Cycling my first tank and having some issues

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

For what it’s worth, I’ve kept snails on black gravel. Mine was rocks though. If yours is actually quartz and not just branded as quartz it could be different. I eventually capped my gravel with a 2” Layer of pool filter sand because I wanted the additional filtration and so nutrients such as root tabs would not wash away from plant roots. Plus I wanted a more natural look.

[Millie]

It must be worm season cause my tank has a bunch of em sprouting up too ! Did a water change today and some additional advice regarding the detritus worms is to monitor how much you're feeding your animals and live plants! They'll also feed on plant waste so if you do have live plants or additional algae in there, keep an eye on it 🙂

[modified lung]

On 11/12/2022 at 8:46 PM, Odd Duck said:

I’m pretty sure Dr. Tim isn’t nearly old enough to be the first guy to test for which bacteria are doing the work in an aquarium.

It's true. People before him tested wastewater treatment plants and everyone assumed the same bacteria was everywhere else. Even then the cultivation method used gave very biased results. 

 "Breakthrough" (Hovanec 1998, Burrell 1998). The Burrell study also included Tim Hovanec as an author. There's also one in 2001 about ammonia-oxidizing bacteria.

"Decades" of cultivation bias.

("Nitrification" by Ward)

Sites earlier Hovanec study in saltwater.

('Design and Operating Guide for Aquaculture Seawater Systems" by Huguenin)

For aquaculture but "core taxa exist". 

There's a lot more studies like this, some with aquariums. They find lots of different stuff in there but around 20% of RNA found is usually from the same bacteria genus (more in the first few weeks) and another 20% or more is from archaea. 

On 11/12/2022 at 8:46 PM, Odd Duck said:

I suspect there are a whole lot of different bacteria that do the work depending on the conditions present in any given aquarium

True. Over 400 species of nitrifying bacteria and archaea have been found.

On 11/12/2022 at 8:46 PM, Odd Duck said:

Anybody that claims to know it’s only one or two species is selling you something.

I don't think anyone does that but if they do I agree.

On 11/12/2022 at 8:46 PM, Odd Duck said:

Especially since that bacteria may, or may not, be present; may or may not be alive; may, or may not, be the right species; may, or may not, have been stored appropriately; shipped at appropriate temps; etc, etc, etc.

Fair enough. Might be worth a try for some people, might not for others. But no one should count on them working 100% of the time. 

[Luciferkrist]

Having similar issues in my recent DIY tank, SO much algae, diatoms, and even the detritus worms. As annoying as it is to see and looks like you're failing - it is really the opposite, you've created a thriving ecosystem out of mostly inert and sterile parts. It just isn't the life you wanted, but should get better as long as you keep up on cleaning and water changes.

Right now I'm fighting ammonia, but even that is coming down - and I'm starting to see nitrate's go up, so there is some BB doing work and just getting established. I'm slowly adding more plants with every water change, and it is all doing great, just as long as I brush off the algae of the broad leafed plants, I am confident that it will stabilize soon.

The little white worms are unsightly, but will be great for any omni/carnivorous animals you do eventually add - though you definitely do not want them to get too far out of hand. It is a strange thing - your tanks usually require MORE attention with less in them - once you get them established and stocked they mostly self-sustain. It is often compounded by smaller tanks, since even a small outbreak on anything has a massive impact.

You should only panic if ALL of you plants rot, not just die, with proper care - that includes your tank and plant cleaning and water changes. Even then, I've had plants melt all the way back to just roots under the substrate only to to pop back through as some of my biggest and most lush plants. (Italian Val is always stressful plant for this) And my betta tank took almost 2 months to cycle down to 0 ammonia because I used a new substrate and did NOT seed the tank with anything from my established tanks. Also, be careful with anything that claims to be a 'shortcut' - if it worked as well as it claimed with any reliability, it would be SOP for the hobby, not the niche 'life-hack' they typically claim.

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/13/2022 at 4:41 AM, newbettamom said:

Would it be a good idea to put something along the side of the tank, like hang a towel over it or even wrap some tinfoil over it for the time being to block more light out completely?

You can use acrylic paint, posterboard, window film, a black trash bag, and a variety of other things. On any tank with light on the side I tend to black it out on the back (always) and the side affected or both sides.  I use window tint, but you might have something on hand that works too!

On 11/13/2022 at 4:41 AM, newbettamom said:

I'm in Michigan. I have thought of calling around different places seeing if they sell cycled sponge filters at all and wondered if I could find any online but wasn't sure if bacteria would survive being shipped etc so I wasn't sure if I should/could or not! It would be nice to find something like that though to help the process.

I think everything you're doing is fine. Just need to go through a few setup questions, but clearly the tank is cycling and will be cycled fully with time. 🙂

For the substrate concern I would try to email them. It looks like it's a very very fine particle size, almost sand, and that might be ok? I can't say, but I see on the front it's shrimp safe.  Doesn't speak to anything about snails. Perhaps amanos is a solution here instead of swapping the substrate for the snails until you're certain about safety.

