How much ammonia does your tank make a day?

BJP

I need some help. Nothing painful or difficult really. While I'm working on minnimalizing the front end ammonia dosages for fishless cycling trying to find ways to speed up the process I figure it should be simple to come up with an estimate for the final back end amount of ammonia needed.

The math is fairly simple. 1ppm ammonia ends up as somewhere between 10 and 20ppm of nitrate in the unplanted aquarium. Obviously a little less if a few plants or a strong algae growth are present.

The formula.

Test your nitrate shortly after a water change.

Test it again immediately before your next water change.

Subtract the first number from the second number.

That gives you a number for nitrate production.

Divide that by 10 so we stay on the high end of estimating.

Divide that number by the number of days between the two tests.

That should tell us approximately how much nitrate your tank is producing per day tilted slightly to the overestimating range.

Once we know that then we can determine how much ammonia a cycling tank needs to be able to process in a 24 hour period to be considered reasonibly cycled.

Tank size doesn't really matter. The more people that respond, the more accurate the estimate will be.

Then all I'll have to do is work my test tanks up to whatever the average turns out to be or slightly higher for the method to be of practical use to most people. My own fully stocked permanent tanks are set up for continual flow so I'll have to draw my own numbers from lightly stocked quarantine tanks without your help.

Thank you in advance.

Andyoybna

well, i'll get back to you in a few days, I just did a water change in my EXTREMELY overstocked 33 long (2 JDs, 1Green Severum, 2YoYos, 4Corys, 1Pictus, 1 Redtail Botia, 2 dojo loaches) Hopefully it is temporary, only until I can find a 75, or a 55 and keep the 33, but anyway off to test nitrates! and then I'll do it again in say 3 days when the next waterchange is due!

Ok, just did the test, not sure how much difference it makes but I tested it w/ my SW nitrate kit, I usually just let my FW tanks go blind once they're established...( I know... I know...)

Anyways, tested ~30ppm nitrate 5/5/07 @ 2:20pm

should I just check it again tomorrow, or should I wait a few more days, and average it?

BJP

The hobby level test kits aren't very accurate with small increases so the longer the delay between water changes the more accurate they should get.

I'm sure somewhere down the road some newbie will appreciate the effort when we can tell them how much ammonia their tank should be fishless cycled too to be able to handle their desired initial load. They could always over size the bacteria bed but that could lead to extra delays lasting days or maybe even weeks in some cases that they shouldn't have to wait for and might make the difference between wether they fishless cycle at all or toss in fish and pray.

modster

interesting concept. too bad i only have test strips and they are usually inaccurate.

BJP

At this point I'd say any numbers, even those from a test strip would be better than nothing at all.

NeonJulie

It's generally thought, when doing a fishless cycle, that almost no tank would come near to manufacturing 5.0 ppm. That's usually the number fishless cycling starts off with, and then you feed it a little less over the next few days, but when it will handle an amount like that within 24 hours, and you still have no NitrItes or Ammonia... you have a VERY well cycled tank, that can handle just about any stock's poop you throw at it.

I'm sorry I don't agree with this. There simply is no way to rush bacteria growth, even under ideal situations such as food, space and temperature, it will only reproduce so fast. The only ways to accelerate the cycle process is to get pre-established media, or take chances with Bio-Spira.

Maybe most people's stock won't exceed 2 or 3ppm per day... even then... if a person fishlessly cycled for 2-3 ppm... IT TAKES TIME to get enough colonies to convert that, and then the subsequent amount of bacteria to convert NitrItes to NitrAtes... actually, the second stage is oftentimes the longer portion of the issue. For me, I had NitrItes in TWO days of my fishless cycle. But I had NO NitrAtes for 2 weeks, and it took 2 more weeks before there was enough to get rid of my NitrItes period. Stage one (ammonia) was 4 days and I was converting more than 5ppm overnight. Stage 2, converting 20-30ppm NitrItes to NitrAtes (and that's exceptionally high) took 3 WEEKS!

If you think about bacteria splitting, two into two each, and those in to two each, etc, obviously it gets near exponential quickly. Therefore, the leap from accommodating 2-3ppm to 5-6ppm won't take that much time. That's why you can add a couple fish at once, and usually get away with it, because provided there's enough space and oxygen for the bacteria to colonize, it will grow to accommodate it fairly quickly.

But to go from NOTHING to something that will accommodate 2ppm, that's where the time is. One, to two, to eight, to sixteen, to 32, to 64, to 128, to 256, etc. That takes along time to get a high number. When you finally get that high number, and that high number doubles, you're in a good place.

There's no getting over that initial hump, without getting over that initial hump!

BJP

While I would generally agree with most of that, there are reports of high levels of ammonia causing stunting or damage to the nitrospira. Figuring out a way to get enough ammonia in to encourage the bacteria to start reproducing without exceeding that threshold that slows or stops the second set of bacteria should allow both to develop simultaniously.

The fastest cycle time of the current tests was with Bio-Spira and fish. 9 days. It should be possible to introduce the ammonia as slowly as the fish did allowing a duplication of the result and with heated water compared to the unheated 9 day example, I'm expecting to eventually be able to pull it off in a week or less. Obviously only time and more testing will tell for sure.

So far every bacterial source tested has provided bacteria directly or at least the spark needed to generate it. The only tanks to accomplish nothing had nothing but ammonia added although one finally did get a nitrite reading after 90+ days, 28 days after fish food was used to provide the ammonia. The potential benefit of including some fish food to the fishless cycling method is a subject for future testing once the current series is nailed down. Increased tank temperatures have also increased the speed the bacteria develops.

I agree but at the same time many come waay less than that, especially when someone is going to introduce only a few fish at a time via quarantine to safely stock a community mix. If someone's trying for a full load at once then obviously they should be trying to build an apartment complex but many people only need the equivelent of a trailers worth to house their initial stock. There's no need to have everyone waiting for an apartement building sized bacteria bed when it isn't needed. A simple pole of what everyone is producing should give a number a little more realistic and backed up by raw data as oppossed to what we've been guessing at for years. Take the guess out and save a few people some time.

That may have been a side effect of having the ammonia so high, so early. When Nomad aka Chris Cow started his first fishless experiments he was adding ammonia at a slower pace. The second article came after myself and others had been pushing him for a simpler method. As you've seen, the higher levels have lead to a method that gives widely varying results having some tanks drag on for a month or more like yours. The idea behind continuing to feed bacteria ammonia after it was already capable of processing that amount was based on not having the bacteria starve to death while we're waiting for the nitropsira to develop and remove the nitrite. So far testing through delays of four weeks between ammonia sources I haven't been able to starve the bacteria to death. If it's possible, it's going to take longer so that test continues with the five week test starting June 4th.

Feel free to visit some of the test threads and duplicate some of the experiments. I encourage it and any feedback or alternatives you can come up with.

Andyoybna

Well.... I tested my water yesterday, and apparently my nitrates went down???????? from 30ppm to 10ppm, I guess I'm gonna have to try again, I'll be doing another waterchange shortly, and I'll test it again, and then again in about a week and see what happens.

BTW, no live plants, no algae...