Experiment: Extreme cycle

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They wouldn't tackle it all at once though - wouldn't it be more like
.01 .02 .04 .08 .16 .32 .64 1.28

It would not actually build the bacteria to eat 4ppm all at once because each day there is the old bacteria that has to eat all the same food as the previous day, plus the new bacteria. It's not quite so linear.

edit: I guess/hypothesize
 
Unrelated note: Although tests like ammonia and nitrite "keep" for days, I would not recommend keeping them over 24 hours. The ammonia vials developed a faint yellow tinge, but the nitrite vials are STAINED dark purple :( I tossed several out.

I have kept both tests for 24 hours before with no issues, but this time I kept them for about 72 hours. Bad idea...
 
threnjen said:
I don't think one dose of 4ppm ammonia would be enough to cycle a tank to any appreciable level. It would probably only cycle it to .5 or something so you will just have to dose more ammonia later.

Caliban - that would be some very helpful math. BUT you also don't want the pH to start off too HIGH. I think there has to be some dosing of baking soda in there. It's really not a big deal though. I think this method would require LESS testing and dosing.

Delapool - I'm not sure why the baking soda specifically sounds like a dealbreaker to you - the only thing you need to "redose" in this whole experiment is sodium bicarbonate, and only once. How is that so much worse than dosing ammonia all the time?


I want to reduce a lot of the "thinking". Dosing back up to 4ppm all the time. Testing ammonia every day and calculating how much more to add to dose it back up.
What is wrong with just dosing it and basically forgetting it? Sure, you have to test ammonia and pH every couple days. But the cycle doesn't FAIL if there is a pH crash and you are a day late noticing. Nitrification picks right back up when you bolster the pH back up.
Click to expand...


Oh I think it's great but a ph crash possibility to me means more testing than I had anticipated. Having a kh test and baking soda on hand could be very useful for best cycle?

Also I'm wondering if say someone gets a bad mini-cycle, I think it would be great if we could say by the way 'your low ph/kh means you may get a ph crash at x point as you bb re-establish'.
 
Delapool said:
Oh I think it's great but a ph crash possibility to me means more testing than I had anticipated. Having a kh test and baking soda on hand could be very useful for best cycle?

Also I'm wondering if say someone gets a bad mini-cycle, I think it would be great if we could say by the way 'your low ph/kh means you may get a ph crash at x point as you bb re-establish'.
Click to expand...
I am still perplexed how you perceive that more testing would be involved with this method, as it does not involve any day-to-day testing/evaluating for Ammonia and zero re-dosing of ammonia. I would think ammonia and pH could be tested offhand once every 3 days or so and otherwise not thought about at all. pH only needs to be boosted if it's dangerously low. Everyone has baking soda in their kitchen, but I don't think you need a kH test. The pH test from the master kit is all that would be needed.

What I perceive is, under the current system:
Day 1: Dose ammonia to 4ppm
Days 2-4: nothing
Day 5: test ammonia, dose back up to 4ppm if needed
Day 6: test ammonia, dose back up to 4ppm if needed
Day 7: test ammonia, dose back up to 4pm if needed
Day 8: test ammonia, dose back up to 4pm if needed. Start testing nitrites.
Day 9: test nitrites, test ammonia, dose back up to 4pm if needed.
Dax 10-X: Do it every single day.
Day X: Nitrites present! Now we testing ammonia AND nitrites every day .dose back up to 4pm if needed.
Day X+1: test ammonia and nitrites. dose back up to 4pm if needed.
etc etc etc etc etc
I see testing occurring EVERY DAY

My method I'm only testing all the time in my example for research purposes. In practice it really requires very little testing it's like this:
Day 1: Dose ammonia to 16ppm
Day 10: Test for nitrites, check pH, test ammonia
Day 13: Test for nitrites, check pH, test ammonia. If ammonia is obviously dropping, stop worrying about it and stop testing for it.
Day 16: Test for nitrites, check pH
Day 19: Test for nitrites, check pH
Day X: Test for nitrites, check pH. nitrites are gone. All done.

I am genuinely, sincerely curious how that isn't way easier from a work standpoint. There is no need to run a massive battery of tests every day, I'm only doing that to have a very complete picture of how this is going.

Edit: I'm not saying you have to like it! I just don't know why you think it's more work when it involves one single ammonia dose. It's ALMOST set it and forget it.
Keep in mind my tap water is MEGA CRAZY soft. TDS from my tap is 12-18ppm. People with hard water might not crash at all.
 
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a) pH 7.88 (I must not have let all the baking soda integrate last night :( )
b) kH 11.5 (because of baking soda)
c) TDS up to 168, again because of baking soda
d) PO3 holding at 5
e) Ammonia is gone, as expected (as a note this cleared 4ppm in 24 hours, all my bacteria growth for ammonia doubling was pretty spot on)
f) Nitrites. Tough again. 8.83 ammonia allocated to nitrItes = 23.8 ppm
g) NitrAtes. Calling it 30 as it seems twice as dark as yesterday's, and the 50% is about the same as yesterday's. 8.17 ammonia allocated to nitrAtes = 30ppm

This should represent the nitrIte peak as there is presently no more ammonia to convert.
 
threnjen said:
They wouldn't tackle it all at once though - wouldn't it be more like
.01 .02 .04 .08 .16 .32 .64 1.28

It would not actually build the bacteria to eat 4ppm all at once because each day there is the old bacteria that has to eat all the same food as the previous day, plus the new bacteria. It's not quite so linear.

edit: I guess/hypothesize
Click to expand...


