they come out towards the front instead of just lining up along the back, thus more clearly delineating the open spaces along the length of the tank) combined with hardscape placement, using the carpets to accentuate the open spaces much like meadows. Dont forget about surface plants (either floaters or tall leaners or lily pads) which add another dimension to the enclosure of space, and make cautious fish extra cozy and happy.

Why say sorry? There's nothing there to help people with cycling. Which is weird, because it's a fundamental topic in the field.

I'm surprised there's no section on cycling on the guides page.

What are those plants with the big hang down roots, johnnyxxl?

I have no idea from reading this thread, what the "2-7 stocking system" even is..

He-Man agrees with you 100%.

Light for max 8 hours a day, then make sure your tank is relatively dark. Add plants, and ironically, add a little fertilizer. My tank went from a madmax hair-algae wasteland to a submerged tropical jungle in the space of a week.

If your wife can't love a man who forges his own plastics, you need a new wife. At least you know how to make a mould for that, now.

Maybe they should go to SCHOOL. 😀

That's a conspiracy from Big Aquarium, who only sells fish at a discount in groups of 5. Coincidence? I THINK NOT. I bought 5 glass catfish. They are all thriving. Four of them swim together at all times, and the fifth one is like Diogenes sitting in his big pot outside the city walls. He doesn't give a ****.