Is Cycling a tank useless

A little provoking, perhaps, but it is an honest hypothesis. I hope the hypothesis can offer some insights for everyone that enjoys the hobby and cares about their fish. It feels a bit like arguing the world is actually flat, not round. Or the other way.

The N Cycle​

Biology has a lot of cycles. Nitrogen (N) cycle is one of them. Cycling is a continuous process where ammonia is excreted by animals, as a byproduct of protein metabolism, and also released from decaying organic matter. The ammonia is assimilated by plants, algae, fungi and micro-organisms. These organisms are consumed by other (heterotrophic) organisms. This is how N enters fish again. This is the N cycle in a nutshell.

Cycling a tank​

The assumption by many hobbyists

When it comes to cycling a tank, all eyes are on the micro-organisms. The so-called beneficial bacteria.

An ammonia source enters the water column. "Beneficial bacteria A" convert the ammonia to nitrites. "Beneficial bacteria B" convert the nitrites to nitrates.
This happens mostly in the mediafilter.

Once you measure only nitrates, the cycle is done. By cleaning your filter and conducting water changes, you take out the nitrates.

The assumption by science and some hobbyists

The beneficial bacteria consume oxygen and don't require a lot of physical space. They reside in biofilms as the bottom layer. In biofilms, oxygen is pretty much depleted by these and other bacteria. Hence, these biofilms prefer oxygen rich areas. The benefits of an over-sized canister filter with the best filter media in the world, is silly and driven by suppliers and retailers. You need good flow of oxygen-rich water. Inside a filter or outside the filter (so inside the tank) -it doesn't matter.

(Or you need plants. They take care of ammonia AND they offer oxygen. In planted tanks, any filter plays the second violin.)

These beneficial bacteria appear to be many different species. Depending on water parameters (KH, temperature, oxygen), certain species dominate over other species. And species that appear initially in a tank, are very likely not the same species that we see a few months later. The bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrites might be taken over completely by bacteria that convert ammonia directly to nitrates. And, technically, some or perhaps all of these bacteria might not even be bacteria, but archaea.

Hence, it is fairly useless to direct the cycling process. Just sit and wait. Like you would when releasing and testing ammonia the whole time.

Ammonia toxicity​

When people test the water for ammonia, they assume that ammonia in the water is dangerous to fish. This is not true. Ammonia is dangerous inside fish. Ammonia is a byproduct of protein metabolism, that fish want to get rid off. Almost all freshwater fish excrete ammonia mostly through the gills. As long as fish are able to excrete ammonia, they are fine. When fish no longer are able to, it becomes dangerous. Ammonia builds up and causes damage.

One way it causes damage is ammonia, as NH4, interfering with potassium channels.

NH4....? Isn't this supposed to be the non-toxic part of ammonia?

Inside fish, ammonia is mostly present as NH4 because of the internal pH (7-8). NH4 becomes toxic when it starts to build up.

Due to the workings of the gills, ammonia passes the gill membranes as NH3 - the "toxic part". NH4 doesn't pass the membranes in freshwater fish.
Because the pH of the water is most often below 8, the NH3 converts to NH4 in the water.

NH4 is considered non-toxic because it doesn't pass the gill membranes. NH3 is considered toxic, because it passes the gill membranes.

When ammonia becomes dangerous

What happens if the pH of the water surpasses the pH of the fish's blood? This is the crux.

Fish are no longer able to excrete ammonia as NH3, and ammonia, as NH4, starts to build-up inside the fish.

So while you are occupied measuring the ammonia in water, fish don't really care about it. As long as they are able to excrete ammonia through the gills.

Fish in high pH environments

If you add most freshwater fish species in a pH 9+ environment, they will die. Some freshwater species hail from high pH environments and have evolved various mechanisms to deal with ammonia. One of the mechanisms is the conversion of ammonia into urea.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This thread was more intended as a discussion thread. I'm very much interested in reading about cases where ammonia poisoning is actually seen.

Statements like, "ammonia shows up on my test strip and now all fish are dead", are plain silly. NH4 inside the fish's blood was X and now the fish are dead, makes sense. But we cannot measure this easily of course. That doesn't make a water test strip a quick and dirty substitute.

