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[aqua_chem]

I heard adding fish food helps with phosphate?

It does. How much it adds though is harder to determine, whereas if you dose phosphates specifically, you get a much greater deal of control. Also of concern is the bioavailability of phosphate in flake form, as it must first be processed and released by other bacteria to reach filters, whereas pure phosphate is instantly available.

Well these are conditions we are working towards however, ammonia dosing, frequency of dosing, time of cycle and whether water changes are necessary. It would seem that a water change plan would be beneficial but not for the reasons people might be thinking.

However, If we could add something that means we can just forget about it then this may be better. Or if we can help people understand the importance of macronutrients and other nutrients they can at least choose whether or Not to add these at the start or do a water change, since this would be less cost.

Just look at the getting started page in freshwater. There are 6 threads in a row that are struggling with this fishless cycle. It needs addressing.

The problem arises when you try educate people on the matter. Unfortunately, so much of what is known is in shades of gray rather than black and white. It's easier to develop a 'catch all' method and apply it to all rather than supply a dissertation on bacterial ecology that's more likely to confuse the reader.

What I would say is needed is a revamped guide with clear directions to be followed, followed by a discussion about why different things are advised. Fortunately, a lot is known on the matter that simply needs to be translated into a palatable format for the complete beginner.

 

[Caliban07]

It does. How much it adds though is harder to determine, whereas if you dose phosphates specifically, you get a much greater deal of control. Also of concern is the bioavailability of phosphate in flake form, as it must first be processed and released by other bacteria to reach filters, whereas pure phosphate is instantly available.









The problem arises when you try educate people on the matter. Unfortunately, so much of what is known is in shades of gray rather than black and white. It's easier to develop a 'catch all' method and apply it to all rather than supply a dissertation on bacterial ecology that's more likely to confuse the reader.



What I would say is needed is a revamped guide with clear directions to be followed, followed by a discussion about why different things are advised. Fortunately, a lot is known on the matter that simply needs to be translated into a palatable format for the complete beginner.

This is exactly the problem. There are many users of this forum I have come across that preach the same conditions that we had recently studied. Whether or not they are preached because they have heard another preach this info or have studied it directly themselves remains to be seen but the information must have come from somewhere right?

We have always known that things we have read for ourselves would not be new knowledge but this guide seems to be causing many problems.

There is someone suggesting to a newbie that adding fish food will do nothing for the cycle other than go mouldy.

I think in the spirit if keeping things Simple and to reduce cost that we should advocate water changes. Sorry Jen. However, structured water changes need to be looked at. When is the best time to do one etc.

 

[threnjen]

It does. How much it adds though is harder to determine, whereas if you dose phosphates specifically, you get a much greater deal of control. Also of concern is the bioavailability of phosphate in flake form, as it must first be processed and released by other bacteria to reach filters, whereas pure phosphate is instantly available.

In the interest of using something that is easily available though to a newbie, that is fish food.
One thing to consider is that since most water will have some traces of phosphate, the cycle can use the trace amounts in the water until the phosphate produced by the fish food becomes available.

The problem arises when you try educate people on the matter. Unfortunately, so much of what is known is in shades of gray rather than black and white. It's easier to develop a 'catch all' method and apply it to all rather than supply a dissertation on bacterial ecology that's more likely to confuse the reader.

I don't want to bombard people with the science stuff - just do what you say in the next quote -

What I would say is needed is a revamped guide with clear directions to be followed, followed by a discussion about why different things are advised. Fortunately, a lot is known on the matter that simply needs to be translated into a palatable format for the complete beginner.

