| Re: Can not get my tank clear
I don't have the ability to make a percentage myself but I've read others report that as much as 70% of the ammonia entering the water comes directly from respiration, not defication or uneaten food. I don't think the exact percentage matters that much and should even vary depending on the feeding habits of the keeper and the metabolism of the fish.
The basic math is simple though. If you have 1ppm ammonia and give the tank a 50% water change you're still leaving half the ammonia there in the water itself. The same thing for nitrite and nitrate. Any ammonia level or nitrite level means there's food present to supply the bacteria and encourage reproduction. The difference between vacuuming and not vacuuming is if waste is left to sit unvacuumed, then some of the bacteria develop directly on the solid waste itself. When you finally do vacuum that portion gets removed. The surface of the gravel is kinda like that of a golfball when viewed under magnification. If you spray paint a golfball then toss it in a dryer the beating will take off the paint on the outter surfaces but all the dimple areas are left untouched by collisions and impacts. Gravel vacuuming creates a similar result where the gravel is rolled, tumbled and collided with each other before being redepositted.
As for the tests, all of them are duplicatable if you care to take the time and expense to do so and I encourage it. You can find most of the tests by simply following my signiture below. If you review them and don't want to take the time to duplicate them or to try alternative variations let me know. I'm always looking for new ideas to try out and I'll have time once the six current test tanks finish up. I'm already getting repittion of past results from Bio-Spira for the forth consecutive time using four different sets of variables. I expect Cycle to have it's forth consecutive repittion of results begin to show up in the next day or two under four different sets of variables. I've already mentioned Stresszyme is on it's second go around although it might be another 3 weeks before anything shows up on the test results. I've always hoped it would work faster since it's the cheapest option out there which should make it accesible to a larger group of people financially. It just doesn't appear to be the case. | 