I agree that if you measure ammonia after 3 months, your tank has serious issues and is not a healthy environment for fish. But this is part of the oxygen cycle (O) discussion. In which case, measuring ammonia is a quick and dirty substitute for oxygen.

OK, enough for now.

 

From what Ive read, NH+ is excreted through exchange with other positive ions in water. NH3 is excreted via gills which has a thin layer of acidic co2 coating -> as NH3 exits it encounters the acidic layer and turns into NH+ and cannot go back in the membrane. So fish excrete NH3 by simply breathing more.

Problem is in higher pH the co2 layer is thinner, less NH3 turns into NH+ so fish has to breathe more. There will be a point where fish is exhausted or cannot keep up the excretion with ammonia production and dies.

Here in Toronto's hard alkaline waters, fish will die very quickly in brand new tanks. The difference between cycled and cycling is very noticeable. Conversely, Ive also setup tanks in Beijing, China where the tap water was soft and sometimes close to rainwater. In those soft acidic waters I put fish in day 1 and my first tank was a success. No need to cycle at all. All I did was weekly water changes.

I think geography plays a big role and our experiences may differ depending on the kinds of water available to us

 

Honestly many years ago when I used to keep fish no one had heard of cycling tanks, though we did know not to add fish immediately and to add them gradually afterwards. When I started fish keeping again after a long break I inititially tried to cycle my first tank, then was advised on another forum just to let plants become established and grow before adding fish, and that is what I did. I have since set up several tanks, sometimes very quickly, and as an insurance I do add some filter media or a pre-filter sponge from another tank, but as a better insurance I always add water lettuce. I don't test for ammonia very often but when I have I have never had any ammonia readings.

It always surprises me when people say you should not add plants when cycling a tank as they "steal" ammonia from the beneficial bacteria and stop this from becoming established. In my opinion that is rubbish as surely it does not matter if ammonia is removed by plants or bacteria or archaea or (most likely) a combination of these? I have always added plants from the beginning.

 

I too have been keeping fish since a kid. First tank was set up by my uncle with floss from his tank. Next tank a 20g the pet store owner sent me home with a bag of used floss and told me to set out my box filter with that floss get the tank to temp and come back in 2 days for the fish. Nobody used test kits way to expensive if they even existed. Fish were nickels and dimes.

I knew nothing about water just the ph. I’ve always had a tank running. Even when I wasn’t that interested I always had a tank. I’ve never cycled a tank. For me clean water has always been the answer. In the early years lots of filtration and not so much water changes. Kept the same fish for years and rarely changed the water. Couldn’t get new fish to live and learned not to change at lot of water at once. Didn’t understand that removing the high nitrate and replacing with clean water was hurting the fish. But always had a bucket of old tank water there in case I saw stress and stopped adding new water. Just didn’t get new fish for a long time. Can only imagine how high the nitrate was.

Never was involved in the science end of the hobby. Really was nonexistent when I started. In the 80s I got into discus. Went to meetings and shows and learned lots of different things. Better filtration and the value of water changes. Been changing water regularly since then. Stopped discus for 15+yrs. But keep a pair of 30g tanks running. Didn’t pay much attention to them but always changed water. Fish lived long lives and I had active media. So never cycled a tank. The internet really opened my eyes to what was going on in the hobby. 2017. So I did what I did and kept my discus and my planted tank all that time with out a problem.
These thread are really enlightening to me and I do enjoy reading them but must admit don’t understand a lot. Just the fact there’s many ways to be involved in this hobby.

Ok so my question is if regular water changes are done ammonia problems will be avoided? Like a fish in cycle. If you change water daily your fish will be fine. The problem arises when the water isn’t changed. Ammonia builds up and the fish die.

 

The problem arises when the water isn’t changed. Ammonia builds up and the fish die.

I am not sure about this, if there are plenty of plants and bacteria it shouldn't build up, but nitrates might get high, depending on the amount of plants. I nearly always change water every week, but very occasionally I have left it for 2 weeks with no ill effects and nitrates still very low.