What i envision is a post/article with our new proposed guidelines, in an easily readable form which is simple for the newbie to read and understand.
This followed by a slightly expanded faq/discussion of each item in the guide with why this is advised (just what you said) which includes citations to specific scientific studies that support our statements.
I'd also like the FAQ to include the questions of the things we have disproven -
"won't high ammonia stall the cycle/'
"won't high nitrites stall the cycle"
etc etc, again with our answers in easily readable format, then with citations

In fact i don't think it's awful to provide two answers to each question
QUICK ANSWER: Science shows us that ammonia in the levels that we use does not stall the cycle.
DETAILED ANSWER: Scientific research papers have shown that only Free Ammonia inhibits bacteria. Free Ammonia makes up only a small percentage of the available ammonia during the cycle (avg 2.5%). It would take 10ppm of Free Ammonia to inhibit our bacteria, which would correspond to 400ppm of ammonia reading by our test! as you can see, ammonia levels that we encounter will never be inhibitory. (citations)

i don't think there is anything wrong with providing two answers to each question - the quick and dirty, and the more detailed. ESPECIALLY because the established members are going to be the ones challenging us, and they will require more in-depth information to be satisfied. if people are satisfied with the quick answer, they move on. But the detailed answer conveys what we want them to understand.

 

[threnjen]

This is exactly the problem. There are many users of this forum I have come across that preach the same conditions that we had recently studied. Whether or not they are preached because they have heard another preach this info or have studied it directly themselves remains to be seen but the information must have come from somewhere right?

We have always known that things we have read for ourselves would not be new knowledge but this guide seems to be causing many problems.

There is someone suggesting to a newbie that adding fish food will do nothing for the cycle other than go mouldy.

I think in the spirit if keeping things Simple and to reduce cost that we should advocate water changes. Sorry Jen. However, structured water changes need to be looked at. When is the best time to do one etc.

I'm still not convinced. Why take out the nitrites that the bacteria need to establish the properly sized colony? Nothing about that makes sense to me.

i seriously think (although I have not looked THAT many places) that this is the only forum that advocates water changes and I think it's because it mysteriously advocates nonstop 4ppm dosing.

Homework for you and me as well - research other articles on fishless cycling from other sources. what are the most standard recommendations?

 

[Caliban07]

I'm still not convinced. Why take out the nitrites that the bacteria need to establish the properly sized colony? Nothing about that makes sense to me.

i seriously think (although I have not looked THAT many places) that this is the only forum that advocates water changes and I think it's because it mysteriously advocates nonstop 4ppm dosing.

Homework for you and me as well - research other articles on fishless cycling from other sources. what are the most standard recommendations?

Ok I can see what you mean but how much food are we actually taking out.? If the nutrients in water are limited and the removal of food is detrimental to the process I can see your point.

If nutrients in a water change are beneficial to ensure the cycle doesn't stall without removal of food being detrimental to the process then a water change needs to be considered as this is the simplest thing for a newbie and we are trying to keep things simple with the best interests of newbies in mind. So far the newbie will require plant ferts, fish food, ammonia, a test kit etc.

I'm just playing devils advocate here to try and make sure we are thinking everything through. I'm only we don't want to deter people from this method by complicating matters. Plus we don't yet know when to add fish food, how much is required, when to add ferts and how much is required. These are going to be important instructions.

Gulp what if we prove further down the line that fish in cycling is perfectly safe if done x way? The newbie then gets to stock their tank and cycle there tank without compromising the safety of their fish or purchasing anything but fish and a test kit. We could kill the fishless cycle for good! Lol I'm thinking too much I know.

 

[threnjen]

Do we even have some evidence about plant gets I must have missed something

anytime in the studies where the solution had food it was phosphorous
I'm not seeing proof that anyone needs ferts, clearly cycles h all the time without it

 

[threnjen]

happen sorry I am phone stupid

and ferts go away auto correct

 

[aqua_chem]

I'm still not convinced. Why take out the nitrites that the bacteria need to establish the properly sized colony? Nothing about that makes sense to me.

Ok I can see what you mean but how much food are we actually taking out.? If the nutrients in water are limited and the removal of food is detrimental to the process I can see your point.

The problem here is with the logic of "If some of a good thing is good, than more of a good thing must be better. It doesn't translate to bacteria very well though.

