Fish & Tank Care : Ammonia in Fish Tank Cycling
4 September 2010
25 Comments
Watch as a seasoned professional demonstrates how to use ammonia in fish tank cycling in thisfree online video about exotic pets. Expert: Christie Ownes Bio: She has been taking care of fish professional for over 15 years. She is an expert in Fresh Water, and Salt Water Fish. Filmmaker: ricky burchell
You need to do water changes in order to keep the levels down because there aren’t enough bacteria to process the wastes.
Once there ARE enough bacteria to process the wastes, they will eat them immediately and there is no harm in doing water changes because you aren’t removing anything the bacteria want, they have eaten all they can, all the time.
You will never “slow down” a cycle by doing water changes because the bacteria eat all they can.
They don’t work more efficiently in high levels of ammonia or nitrites. They just can’t eat it all yet. And once they can eat it, they will eat it immediately. You can’t slow a cycle by changing the water in a fish-in cycle because fish produce ammonia constantly.
Do you understand?
why dont you look up the definiton of the word, nutrient, because in your response you just proved that ammonia is a nutrient
and, in a tank i know of, a guy had 65 ppm ammonia, and his fish were still living, allbe it disease ridden, but a live.
i beleieve that i am performing cycles differently than you.
i am under the assuption that a cycle can be employed to meat the needs of a system, by increaseing the ammount of bacteria, by increasing the nutrient levels in the begining.
1. exactly!!!
2. never mind the word slow down, it was porely used.
if you are using a cycle to create a biofilter, is it not in your best interest to make that biofilter as strong as possible?
well, if your biofilter has a higher level of nutrients to startoff with, than it can handle a system with more nutrients.
you always hear of people qho constantly have nutrient problems, but if their biofilter had been set up properly, than that would have never happened.
if ones biofilter can handle 80 ppm, for example, than, if your fish produce 100 ppm ammonia, and your filter is able to remove 75% of that before it dissolves into the water, than your nutrients will be 0.
now, if you know that you will be adding a large fish to star of with, would it not be advisable to utilize as much bacteria as possible!
No, increasing the “nutrient” levels, as you call them, in the beginning, does not help the cycle whatsoever. Because there is excess ammonia, the bacteria aren’t done eating it.
At the END of a cycle, when the bacteria have formed a large colony, extra ammonia will make the colony more robust, but any excess ammonia will always be just that – excess, the bacteria haven’t eaten it yet, so it’s irrelevant to the bacteria.
No. At the beginning of a cycle you want LOW levels of ammonia if there are fish in there. If there aren’t any fish, it doesn’t matter how much ammonia there is as long as there is some. You could have 1 ppm or 100 ppm of ammonia in the system and the bacteria would still be multiplying at the exact same rate (well actually they would be slower in the 100 ppm range, anything higher than 8 ppm inhibits the growth of beneficial bacteria and encourages the wrong type of bacteria to develop.)
okay, now i am confused.
because i have asked people before, and they have stated clearly that te higher your ammonia in the beggining the more bacteria you will have. if their is always 1 ppm, the bacteria will grow slower than 80 ppm.
do you think you couls find me a link that supports this?
and with the detrimental bacteria growth.
what is the genus?
i can’t figure out why high ammonia would encourage ammonia eating bacteria to grow.
It doesn’t matter how high your ammonia is in the beginning… after all you are going to add more ammonia once the bacteria have processed it all the way to zero, so how could it matter? You’re constantly supplying them with ammonia, that’s the point… Higher ammonia in the beginning does aboslutely nothing for anybody!
Nitrospira and Nitrosomonas are the nitrifying bacteria common in cycled aquariums. Nitrosomonas process ammonia into nitrite. Nitrospira process nitrite into nitrate.
Also since the bacteria are eating (processing) the ammonia as fast as they can, how can excess ammonia help? It doesn’t make any sense. The bacteria care about availability of ammonia to process (consume, eat!), not the concentration!
There is an article where they proved the cycle goes at the same rate no matter how much ammonia was in the tank.. and actually took longer for higher concentrations! I have been trying to find it whenever I think of it, but I can’t seem to find it again.
You want to build your biofilter to that level but you can’t do it instantly! It takes time! Meanwhile you don’t want to have excess ammonia that the bacteria haven’t eaten, to the best extent possible… that’s why we add up to 5 ppm of ammonia, until it is processed, then we top it up with more once it has reached zero… instead of adding 100 ppm all at once and waiting until it’s all been processed!
well, hear we will have to agree to disagree.
i have looked and found no credible (none at all actualy) sources to support the claim that ammonia above 8 ppm inhibits growth, however i have talked with other aquarist who i trust to be well educated in this field, not that you aren’t, and the consensus is that it doesn’t have any detrimental effects.
on the other hand, weak cycles are detrimental, or rather( because i know how much you enjoy twisting my words! lol) are less effective.
articles can be hard to find, i have been lokking for some myself for a while as well.
if you do find it, please let me see it, pm me the link, or something, i enjoy being proved wrong, it just gives me a new perspective.
i would just like to bring up a point ,as well.
this has little to do with limiting factors.
however it has everything to do with bacteria breeding. when their is an excess of something, breeding occurs.
with bacteria, the breeding rates can be increased, depending on the amount of excess nutrients( i know this first hand i did an experament involving this)
now it may be a different case with nitrosphiras and nitrosomonas, i have yet to see a study, though.
im a beginner on this and i am SOO confused!!
my ammonia test is over 8…. o_0 are you saying that’s good?
if you are just starting your cycle, if not…
get rid of your fish and inverst before they all die, and get a better filter/vacume substrate/ bigger tank/get rid of some of your fish…..
have you found the study yet????
get laid
Most tetras are not hardy.
Hardly species like Paties and zebra danios are all good for a cycling tank.
OMG!! me too!!! :(
thanks for the info. I have 5 red bellies piranhas that are 3 inches each. I had my piranhas for about 2 weeks. I ‘am having problem with my water. The ph is good but i have ammonia bad. I did several water change. I have bacteria in my filter i don’t feed them a lot. please help me out.
my ammonia is bad in my tank. I use ammo lock i change my water 20-30% a couple of times. My tank went cloudy a couple of times. Now my tank is clear my ph is good but my ammonia is real high. Since i use ammo lock i was told that reading the test it will show up ammonia still.
ur an expert? something must be wrong with u, just like the damn “experts” in this thing. 4 words: expertvillage is a joke
Wow, she didn’t explain anything about Nitrites and Nitrates. She has an entire test kit for a reason. After your ammonia peaks it drops. This is when nitrites will appear. When the ammonia and nitrites read 0 ppm ur good to go.
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