I agree, in the "olden days" no water tests, I had no idea about levels of nitrate etc. I did not change water anywhere near as frequently, and when I did it almost always triggered spawning of my cichlids.

 

Thing with me was I never had live plants till I got discus. So somewhere in the 80s I started with plants. Funny thing is back than discus keeper wanted planted tanks. Now it’s frowned upon.

 

Thing with me was I never had live plants till I got discus. So somewhere in the 80s I started with plants. Funny thing is back than discus keeper wanted planted tanks. Now it’s frowned upon.

Why is it frowned upon? If I decided to keep discus it would definitely be in planted tank.

 

Thing is it’s the fish. The fact that waste and bacteria build up in substrate doesn’t work well for discus. These fish come from almost sterile environments. The vats they are raised in. So any types of build up can have negative effects. Also for some just the site of plants may mess them up. Yes just the site could stop them from eating or cause skitishness where they dart around the tank like crazy.

 

Thing is it’s the fish. The fact that waste and bacteria build up in substrate doesn’t work well for discus. These fish come from almost sterile environments. The vats they are raised in. So any types of build up can have negative effects. Also for some just the site of plants may mess them up. Yes just the site could stop them from eating or cause skitishness where they dart around the tank like crazy.

Weird...I think I would get wild ones...

 

Discus need to live in clean water if they are to develop to their full potential. This is what Discus fanatics want. We want big fish with the correct round Discus shape. Plants require gravel or sand. The substrate collects uneaten food and Discus poop. The fish just don't do as well in that environment. I didn't believe it when I was a new Discus owner in 2001.

I have found what the Discus fanatics say is true. Bare bottom is best. So easy to vacuum the bottom of any crud from a BB tank. Next best is pieces of driftwood with plants growing on them. If you absolutely must have a substrate it should be ne deeper than 1".

I'm a domestic breeder and sell my fish to people who are seriously interested in high quality Discus and know what it takes to raise them correctly. Since that is what I do, I want to make sure that the fry I sell come from the best parents and are raised to selling age in the best conditions. Not everyone who keeps Discus wants what I want so what we consider the right way to keep Discus is different.

 

Statements like, "ammonia shows up on my test strip and now all fish are dead", are plain silly.

This isn't a silly statement.

It's quite possible to have ammonia show up on a test and have dead fish.

Jumping to the conclusion that it was ammonia poisoning might be a bit misguided, but it is absolutely not a silly statement.

 

Vary thought provoking.

 

Weird...I think I would get wild ones...

Yeah thing is I’m not sold on wild ones. Plus I really don’t believe many of these incoming wild are actually wilds. I’ve seen videos of guys with huge nets pulling so called wilds out of vats. At the moment there are so many so called wilds,F1 and F2 type discus out there it’s shocking. There’s a big market for wilds now and they are demanding high prices. Since 21 I’ve mistakenly bought 2 of these. One a great looking discus
pretty much wiped out 70% of my existing stock. At the size of a quarter it came with something on it that did me in. Even in its own qt tank. The second this green the guy told me was wild as an after thought when it was bagged and I was leaving.
this guy whirled it self to death in qt. So no wilds for me!!

 

I love to see other people's good wilds but I'm not into keeping them myself. Sorry about the rotten luck you had with yours.

 

Interesting, read. I'd be interested in the source or what motivated your hypothesis.

 

Forgive me, but, to me, the title of this post doesn't seem to match the content that is written afterword. I mean, the title states that cycling is useless, and then we read about how cycling is useful.

Ammonia/nitrite can be dangerous to fish, and cycling a tank is one way to make sure a tank is safe for fish. That sounds pretty useful to me.

 

Liz I’m not a fan of wilds. I bought the green because it had a perfect (to me) blue halo. Bought it locally at the place Monster aquariums. I’ve had good luck with what I’ve bought there and like to support the place. Just a shame it didn’t work out. It did look good.

Forgive me, but, to me, the title of this post doesn't seem to match the content that is written afterword. I mean, the title states that cycling is useless, and then we read about how cycling is useful.