Let's say you are pie eating bacteria. Once you get full of pie, you stop eating, split into two identical pie eating bacteria, and start eating again. Now lets say there is a milling pies in front of you. Does that change how fast your population grows? No, because it wont necessarily change how fast you can eat pie. Therefore, it follows that if someone takes away half of those pies, you're not going to grow any faster or slower because you couldn't eat those pies if you wanted to. In the end, it doesn't really matter until you have a population in the hundreds of thousands. On a exponential scale, this is ultimately very small, ie, 20 doubling periods vs 22 doubling periods. By the math, a single 50% water change only sets you back one doubling period. The biggest impact a water change can have, as I see it, is reintroducing exhausted minerals or buffers, if that's even going to be an issue.



And for the record, we are not the only site with a guide that advocates continuous ammonia dosing. Literally, they all do.

Fishless cycling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How to Do a Fishless Cycle: 9 Steps - wikiHow
Fishless Cycle / Nitrogen Cycle
Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First! - Cycle your Tank - Tropical Fish Forums

 

[aqua_chem]

Do we even have some evidence about plant gets I must have missed something

anytime in the studies where the solution had food it was phosphorous
I'm not seeing proof that anyone needs ferts, clearly cycles h all the time without it

I'm not sure what you mean about plants, but ferts thing is pretty basic. Bacteria need minerals to function just as plants or fish do. You can't add pure ammonia to pure water and expect life to spring out. Some of the time tap water has relevant minerals in it, but often it doesn't, which is why I dose micronutrients and macronutrients into a tank that's getting cycled fishlessly. Even if it will eventually cycle in a deficient environment, it would do so much quicker with all essential nutrients.


Also, be careful about distinguishing what people say the cause of something was and what they can actually prove. Nine times out of ten they have no real way to attribute cause and effect in this hobby.

 

[threnjen]

The problem here is with the logic of "If some of a good thing is good, than more of a good thing must be better. It doesn't translate to bacteria very well though.

Let's say you are pie eating bacteria. Once you get full of pie, you stop eating, split into two identical pie eating bacteria, and start eating again. Now lets say there is a milling pies in front of you. Does that change how fast your population grows? No, because it wont necessarily change how fast you can eat pie. Therefore, it follows that if someone takes away half of those pies, you're not going to grow any faster or slower because you couldn't eat those pies if you wanted to. In the end, it doesn't really matter until you have a population in the hundreds of thousands. On a exponential scale, this is ultimately very small, ie, 20 doubling periods vs 22 doubling periods. By the math, a single 50% water change only sets you back one doubling period. The biggest impact a water change can have, as I see it, is reintroducing exhausted minerals or buffers, if that's even going to be an issue.

I guess I am not sure what we are arguing here.
Are you in favor of a water change?

And for the record, we are not the only site with a guide that advocates continuous ammonia dosing. Literally, they all do.

Fishless cycling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How to Do a Fishless Cycle: 9 Steps - wikiHow
Fishless Cycle / Nitrogen Cycle
Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First! - Cycle your Tank - Tropical Fish Forums

I'm sorry but it makes me grumpy for you to say "Literally, they all do." when that is demonstrably false.

I checked only 4 places after I read that statement by you to see what their instructions are. 1 of them has a copy of our forum's instructions (at theplantedtank.net). The other 3 do not advocate continuously dosing 4ppm ammonia.

The Fishless Cycle
The Fishless Cycle - Aquarium Forum
Cycling an Aquarium — Seriously Fish

 

[threnjen]

I'm not sure what you mean about plants, but ferts thing is pretty basic. Bacteria need minerals to function just as plants or fish do. You can't add pure ammonia to pure water and expect life to spring out. Some of the time tap water has relevant minerals in it, but often it doesn't, which is why I dose micronutrients and macronutrients into a tank that's getting cycled fishlessly. Even if it will eventually cycle in a deficient environment, it would do so much quicker with all essential nutrients.


