What happened to my bacteria?

[Doog]

Recenlty I made the switch to live plants in my beta's home, I did a whole house cleaning session and changed the filter. I expected a mini cycle and it happened.

As of 4 days ago my reading were

am=.75ppm
nitri=.5ppm
and nitrate=5ppm

but today was

am=1ppm ( did a water PWC)
nitri=0
nirtra=faint orange so like 3ppm

What happening? The only thing I can think of is I retorfitted my nano HOB with small dam on the spillout to reduce current for my beta...did my O2 dropout and did my bacteria choke?

 

[theotheragentm]

You completely changed the filter? The filter holds a lot of the bacteria. If you are rinsing to clean anything, use tank water, not tap water. Chlorine will kill off the bacteria as well.

 

[SparKy697]

It does seem kind of strange that your nitrates are going down but ammonia is going up. I thought I understood that given the choice, plants would consume ammonia before nitrate for a nitrogen source. I think you know what you have to do, just keep an eye on it and change water as needed. It shouldn't take too long to get back on track though.

 

[Doog]

yes I changed the filter, my other one wasnt suitble for co2 diffusion and took up too much tank space.

what about the almost lack of surface agitation? it a slight ripple, is this enough o2 for the bacteria?

 

[neilanh]

I don't know what causes it either, but I'm seeing some variance in my NO3 as I'm going through my cycle too. Up and Down all over the place. I don't have any live plants, so I really can't explain it in mine.

Higher aeration, I read, is better for bacteria, so you may have found a great point in your case doog.

 

[7Enigma]

A couple comments:

NitrAte, especially the AP test is very VERY variable due to the steps required to test. The shaking of bottle #2 for 30 seconds prior to adding and 1 minute after adding is critical. The temperature of the room the test is conducted in is also very important as bottle #2 contains a saturated solution. That means more of the chemical is in the bottle than can be dissolved in solution. In colder conditions less can be dissolved, and/or it takes longer to dissolve. So I wouldn't put any stock in measurements below 10ppm. The lighting in the room also needs to be consistent as in darker rooms the vial will appear darker. Several members in the planted section have showed nitrAte deficiency when reading very low but detectable levels so its not very accurate down low. The sweet spot for both detecting and evaluating the results seems to be between 10-40ppm with ~20ppm a very easy point to judge the color.

For future reference when switching filters you need to do one of the following (in order of effectiveness):

1. Run both for several weeks to seed the new filter

2. Transfer filter media from the old to the new when removing the old filter

3. Sqeeze the old filter into the tank prior to removing it to cloud the water and allow some of the bacteria to reattach to the new filter

Nitrifying bacteria can survive and replicate at very low oxygen levels. For maximum growth rate a good oxygen concentration is needed, but it would take extremely low O2 levels for problems to arise. I would assume your betta and snail would let you know first as they would both be at the surface.

Finally plants (and algae) highly prefer ammonia over other nitrogen sources due to ease of use. For every oxygen molecule put on the nitrogen it requires energy to remove that prior to being usable by the plant. Plants in fact will convert any nitrogen source be it nitrIte, nitrAte, or a non-common (such as Excel) to ammonia before use. It's like saying I could give you a raw pound of beef or a hamburger. One you can eat right away (ammonia), the other you need to cook first (nitrIte, nitrAte, Excel).

 

[Musket]

7Enigma - very good analogy.

 

[7Enigma]

I don't know how good that really was, but I was hungry, and it seemed to fit.

EDIT: Actually thinking about it a little more that WAS a bad analogy. A better one would be I have 2 hamburgers, 1 sitting in front of you on a table, and the other on top of a 20 foot ladder. One you can eat right away, the other requires you to work for your food. Yeah.....that sounds better....