Feeding a cycle

[Gideyon]

While starting a fishless cycle for the first time, I finally have the nitrifying bacteria in place.  I did a 90% water change and testing again.  I spilled more ammonia than desired.  But it's starting to convert.... 

My desire is to test anoxic filtration and the formation of denitrifying bacteria.  I'd basically need to wait for the nitrates to go down (if they ever do - that's the test) 

Question : do I need to put in ammonia once in a while to keep the bacteria "fed" and not die off?   Or is that a myth?

I'd like to just let it sit if I don't lose any bacteria. 

 

[Guppysnail]

As far as I know but I may be wrong the bacteria must eat to stay alive.

[Ken Sonnier]

Agreed . Anything living needs its normal food source 

[Gideyon]

Is there a time frame of how long it can go on average without an ammonia source?   I went 2 weeks waiting for nitrites to zero out. No ammonia during that time.  And the bacteria seems to have survived.

[Guppysnail]

That is way above my pay grade so I googled 😁. In this thread there are some links to articles about ammonia starvation of bacteria hope it helps. https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f15/how-long-will-bacteria-live-without-ammonia-source-90580.html

[Gideyon]

Thanks for the link.  You would think that I would Google it too, but no.... I didn't even think to do that. Thanks for reminding me 😉

After some research, it seems it can definitely go a week, even 2 weeks like I experienced.   I think even a month. 

If you think about it, what is bottled bacteria feeding on for many months without a source? 

I think I'll just dose every two weeks to play it safe

Thanks for the feedback

[Guppysnail]

On 10/2/2021 at 10:12 PM, Gideyon said:

Thanks for the link.  You would think that I would Google it too, but no.... I didn't even think to do that. Thanks for reminding me 😉

After some research, it seems it can definitely go a week, even 2 weeks like I experienced.   I think even a month. 

If you think about it, what is bottled bacteria feeding on for many months without a source? 

I think I'll just dose every two weeks to play it safe

Thanks for the feedback

I’ve come to trust the forum more than random what-nots I find on the web. I come here first too. My understanding of bottle bacteria is limited because I do not use it but I think I’ve heard the prevailing theory is most are actually dormant I think I heard fritz is alive. What I think I heard what I actually remember and what it is are often three different things 🤣

[Torrey]

On 10/2/2021 at 8:17 PM, Guppysnail said:

I think I’ve heard the prevailing theory is most are actually dormant I think I heard fritz is alive. What I think I heard what I actually remember and what it is are often three different things 🤣

Ain't that the truth for everyone!!!!

🤣🤣🤣

[Odd Duck]

@Gideyon Are you talking about dosing as part of your experiment with anoxic substrate with a fishless status?

just making very certain you know that once you have fish in, you don’t continue dosing.  The fish are producing ammonia for you.

[Gideyon]

On 10/2/2021 at 10:51 PM, Odd Duck said:

@Gideyon Are you talking about dosing as part of your experiment with anoxic substrate with a fishless status?

just making very certain you know that once you have fish in, you don’t continue dosing.  The fish are producing ammonia for you.

Oh yes. I know that. I don't want to kill my fish 🙂

I'm hoping to go another month or month and a half fishless and plantless.  I don't want to go longer to see if denitrification takes place.  Then I'll add plants and see how they do.   If all goes well, fish are next. 

[Torrey]

On 10/3/2021 at 4:21 AM, Gideyon said:

Oh yes. I know that. I don't want to kill my fish 🙂

I'm hoping to go another month or month and a half fishless and plantless.  I don't want to go longer to see if denitrification takes place.  Then I'll add plants and see how they do.   If all goes well, fish are next. 

If no fish and no plants, I would be ghostfeeding the amount of fish I want to add, daily.

That way the beneficial bacteria will be able to process the eventual bioload of my fish. Should see the food making ammonia (shake it up really well in a little tank water before adding to the tank, so you don't get fungal/bacterial spots in the tank on decomposing food).

I have never bothered to buy ammonia, so I can't give advice on how much ammonia matches the amount of food I ghost feed🤷‍♂️  I just use fish food that the fish didn't like, or that the food was compromised in some way, to prime the tank.

[Patrick_G]

On 10/3/2021 at 3:21 AM, Gideyon said:

'm hoping to go another month or month and a half fishless and plantless.  I don't want to go longer to see if denitrification takes place.  Then I'll add plants and see how they do.   If all goes well, fish are next. 

Fishtuber Pecktec just posted a one year update on his anoxic setup. 

 

[Odd Duck]

On 10/3/2021 at 5:21 AM, Gideyon said:

Oh yes. I know that. I don't want to kill my fish 🙂

I'm hoping to go another month or month and a half fishless and plantless.  I don't want to go longer to see if denitrification takes place.  Then I'll add plants and see how they do.   If all goes well, fish are next. 

Thank you.  I’ve seen unusual things done when people had incomplete knowledge or limited experience with fish and I just wanted to make certain you were aware since I don’t know your experience level.

[Gideyon]

Just FYI.... 

 

I went almost 4 weeks without adding ammonia (my goal was 2 but life happened).   

I added 20 drops of ammonia yesterday.  Less than 8 hours later, ammonia is 0.   Maybe 14 hours later, nitrites are still high.  