Also, be careful about distinguishing what people say the cause of something was and what they can actually prove. Nine times out of ten they have no real way to attribute cause and effect in this hobby.

All right. Where are we going with this I guess?

 

[Fibsog]

Proud to say my 2g community tank calculated 0 ammonia!

 

[threnjen]

Sorry for any terse posts earlier today - I was out and about and either using my phone or my mom's computer where the shift key only seems to work 1/3 of the time. (well the one where I was grumpy was from home, I wanted to edit it for friendlier tone but my edit window has passed!)

I can compromise on the water change issue, I'm not going to be unyielding as it's a team effort. Also, we have 5 people signed up so we *could* issue five different sets of instructions, although I still think it would be most valuable for us to double them up.
Also, for us to get even somewhat interesting data (as I think we can agree that this will not be a truly scientific experiment in any way), we actually need to decide what the variable is that we are testing, and it needs to be the only variable. So if we decide on water changes as our variable, then for example the amounts and schedule ammonia dosing should remain the same.

Alternatively, we can agree that our experiment lacks SO MUCH scientific validity that we could instead write different instructions for every participant of the study. What we will get out of that I don't know, but we could at LEAST have a non-scientific list of "see all of the different instructions that people used and STILL SUCCEEDED WITH?" It doesn't have to be scientific to have some value to the community.

I'm still interested in low level, "standard" level and aggressive dosing. Originally I wanted to double those up, but in the absence of it being a proper experiment, we could also introduce water changes as a variable and have 6 instruction sets.

 

[Caliban07]

Whether or not other sites do or do not advocate water changes is irrelevant. I am only interested in this forum and the problems it is clearly having.

The fact is, not everyone who does a fishless cycle has problems molliwop for example has done many with no problems, he/she is an experienced keeper though and may not follow the cycle rules as per the sticky. Why do some work and some not?

Would I be right in saying that although bacteria prefer a temp of say 30 degrees this temp increases their motabolism using more dissolved oxygen and more nutrients and in water with already scarce nutrients this could be detrimental to the process? Does low nutrients in tap water follow a pattern I.e low pH? Each question opens up another. Lets concentrate on answering each others questions which could ultimatly end these problems. Nutrients is a very valid point at this stage. It could mean that peoples baseline tap water is more important than first thought. So rather than ask people if there water has x amount of this nutrient etc, lets just encourage the use if a nutrient enriched product and phosphus using fish food in this case would at least give heterotrophic bacteria something to do. If we encourage this then we dont have to worry about these stalling our cycle even if they dont, wheres the harm in having the angles covered. Would a choice of adding nutrients in a bottle or doing an x amount of water changed on x day in our new guide be a bad thing.

Lets concentrate on covering all possibilities in our guide that would see a cycle stall. What we originally believed stalled a cycle we now know is bs

As for ammonia dosing im still under the impression that 1 4ppm dose is enough to see you through a full cycle. I think what we need to study, is how much ammonia the average community tank creates a week. If we want to dose more ammonia as maintenence it should be a little higher than this.

If peoples tap water is differents which we know it is then we would require paricipants from parts where water differs greatly.

There was a thread on here where a guy was told by his LFS that the R/O water which he sold was a better quality water for his fish. So the guy goes out and buys this water tries to do a fishless cycle and it stalls. No nutrients in R/O water right?

Sent from my SM-T210 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[threnjen]

Whether or not other sites do or do not advocate water changes is irrelevant. I am only interested in this forum and the problems it is clearly having.

The fact is, not everyone who does a fishless cycle has problems molliwop for example has done many with no problems, he/she is an experienced keeper though and may not follow the cycle rules as per the sticky. Why do some work and some not?

Maybe we should contact some folks like this and ask them if they followed the stick or deviated?
Or we could just make a post in General asking something like - If you fishless cycled successfully on the first try, did you follow the forum's instructions to the letter, if not what did you do differently?
Although if we go that route I'd propose you make it.