Ammonia/nitrite can be dangerous to fish, and cycling a tank is one way to make sure a tank is safe for fish. That sounds pretty useful to me.

I do believe the title was clickbait.

 

Statements like, "ammonia shows up on my test strip and now all fish are dead", are plain silly.

Also, I feel like this statement is "poisoning the well." That is, we can learn from people's anecdotal experiences, even if they aren't scientific. No need to preemptively put people down for sharing.

 

I've only been in the hobby 5 years so this is just based on this thought provoking post plus what I've been reading this past year. Isn't the key PH? It seems to me that ammonia only becomes an issue when it's in a PH above 8. We talk about establishing a healthy colony of BB before putting our fish in but if we have a PH of 7 or lower, we have plants that are doing their thing, are we really stressing our fish out during a cycle? And what about the nitrites? Just to throw a wrench into this whole thing, aren't nitrites MORE toxic in lower PH? But you have to go through a high nitrite period while the BB are getting established.

Now I'm talking in circles. I think the moral of this story is your tank is going to cycle if you're putting fish in a tank. No? You're going to have ammonia and you're going to have nitrites. Is it harmful to fish or is it not during this process? And are we paying more attention to ammonia when the more impactful players are nitrites and PH when it comes to the welfare of the fish?

 

I've only been in the hobby 5 years so this is just based on this thought provoking post plus what I've been reading this past year. Isn't the key PH? It seems to me that ammonia only becomes an issue when it's in a PH above 8. We talk about establishing a healthy colony of BB before putting our fish in but if we have a PH of 7 or lower, we have plants that are doing their thing, are we really stressing our fish out during a cycle? And what about the nitrites? Just to throw a wrench into this whole thing, aren't nitrites MORE toxic in lower PH? But you have to go through a high nitrite period while the BB are getting established.

Now I'm talking in circles. I think the moral of this story is your tank is going to cycle if you're putting fish in a tank. No? You're going to have ammonia and you're going to have nitrites. Is it harmful to fish or is it not during this process? And are we paying more attention to ammonia when the more impactful players are nitrites and PH when it comes to the welfare of the fish?

Yes nitrite is more toxic at low pH and the lower the pH the more it favors complete ammonia oxidation where ammonia is oxidized to nitrate within a single organism, skipping any nitrite readings in the water

I think hobbyists report this type of cycling in acidic water takes longer than cycling in alkaline water

 

Like other old timers here I too never pre-cycled my tanks in the old days. What we did was "fish in" cycling, but cycling nonetheless. And while I too like to say it always worked fine I'm sure my memory of any failures 50 years ago have faded in favor of the many good results. It also seems likely to me that the fish available to keepers back then were usually more robust than what's available today.

The positive results achieved when acknowledging and using the now widely accepted cycling procedures, both pre-fish (fishless) and with fish in tank (fish in) speak for themselves. To say cycling a tank is useless is a disservice to hobbyists and their livestocks.

 

Great and thought-provoking post, ruud, although I have to say that I agree with the above comments on the title being a bit misleading (but I also wouldn't call it 'clickbait'). It seems like the intent of the message is something along the lines of 'Cycling has been oversimplified and may not always even be necessary'. Then again, not exactly an elegant suggestion for a new title!

 

Hey,

on the topic of nitrites being more toxic in low pH:

That's only half the truth. What happens there is that the lower the pH, the more nitrites are converted to nitrous acid (HNO2).
Nitrous acid can enter the chlorid cells of gills A LOT easier than nitrites and causes very similar problems (the oxygen capacity of haemoglobin is reduced), making it even more dangerous than nitrites.

Now here's a little known thing ... wanna know what helps against nitrite poisoning? Salt. Good old, pure salt. Pure sodium chloride. Of course you need to check which salt levels your fish can take first.
Why does that work you ask?
As mentioned, nitrites and nitrous acid is absorbed through the chloride cells of gills. Their main function is, you guessed it, absorbing chlorides which the fish needs. If the chloride concentration of water is a lot higher than the nitrite concentration, more chloride than nitrite enters the blood stream, keeping the problematic substances out of the fish.

