# Expected test results?



## billiemackers (31 Jul 2016)

Hello,

I have recently created a small (~30 litre) planted aquarium. I'm new to aquariums and fishkeeping and am wondering if the water chemistry test results that I am getting are usual at this point. The aquarium has been running for 4 days and is currently going through fishless cycling. Do I NEED to add ammonia, or would this just speed things up?

Anyway, take a look at the results and let me know what you think. 






My tap water is PH 7.6, I used cal aqua labs black earth substrate which will have softened the water.

Any help would be much appreciated - cheers!


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## dw1305 (31 Jul 2016)

Hi all, 





billiemackers said:


> have recently created a small (~30 litre) planted aquarium. I'm new to aquariums and fishkeeping and am wondering if the water chemistry test results that I am getting are usual at this point. The aquarium has been running for 4 days and is currently going through fishless cycling. Do I NEED to add ammonia, or would this just speed things up?


I'm not a great fan of adding ammonia, or relying on test results. 

Have a look at <"Best way to cycle a second filter"> it is quite a long thread but worth a read.

cheers Darrel


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## billiemackers (31 Jul 2016)

Thanks a lot, very useful thread. 

I noticed this: "No problem, I haven't really made 4,000 posts, I've just posted the same thing 4000 times" - Apologies for being another +1 

I'm just gonna let the plants grow for a few months, by which point I'm sure that enough bacteria will have colonised my filter.


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## alto (31 Jul 2016)

Some 2014 commentary on Tetra Safe Start

Having purchased the TSS, I'd go on using it 
I think your present test results look as expected - or not unexpected, anyway ... 

If you've a source of "aquarium-safe" ammonia you can use that (most ammonia bottles have various surfactants added, not all need be labelled as such) but it's smelly stuff & using it daily, you're bound to spill some on your hands or clothes or carpet (if you've the aquarium stuff, you just add "drops" so pretty foolproof) - it's very simple to just add fish food, pretend you're feeding 10 - 12 small fish, feed them daily ... once "cycled" you'll have suitable numbers of the various bacteria to deal with the biological load of ~10 small fish (or equivalent shrimp etc)
Once present, the bacteria can (fairly) quickly adjust to higher biological loads, eg, add additional livestock weekly

Unlike Darrel I think test kits can be very useful - they work well enough under most aquarium conditions with the major source of error being the operator  
Unfortunately not many kits include a "standard" solution of the test object (eg ammonia, nitrite, nitrate or whatever the kit is designed to detect) - this "positive" shows if kit & operator are working fine.


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## billiemackers (31 Jul 2016)

Cheers alto, seems like everyone has their own way of doing things! 

So adding ammonia ensures that you can build up a big enough bacterial colony so that when you do eventually add livestock, the colony is developed/big enough to deal with the waste? It seems to me like I'd get bacteria colonising my filter anyway, as ammonia is already present in my tank water, is this the case?


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## alto (1 Aug 2016)

That's a major consideration with the Africans - fish often do best when added in considerable size groups & most species are very sensitive to ammonia/nitrite etc

Just check that your ammonia test kit is compatible with your water conditioner

From Seachem (as I'm a lazy sort)


> Q: I am using Prime® to control ammonia but my test kit says it is not doing anything, in fact it looks like it added ammonia! What is going on?
> 
> 
> A: A Nessler based kit will not read ammonia properly if you are using Prime®... it will look "off scale", sort of a muddy brown (incidentally a Nessler kit will not work with any other products similar to Prime®). A salicylate based kit can be used, but with caution. Under the conditions of a salicylate kit the ammonia-Prime complex will be broken down eventually giving a false reading of ammonia (same as with other products like Prime®), so the key with a salicylate kit is to take the reading right away. However, the best solution  is to use our MultiTest™ Ammonia kit... it uses a gas exchange sensor system which is not affected by the presence of Prime® or other similar products. It also has the added advantage that it can detect the more dangerous free ammonia and distinguish it from total ammonia (which is both the free and ionized forms of ammonia (the ionized form is not toxic)).





> Q: I tested my tap water after using Prime and came up with an ammonia reading. Is this because of chloramine? Could you explain how this works in removing chloramine?
> 
> 
> A: Prime works by removing chlorine from the water and then binds with ammonia until it can be consumed by your biological filtration (chloramine minus chlorine = ammonia). The bond is not reversible and ammonia is still available for your bacteria to consume. Prime will not halt your cycling process.
> ...