Would I be right in saying that although bacteria prefer a temp of say 30 degrees this temp increases their motabolism using more dissolved oxygen and more nutrients and in water with already scarce nutrients this could be detrimental to the process?

Hmm could be.
Did we read somewhere that Nitrospiras likes it cooler?? I swear I did. Ugh another thing to go look up.

Does low nutrients in tap water follow a pattern I.e low pH?

Do tap water nutrients correspond at all to gH and kH? Or are these totally unrelated?
I mean my tap water is so soft that it is practically RO. I have to add a bunch of crap to it like Seachem Equilibrium (in display, not in cycle) and I was told it's because the low gH and kH mean it is nearly devoid of nutrients.
And we know that RO or distilled water are nutrient devoid, so does "Equilibrium" have the basics?
Not that I'm suggesting we recommend Equilibrium - just wonder what "the basics" are exactly.
Edit: Whoops looks like there is a different product Replenish. I don't know what I am talking about with this part clearly.

Each question opens up another. Lets concentrate on answering each others questions which could ultimatly end these problems. Nutrients is a very valid point at this stage. It could mean that peoples baseline tap water is more important than first thought. So rather than ask people if there water has x amount of this nutrient etc, lets just encourage the use if a nutrient enriched product and phosphus using fish food in this case would at least give heterotrophic bacteria something to do. If we encourage this then we dont have to worry about these stalling our cycle even if they dont, wheres the harm in having the angles covered. Would a choice of adding nutrients in a bottle or doing an x amount of water changed on x day in our new guide be a bad thing.

OK. I accept this. I would just prefer we have it as a recommendation rather than a requirement? I worry about the "newbie shopping list"

Lets concentrate on covering all possibilities in our guide that would see a cycle stall. What we originally believed stalled a cycle we now know is bs

As for ammonia dosing im still under the impression that 1 4ppm dose is enough to see you through a full cycle. I think what we need to study, is how much ammonia the average community tank creates a week. If we want to dose more ammonia as maintenence it should be a little higher than this.

Some of the sites do a 5ppm dose. Maybe we should do 5ppm JUST to SLIGHTLY challenge people's misconceptions about the "too high ammonia!" without making too big of an issue about it. What do you think of this idea?

If peoples tap water is differents which we know it is then we would require paricipants from parts where water differs greatly.

So you propose that ultimately we are looking at the differences in tap water?

There was a thread on here where a guy was told by his LFS that the R/O water which he sold was a better quality water for his fish. So the guy goes out and buys this water tries to do a fishless cycle and it stalls. No nutrients in R/O water right?

I saw that, the thread is such a mess.
His cycle hasn't really stalled though, it has only been a few days and he hasn't even added ammonia. That thread totally confuses me, I need to read it again. I don't really understand what the problem is or what OS is diagnosing. Perhaps I just did not give it my full attention.

 

[Caliban07]

Maybe we should contact some folks like this and ask them if they followed the stick or deviated?
Or we could just make a post in General asking something like - If you fishless cycled successfully on the first try, did you follow the forum's instructions to the letter, if not what did you do differently?
Although if we go that route I'd propose you make it.


Hmm could be.
Did we read somewhere that Nitrospiras likes it cooler?? I swear I did. Ugh another thing to go look up.

Do tap water nutrients correspond at all to gH and kH? Or are these totally unrelated?
I mean my tap water is so soft that it is practically RO. I have to add a bunch of crap to it like Seachem Equilibrium (in display, not in cycle) and I was told it's because the low gH and kH mean it is nearly devoid of nutrients.
And we know that RO or distilled water are nutrient devoid, so does "Equilibrium" have the basics?
Not that I'm suggesting we recommend Equilibrium - just wonder what "the basics" are exactly.
Edit: Whoops looks like there is a different product Replenish. I don't know what I am talking about with this part clearly.