That's also one of the reasons why some people are confused that they have pretty high nitrite levels but the fish are fine. Most likely their tap water has a pretty high concentration of chlorides.

For the title: I think ruud knew exactly what he was doing, starting a healthy discussion about cycling.
Because I agree, there is more to it than what is usually delivered. The standard way works. But is it fun to go a bit more advanced and understand what exactly is happening and why it happens? The nerd in me screams yes!

 

Interesting discussion.

Like others here, I never deliberately cycled a tank until reliable internet gave me access to info that was in none of my aquaria hobbyist books. I threw in pond plants, acclimated fish & changed out water regularly. I've deliberately "cycled" one tank since the 1970's & that was mostly just because I wanted to "see" test results in action.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something here, even likely that I am, but in talking about how ammonia is processed by fish & the assumption that they can do so without particular harm, I'm flashing on fish surrendered to me. Mostly from relatively high pH tanks - around 8 - with ammonia readings 20+ & ammonia burned gills, body &/or fins. If the fish die, I certainly think they died from ammonia poisoning. The piscene vet will tell me they died of ammonia poisoning. How ammonia is gill processed doesn't seem to have much to do with external & presumably internal, ammonia burns.

 

Yes nitrite is more toxic at low pH and the lower the pH the more it favors complete ammonia oxidation where ammonia is oxidized to nitrate within a single organism, skipping any nitrite readings in the water

I have acidic water and it does seem like it takes it's time when cycling a tank. However, I do get high nitrites.

Now here's a little known thing ... wanna know what helps against nitrite poisoning? Salt. Good old, pure salt. Pure sodium chloride. Of course you need to check which salt levels your fish can take first.
Why does that work you ask?
As mentioned, nitrites and nitrous acid is absorbed through the chloride cells of gills. Their main function is, you guessed it, absorbing chlorides which the fish needs. If the chloride concentration of water is a lot higher than the nitrite concentration, more chloride than nitrite enters the blood stream, keeping the problematic substances out of the fish.

This is very interesting. I read something about this just recently and wanted to learn more. Something else I wish was more available is the effect PH has on ammonia and nitrites. Unless you know where to look, it doesn't really come up.

 

the effect PH has on ammonia

Simple! The formula is NH3 = 0,94412 * NH4 / (1 + 10 ^ ((0,0925 + (2728,795 / (t + 273,15 ))) - pH)) where t is the temperature of the water in Celsius and NH4 is NH4 level in ppm.

Okay maybe not so simple.

On this site you'll find a handy sheet with the percentages.

Hach Support Online

For example you measure 3ppm NH4 in your tank and your water temperature is 24°C, pH is 8. You calculate 3 * 5% or 3* 0,05 and the result is 0.15 ppm NH3. Everything above 0.02 I deem critical, above 0.10 very critical and 0.15 extremely critical.

 

Interesting…….
Back in my younger days (60s and 70s), both cycling and WCs were not part of the usual aquarist’s approach. I love a good discussion like this and I’m into the science of this being a retired biology teacher. My only real concern here is the new hobbyist who happens to run across this thread title. Many many people here have spent countless hours advising newbies to both cycle and do WCs for good reason. Newcomers having a new tank of fish all up and die is real and old tank syndrome does happen. While I enjoyed reading ruud’s post, most newer hobbyists don’t know the difference between NH4 and NH3 etc. let alone the PH and KH factors of ammonium to free ammonia ratios and the general message they’ll get from the title could be detrimental.

My approach to cycling has become neither the ‘fishless’ or the ‘fish in’ method, but sort of a combination of both. Using the ‘seeded’ method of putting in filter media from an established tank with slow introduction of fish has worked great for me for years. No matter how ammonia is present to harm fish internally or externally as explained by ruud, it is harmful none the less. While there are, as ruud pointed out, different factors in all this, the identified nitrifying bacteria of the N Cycle do indeed consume ammonia which can only help the fish.