Yes I guess it would be like this.
 
threnjen said:
I am still perplexed how you perceive that more testing would be involved with this method, as it does not involve any day-to-day testing/evaluating for Ammonia and zero re-dosing of ammonia. I would think ammonia and pH could be tested offhand once every 3 days or so and otherwise not thought about at all. pH only needs to be boosted if it's dangerously low. Everyone has baking soda in their kitchen, but I don't think you need a kH test. The pH test from the master kit is all that would be needed.

What I perceive is, under the current system:
Day 1: Dose ammonia to 4ppm
Days 2-4: nothing
Day 5: test ammonia, dose back up to 4ppm if needed
Day 6: test ammonia, dose back up to 4ppm if needed
Day 7: test ammonia, dose back up to 4pm if needed
Day 8: test ammonia, dose back up to 4pm if needed. Start testing nitrites.
Day 9: test nitrites, test ammonia, dose back up to 4pm if needed.
Dax 10-X: Do it every single day.
Day X: Nitrites present! Now we testing ammonia AND nitrites every day .dose back up to 4pm if needed.
Day X+1: test ammonia and nitrites. dose back up to 4pm if needed.
etc etc etc etc etc
I see testing occurring EVERY DAY

My method I'm only testing all the time in my example for research purposes. In practice it really requires very little testing it's like this:
Day 1: Dose ammonia to 16ppm
Day 10: Test for nitrites, check pH, test ammonia
Day 13: Test for nitrites, check pH, test ammonia. If ammonia is obviously dropping, stop worrying about it and stop testing for it.
Day 16: Test for nitrites, check pH
Day 19: Test for nitrites, check pH
Day X: Test for nitrites, check pH. nitrites are gone. All done.

I am genuinely, sincerely curious how that isn't way easier from a work standpoint. There is no need to run a massive battery of tests every day, I'm only doing that to have a very complete picture of how this is going.

Edit: I'm not saying you have to like it! I just don't know why you think it's more work when it involves one single ammonia dose. It's ALMOST set it and forget it.
Keep in mind my tap water is MEGA CRAZY soft. TDS from my tap is 12-18ppm. People with hard water might not crash at all.
Click to expand...


If you plan to run this experiment again maybe you could increase dkh to an averages hard tap water value at the beginning and see if ph crashes?
 
Caliban07 said:
If you plan to run this experiment again maybe you could increase dkh to an averages hard tap water value at the beginning and see if ph crashes?
Click to expand...
I don't think i can raise kH without raising pH, and if pH is over 9.0 the studies show it inhibits nitrification (which by the way we should keep in mind when we look at cycle stalls in newbie area).
I can get close with my pH monitor of course, but optimal nitrification is really at 7.5. So I guess the question is, is it more important to be "set and forget", or optimal cycle speed?
In any case, I can run two and try it either way.
 
threnjen said:
I don't think i can raise kH without raising pH, and if pH is over 9.0 the studies show it inhibits nitrification (which by the way we should keep in mind when we look at cycle stalls in newbie area).
I can get close with my pH monitor of course, but optimal nitrification is really at 7.5. So I guess the question is, is it more important to be "set and forget", or optimal cycle speed?
In any case, I can run two and try it either way.
Click to expand...


Lol I dunno really, set and forget would easier right?

What is your tap dkh and tap ph?
 
pH is appx neutral and kH currently around 2, but it changes. A couple months ago kH was 0. I haven't done the 24 hour tap test in a long time.
 
threnjen said:
pH is appx neutral and kH currently around 2, but it changes. A couple months ago kH was 0. I haven't done the 24 hour tap test in a long time.
Click to expand...


Why has no one studied what dkh levels typical hold what ph levels? That would have been useful right now
 
Caliban07 said:
Why has no one studied what dkh levels typical hold what ph levels? That would have been useful right now
Click to expand...
It would be quite instrumental :(

Do you have the numbers for how much bicarbonate of soda increases pH? Have you seen that somewhere?
 
I suppose you could calculate how much bicarb is required to raise dkh by 1 then see how much ph has increased. Keep doing that to see if it's a linear rise
 
"Sodium bicarbonate drives the pH towards an equilibrium value of 8.2."

Does that mean that is as high as it will go?
To the kitchen to dump baking soda in water! :p

OK except not right now :( too busy :( :( :(
 
I mean this is saying to me that we can't raise it above 8.4
And adding baking soda raises the kH.

7.14 parts of alkalinity are required for each part of ammonia to be removed. What is a "part" of alkalinity expressed as a dkH? (you figure this out somewhere right, I swear you have posted it)

we should be able to figure this out since the pH will not go above 8.4 and that is fine.
 
OK. CaCO3 is what they use to determine alkalinity. But baking soda doesn't have any Ca. So I'm confused. How is it raising the kH?

Do I only count the CO3? I have a calculator for this. If we need 7.14ppm CO3 for each 1ppm ammonia, I can calculate that.
 
I have an idea about cycle stalls. We always ask people like, oh did your pH crash etc. But it's not the pH that gets "eaten" it's the alkalinity. It's the CARBONATE. In hard water this is usually CaCO3. With baking soda it's NaHCO3. What if people's cycles tend to stall when their carbonates are 0 even if they haven't seen a pH crash? The pH goes down because the nitrifying bacteria produce acid. It's not because they eat the pH itself. They eat the kH. What if all of the kH is gone, so the pH hasn't crashed, but they are stalled.
I have never once asked someone to check their kH. Not once.

Am I... crazy? Am I right? is this a potential breakthrough?
We never advise adding baking soda if pH isn't a problem...
but what if they have ZERO KH LEFT
 
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