OK. I accept this. I would just prefer we have it as a recommendation rather than a requirement? I worry about the "newbie shopping list"

Some of the sites do a 5ppm dose. Maybe we should do 5ppm JUST to SLIGHTLY challenge people's misconceptions about the "too high ammonia!" without making too big of an issue about it. What do you think of this idea?

So you propose that ultimately we are looking at the differences in tap water?

I saw that, the thread is such a mess.
His cycle hasn't really stalled though, it has only been a few days and he hasn't even added ammonia. That thread totally confuses me, I need to read it again. I don't really understand what the problem is or what OS is diagnosing. Perhaps I just did not give it my full attention.

Lol I actually remember reading that now. Once I saw no ammonia was used and a continual diagnoses of something else I just stayed clear.

But look, what if we ran the fishless cycle with two buckets of r/0 water. One with replenish and phosphate and one with just phosphate? This would highlight the importance if nutrients right.

5ppm of ammonia seems like a good idea to me. Nitrates will be much lower at the end too thus slightly improving the cycle.

I don't propose with focus too much attention on the sticky outside of this thread just yet. I'll get in touch with molli and see if they will come in this one for a bit. I'm sure he doses back up to 4ppm again and again though. Gulp!

 

[threnjen]

Lol I actually remember reading that now. Once I saw no ammonia was used and a continual diagnoses of something else I just stayed clear.

Yeah I finally tried to tackle it since you brought it up, I probably just muddled the issue further

But look, what if we ran the fishless cycle with two buckets of r/0 water. One with replenish and phosphate and one with just phosphate? This would highlight the importance if nutrients right.

I can do this one, I'm willing to buy the replenish
Although I am convinced enough about phosphate being a KEY ingredient that I would propose the Replenish being the variable and the phosphate being a critical element of the process.
This will leave me with one remaining bucket and I can run the same experiment as the rest of our assignees, with whatever variable we decide on, unless water IS the variable which is quite valid.

5ppm of ammonia seems like a good idea to me. Nitrates will be much lower at the end too thus slightly improving the cycle.

Great, I think this will be "just enough" higher than people normally accept to challenge and confuse preconceived notions.

I don't propose with focus too much attention on the sticky outside of this thread just yet. I'll get in touch with molli and see if they will come in this one for a bit. I'm sure he doses back up to 4ppm again and again though. Gulp!

Righto, agreed.

 

[threnjen]

Might not need to buy Replenish, Equilibrium might suffice.

Equlibrium - Equilibrium™ contains only calcium, magnesium, and potassium salts
Replenish - Replenish™ restores General Hardness (GH) using a balanced blend of both “soft” (sodium, potassium) and “hard” (calcium, magnesium) salts

So Equilibrium doesn't have sodium, but that will be in the baking soda right?

I do have to tell you though - if this is really the key element, my tank would never cycle. I have 1/3-1/2 grains of hardness per million, as per my city water quality report. I have basically nothing.

... unless I am still misunderstanding the things we want to add.
What is in plant ferts?
I think aqua chem mentioned, I need to go back and look

 

[threnjen]

Even if we opt to let people dose back up to 5ppm, it should at least be specified that we mean no more than once a day lol.

 

[Caliban07]

I think even less than once per day is think when nitrites are starting to come down. This would then advocate the necessity to test a lot. Do we want this?

Are we using baking soda? Would indeed.

So far the list of things the newbie would need to 'ensure' a successful fishless cycle every time are.

Bottle of pure ammonia
Bottle of equilibrium or similar
Baking soda
Fish food or direct phosphate (complicated)
API master test kit
Use of plants encouraged

We need to know amounts of these.

Conditions:
Temp 30 degrees
Light minimal as not to effect plants.
Increased surface agitation (water surface breakage)

Have I missed anything?

ALL participants should use methods exactly the same. And keep a log of their finding. Testing ammonia drop after I would say 10 days? So on