I guess it comes down to this generally speaking……to give one’s fish the best chance at flourishing, be aware of and minimize the effects of ammonia (cycling) and do WCs. We refer to it as nitrate for illustrating the need for WCs for example, but the reference made by some as ‘fish swimming in their own waste‘ is true and understandable by the general hobbyist. To best be successful in dealing with the Nitrogen Cycle, one must address all the stages as smoothly as possible while keeping mind that other cycles and water chemistry play an integral part as well.

 

I thought I let some comments come in first before replying.

"Plain silly". Apologies for this. I meant drawing a conclusion out of a correlation. The statement itself is not silly of course. Sorry about that.

Regarding the title and the afterwords.... reading it over, I think this statement caused it:

"I agree that if you measure ammonia after 3 months, your tank has serious issues and is not a healthy environment for fish."

Yes, confusing, but here ammonia identification is simply used as an indicator. If you measure ammonia after three months, I think there are other issues at play that can bother your fish. Not the ammonia. Or perhaps also the ammonia. That's the discussion...

But it's out of scope of this discussion, so I should not have mentioned it. Too late to edit now.

 

Simple! The formula is NH3 = 0,94412 * NH4 / (1 + 10 ^ ((0,0925 + (2728,795 / (t + 273,15 ))) - pH)) where t is the temperature of the water in Celsius and NH4 is NH4 level in ppm.

Okay maybe not so simple.

On this site you'll find a handy sheet with the percentages.

Hach Support Online

For example you measure 3ppm NH4 in your tank and your water temperature is 24°C, pH is 8. You calculate 3 * 5% or 3* 0,05 and the result is 0.15 ppm NH3. Everything above 0.02 I deem critical, above 0.10 very critical and 0.15 extremely critical.

Easy peasy hahahaha

 

Interesting topic as i happened to bump into this video a few weeks ago. It's also accompanied by a supposedly biologist midway in the video. It's all tit for tat IMO. Whatever works for the hobbyist works for the hobbyist.

 

Interesting topic as i happened to bump into this video a few weeks ago. It's also accompanied by a supposedly biologist midway in the video. It's all tit for tat IMO. Whatever works for the hobbyist works for the hobbyist.

Ok so the thing I dont get about this guy is he says several times that cycling is a myth. So WHY do you need to put biofilm and seeded media in there then? If it is a myth wouldnt you just be able to put water and a filter on and start it up? Throw some fish in?

He is essentially starting a tank using seeded media.

 

Ok so the thing I dont get about this guy is he says several times that cycling is a myth. So WHY do you need to put biofilm and seeded media in there then? If it is a myth wouldnt you just be able to put water and a filter on and start it up? Throw some fish in?

He is essentially starting a tank using seeded media.

Lol i know right?! But who knows. At the end of the day no one wants to wait for years for an aquarium to be ready.

 

The other fun thing is that most real soft water tanks report never seeing nitrite ever in cycling a tank … it may be super toxic at low levels but yet many report it never appearing due to the type of bacteria grown.. completely different types.

We all know that cycling happens , it’s just different methods for different tanks and water. Just because someone doesn’t understand how gravity works they don’t suddenly float away…

some days the internet is a fun place

 

Interesting, read. I'd be interested in the source or what motivated your hypothesis.

When I read scientific papers and read this forum, they seem to be world aparts. I'm not referring to language and procedures used, but about how things that affect our hobby are viewed.

I think it's fun and interesting to get some of this science into this forum.

I don't know and understand all the science myself. Far from it. Neither do active scientists by the way. It is just too broad and too complex. Hence, all the disciplines. Hence, there is not one source.

I already learned something about chlorid cells in gills from this thread. Makes me want to further dive in.

 

Interesting topic as i happened to bump into this video a few weeks ago. It's also accompanied by a supposedly biologist midway in the video. It's all tit for tat IMO. Whatever works for the hobbyist works for the hobbyist.