So whatever bacteria consumes ammonia seems to last much longer than the one for nitrites.   

 

Note:  just before the 20 drops, I did 10 drops. After 24 hours, all 0s with ammonia and nitrites. So not all the bacteria left the building. 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Gideyon

[Gideyon]

Update:

About 32 hours later, 0ppm nitrites. 

Maybe nitrites just take longer to process.  I'm thinking I didn't lose a considerable amount of bacteria with the 4 week fast of ammonia. 

So.... I'll go with a once a month dosing of ammonia until I get fish. 

[Odd Duck]

On 11/1/2021 at 7:31 PM, Gideyon said:

Update:

About 32 hours later, 0ppm nitrites. 

Maybe nitrites just take longer to process.  I'm thinking I didn't lose a considerable amount of bacteria with the 4 week fast of ammonia. 

So.... I'll go with a once a month dosing of ammonia until I get fish. 

You might need to build back up a little.  I’d probably dose daily for a week (depending on your test results), then every couple weeks and see if your nitrites will convert faster.

[Gideyon]

Just wanted to share an observation. 

 

The tank on question is still without fish.  I stopped adding ammonia many weeks ago.    I turned off the filters less weeks ago.  Emptied the tank keeping the gravel, stones and ceramics immersed.  3 days later I finally put it back in.    Dosed 4ppm ammonia. 2 days later, almost 0 ammonia, high nitrites.  

Nitrites to nitrates isn't there, but ammonia to nitrite (I don't know the name) didn't apparently need feeding for almost 2 months.   

[Cinnebuns]

On 10/2/2021 at 9:17 PM, Guppysnail said:

I’ve heard the prevailing theory is most are actually dormant I think I heard fritz is alive. What I think I heard what I actually remember and what it is are often three different things 🤣

My understanding is that without ammonia the bacteria can go dormant for a period of time and then come back when the ammonia source comes back. I tend to interpret your meaning of dormant as not alive aka dead in comparison to Fritz being alive. This confuses me. I do know I have heard from many sources that Fritz is the only one that actually works, but as you stated, things people say isn't solid proof, but it makes me wonder if this is why. If "dormant" means the bacteria will kick in with an ammonia source, in theory the others work, but maybe not as quickly or as well. 

[Guppysnail]

On 3/4/2022 at 5:37 PM, Cinnebuns said:

I tend to interpret your meaning of dormant as not alive aka dead

I actually did mean dormant.  I most likely should have said active vs saying alive. My apologies. 

[Cinnebuns]

On 3/4/2022 at 4:52 PM, Guppysnail said:

I actually did mean dormant.  I most likely should have said active vs saying alive. My apologies. 

Ok that makes sense then. 

[modified lung]

Yep, in nature some ammonia-oxidizing bacteria can survive without food all winter.

There's been biofilter studies that found about half the bacteria population dies at around 30 days of starvation but much of the rest survive in dormancy past 90 days.

The time it takes to break out of dormancy depends on the species, how long they were starved, and the amount of surrounding species that have already broken dormancy.

Nitrite-oxidizing bacteria can go into dormancy too but it takes them just as long to reactivate as it does to grow a new population.

[KatTV]

@modified lung for those of us that slept their way through school, can you dumb that down a bit?

[Odd Duck]

On 3/15/2022 at 4:37 PM, KatTV said:

@modified lung for those of us that slept their way through school, can you dumb that down a bit?

@modified lung is just talking about the different types of beneficial bacteria.  For the species that convert ammonia to nitrite it’s been proven there will be significant die off in the first 30 days if no food (ammonia) is available, but some will go dormant (be alive, but inactive) for up to 90 days.  I suspect they stay viable but dormant for much longer but I haven’t looked for a study on the topic in decades and don’t remember seeing a study that went longer than 90 days.

There is a strong likelihood that other species of bacteria that do the conversion from nitrite to nitrate will have a similar scenario with many dying fairly soon without a food source, but some going dormant, potentially for weeks, months, or maybe even years.

I’ve seen tanks cycle very quickly when old biological media is reused.  Far faster than a brand new set up would, when I don’t ever use any bottled bacteria.  There were studies done decades go that proved the bottled bacteria available back then didn’t actually speed up the cycle at all and they couldn’t grow the bacteria that were thought to be the species that did all the grunt work for us.  This was done before we even had a good grip on how many different species were involved in the process.  I learned about Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria way back in the day.  We now know it is a whole army of bacteria doing the work, not just 2 species.

It’s extremely hard to keep a whole host of different bacteria with different needs alive and active in a bottle on the shelf for an unknown duration.  I have grave doubts about anybody that says they are managing this and I would love to see independent studies that confirm it.  Dormant bacteria of just a few strains, maybe, a whole panoply alive and active, naw.

[KatTV]

@modified lung thank you

[Widgets]

On 3/15/2022 at 6:03 PM, Odd Duck said:

I’ve seen tanks cycle very quickly when old biological media is reused.

In the past few months I have setup two new tanks using gravel that was cleaned with tap water and put into storage 15 years ago. I cleaned the gravel with tap water again before setting up the tanks. Both tanks completely cycled (with a pair of zebra danios) within 10 days. No bottled bacteria, just prime conditioner. In the second tank the danios may have spawned, as I found mystery fry in the tank days after removing the danios.