I think this might be the email to contact them, but it's difficult to find the actual website.

https://www.piscesusa.com/contact

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

 

[Odd Duck]

@newbettamom, you are still likely to be safe with most snails. They handle rough substrate fine, typically.  Might not be the easiest for them but they should deal with it fine.  I probably wouldn’t get bottom feeders, though, if it feels sharp to touch.  I usually don’t worry about putting cories or loaches on gravel since that was a pretty standard aquarium substrate for decades and they all did fine.  There’s no reason to risk their well-being on a substrate that could hurt them.  Ignorance was sort of bliss back in the day.  If you’re really worried about it, you could layer black sand over the top but it will work it’s way down in your fine gravel eventually.  Whether that matters in the long run remains to be seen.  A bit of gravel can reduce how much sand compacts, so it wouldn’t be all bad either way.

@modified lung  We’ve known since at least the late 70’s and early 80’s that there were probably many other species of bacteria coming into play than what was initially found from those old water treatment plant studies.  I don’t have the energy today (16 hour shift yesterday) to try to track down any of the old papers or reports from way back.  Certainly it’s an area that still needs further study, but studies cost money and there’s very little motivation for somebody to spend money for a study that doesn’t eventually profit them.  It’s expensive and difficult to bring a new product to market, especially when even more studies would have to be done to figure out how to keep the bacteria viable in a bottle, or in a lyophilized form, and prove that it works on the other end.

Seems to me like a lyophilized form would be more likely to have more viable strains than a sealed, and inherently anaerobic bottle, but it’s likely to be a harder sell then a liquid which better fits into most peoples standard idea of what supplemental aquarium bacteria should look like.  Lyophilized is probably more expensive to produce but cheaper to ship.  Would it be economically viable?  I definitely don’t know the answer to that.

I do know you could spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to prove which of the likely dozens or even hundreds of bacteria species and strains are actually doing the work in any given aquarium.  Do those strains work individually or in a commensal relationship with others to do the job?  Do we need 3 different species for this step and 5 different ones for the next step?  Or is a dozen different species working together every step along the way?  I have no idea and I don’t think anyone does at this stage.  I think we have glimpses.  Tiny windows into the truth, like looking at an elephant through a spyglass but from only a foot away.  Yep, you’re seeing the elephant, but you’re only seeing a very small part of the whole elephant.  🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Solution?  Maybe a very rich aquarist throwing a bunch of money at DNA testing for a few hundred mature tank’s mulm and filter goo from across the country or better, across the world, in all kinds of different water conditions.  Then growing the various species identified in pure culture and treating them to a nice ammonia bath, then a nice nitrite bath, even a nitrate bath.  Then repeating the same thing with cultures of 2 of the organisms - so dozens of pairs of blended cultures.  Then 3 organism groups, then 4 organism groups, etc, etc, etc.  Until the combo is found that does the best work in the various conditions.  If we’re crazy lucky, the same group will work for everybody (don’t hold your breath on that one).  Might end up with different bacterial soups for each pH range, or different hardness ranges, different temperature ranges, and so on.

There’s no profit to be made from that kind of expense.  Payroll alone would be just stupid high for all the time it would take to do that.  Trying out all the different potential combos would be tedious in the extreme.  Then you have to repeat all the studies to make sure they weren’t flukes.  Then someone else has to repeat them to really make sure they weren’t flukes.  Profits right down the drain with the old tank water.

So we’re stuck with, “Try to find somebody local that can give you some ‘squeezins’ to start your tank.”  That works far better than any bottled products I’ve ever heard about.  It’s magical.  We don’t know why it works, we just know it does.  Kind of like how cars work for most people.  The difference being there are people that know how a car works (1 8 4 3 6 5 7 2) but nobody truly knows what that magical bacterial soup is doing since it just hasn’t been studied enough. I truly wish it has been.  Then cycling a tank would easy.

[modified lung]

On 11/14/2022 at 2:48 PM, Odd Duck said:

(16 hour shift yesterday)

Yikes. Get some couch sitting in for me.

[Odd Duck]

On 11/14/2022 at 5:56 PM, modified lung said:

Yikes. Get some couch sitting in for me.

I slept most of today (well, yesterday now) so here I am awake at nearly 1 am.  I was scheduled as 12 hrs but it was busy enough it took me hours to get caught up on phone calls to owners and charts.  Most of the criticals had finally stabilized by the time I rounded to the overnight doc and most of the previously hospitalized patients had gone home, but I hospitalized 5 more, so I have to finish those charts. Plus 3 more were going to need surgery very soon at their primary DVM so those charts have to get finished. Then there’s the “crazy owner” charts that have to get finished and all convos documented to CYA against nut jobs (at least it was only a couple nutty ones this time around, I’ve had far worse shifts for nutty).  By then there’s only a couple more, so I might as well finish those along with my surgery notes for the trio of minor laceration repairs.  And so it goes, then next thing you know it’s quarter after eleven when I was supposed to go off shift at 7 pm.  🤷🏻‍♀️ But I only have 2 more shifts this week at only 9 hrs each and I’m off for another couple days before my next long Sunday.  Kind of typical for an ER doc.