I enjoy Father Fish but this one just ..... We standardize parameters for the nitrogen cycle for tank keepers, most of whom would not dream of raking plants, rocks & wood out of their nearby polluted waterway & dropping them into their tank along with their betta & plecos - nor should they. They don't use minimum 4" substrate composed of FF's carefully orchestrated soil & supplements, nor do they necessarily keep fish in unheated, warm locale tanks as he does. They don't plant 90% mature plants & a single dying stem plant isn't gonna cut it for decomposition. His employees, live & computer generated, know no more about the detailed entirety of marine or aquaria ecosystems than he does & he says so, yet insists that there's no cyclic component to reducing/eliminating excess ammonia .... except his AI says, in blackwater tanks. There, ammonia affecting bacteria presumably exist, but not in a typical gravel, plastic or 3 live plants & stability dosed tank ... except the AI says, that it does exist via the preservation of bacteria in filter media ... bacteria that FF opens with by saying bacteria don't actually play a role in ammonia reduction/elimination .... but we can add 'em. FF's voice & manner can be kinda hypnotic, hypnotic enough that listeners miss contradictions, misinformation & large chunks of missing info. This one tho ... no disrespect intended, but we're laughing here.

Bottom line, we currently use the term nitrogen cycle to describe a process that we can identify with hard & fast testing numbers to help new & evolving fishkeepers improve animal survival. There's lots to it - ecosystems are multi-multi-multi faceted - but the nitrogen cycle exists because that's the name we use for this process & those who are interested in parsing it out further will no doubt gain new insights. For now tho, I advise evolving fishkeepers that ammonia burns & kills fish. A keeper can ensure their tank is nitrogen cycled to reduce their animal's exposure to ammonia & extend their life spans or not.

Peace guys!

 

I just zapped a bit through the video ... bacteria doesn't break down ammonia, archaea does?

I gotta tell that to the Nitrosomas in my filter and substrate, they're going to be devastated!

 

I appreciate the folks who can make sense of the science, apply practical application and results and then translate it all in simple to understand terms for scientifically challenged people like me. I think Father fish contradicts himself in the video many times over. He says the nitrogen cycle is a myth because you simply need the right biological environment. It's like saying you don't need oxygen to breathe you just need the right air.

 

Yes nitrite is more toxic at low pH and the lower the pH the more it favors complete ammonia oxidation where ammonia is oxidized to nitrate within a single organism, skipping any nitrite readings in the water

I think hobbyists report this type of cycling in acidic water takes longer than cycling in alkaline water

Thnx for sharing cherryshrimp. I think this can be questioned with recent advances.

Here are two interesting reads:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004484862201273X
https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/AEM.01390-18

COMAMMOX Nitrospira bacteria (ammonia -> nitrate) seems to be more dominant in our tanks than previously thought.

Most studies hail from aquaponics / -culture, but the "low ammonia condition" described in the first paper I mentioned, seems applicable to our tanks.

Because nitrites are initially always measured by hobbyists, it seems to me it takes a while before COMAMMOX Nitrospira colonizes our tanks.

If this is true, I find it interesting.

I think Father fish contradicts himself in the video many times over. He says the nitrogen cycle is a myth because you simply need the right biological environment. It's like saying you don't need oxygen to breathe you just need the right air.

It's all about clickbait these days...

 

OMG! Did you really read that . First one wasn’t available second is very long but nice graphs .Probably lots of great info. But…… ok sorry. I just going to continue changing my water . I failed science . Had no idea of the nitrogen cycle till I joined here.

But I do like reading your posts and understand the importance of science. I do appreciate what you and sparky and Mac and TClare add to this sire. Most I can figure out. But what does bothers me is the scientific names you guys use when mentioning fish. Astronotus ocellated is a cichlid that may be good for that size tank. It’s an Oscar . Can’t we just use common names .

 

OMG! Did you really read that . First one wasn’t available second is very long but nice graphs .Probably lots of great info. But…… ok sorry. I just going to continue changing my water . I failed science . Had no idea of the nitrogen cycle till I joined here.

But I do like reading your posts and understand the importance of science. I do appreciate what you and sparky and Mac and TClare add to this sire. Most I can figure out. But what does bothers me is the scientific names you guys use when mentioning fish. Astronotus ocellated is a cichlid that may be good for that size tank. It’s an Oscar . Can’t we just use common names .

Sure we can, I'm not a scientist . I did study biology many, many years ago, but the degrees didn't deliver the money, so I bought myself a fish tank