The ammonia you've measured may be releasing from the substrate, also from the TSS ("dead" bacteria will release ammonia, also there may be some ammonia etc in the bottle solution to sustain the bacteria), add more or not as you like

You don't mention if you've planted the tank yet, again either way is fine (though some plants such as crypts seem to prefer established tanks)


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## dw1305 (1 Aug 2016)

Hi all, 





billiemackers said:


> I'm just gonna let the plants grow for a few months, by which point I'm sure that enough bacteria will have colonised my filter.


That's is all you need to do.

In a planted tank you are never reliant on the filter for all of your biological filtration. A lot of people still see plants as a form of decoration, but they aren't, they are the single most important factor in biological filtration. Plant/microbe systems are just a lot much more efficient and flexible than microbe alone systems. 





alto said:


> Unlike Darrel I think test kits can be very useful - they work well enough under most aquarium conditions with the major source of error being the operator


Point taken, I'm not disputing that some people will get accurate results using appropriate tests and a scientific method.

The problem I have is that their test results aren't necessarily comparable with other peoples. I actually started on the water testing under the assumption that I could find, reasonably cheap and available, tests and meters that gave reproducible results over a range of water conditions. I could get confidence intervals for a "standard" water sample because I have access to an analytical lab. with an AAS, GC, HPLC, ISE and lab. standard pH, DO, conductivity meters etc. and the trained staff to use the kit.

I started off with de-ionised water, and then added salts to it in various combinations, but it quickly became apparent that certain parameters are problematic with the test kits available to us, and particularly monovalent anions (like NO3-) in solutions with other anions present. It just wasn't a viable approach. The only test kit or meter I could find that produced a repeatable approach over a whole range of water conditions was conductivity, it wasn't the one you would have wanted, but it was the only one where you could get a quick and accurate result with a relatively cheap meter. Dissolved Oxygen would fulfil these requirements, but you need to calibrate the meter before each use, and the meters are still quite expensive to buy.   





billiemackers said:


> so adding ammonia ensures that you can build up a big enough bacterial colony so that when you do eventually add livestock, the colony is developed/big enough to deal with the waste?


That is the classical view, and a tank is either "cycled" or "not cycled".

We know from recent research that the traditional view of nitrification, with the bacteria _Nitrosomonas_ as the sole ammonia oxidising organism (AOB), isn't actually true for aquariums (or any other situations with low levels of aqueous ammonia)  and that the bacterial community developed under high ammonia loadings, and at high pH, is different from the community developed at more normal ammonia levels, and that this community is much more diverse and numerically dominated by ammonia oxidising archaea (AOA).





alto said:


> That's a major consideration with the Africans - fish often do best when added in considerable size groups & most species are very sensitive to ammonia/nitrite etc


The only situation I can think of where cycling with ammonia may be a viable option is if you intend to add a lot of Mbuna simultaneously to a plant free tank with carbonate buffered water. You still have the issue of the filter being a "single point of failure", and if you did want to go down this route then long term a "wet and dry" trickle filter would be your best option. I'm not going to pass comment on the "PlanetCatfish" cycling threads linked in <"http://ukaps.org/forum/threads/best-way-to-cycle-a-second-filter.38958/">, but people may be interested in this more <"recent thread">.

Scientific papers are appearing all the time now that attempt to quantify the <"contribution of the various organisms along gradients of oxygen, temperature, salinity, ammonia loading"> etc. and in different types of <"constructed wetland"> (CW).

It has also been found recently that the bacteria _Nitrospira_ is the predominant organism oxidising nitrite (NO2) to nitrate (NO3), but that it can also <"oxidise ammonia to nitrate in some circumstances">.


billiemackers said:


> It seems to me like I'd get bacteria colonising my filter anyway, as ammonia is already present in my tank water, is this the case?


You will, and they will also colonise the upper layers of the substrate, and <"the rhizosphere around the plant roots">. Once this microbial biodiversity has developed it doesn't suddenly disappear when ammonia isn't supplied, you just get differing amounts of each micro-organism along its substrate gradient. If you want an example of this have a look at a <"Winogradsky column">. A structured environment with roots in the substate etc. will provide a lot more niche space for microbial colonisation.

Problems can still occur where you have a sudden addition of ammonia, because their will be a lag-phase in the microbial response to greater substrate availability, meaning that dissolved oxygen (or Co2 or NH3) levels can fall, (or build up), respectively causing fish death during the lag phase. This is where the plants come in, and particularly floating or emergent plants which aren't CO2 limited. They will take up ammonia and CO2 immediately, and increased growth leads to greater levels of oxygen evolution.

cheers Darrel


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## billiemackers (1 Aug 2016)

Great info - thanks a lot for taking so much time to reply.

Another question, how important are water changes at this point? My water is visually very clear and the water chemistry doesn't seem to be changing much (as far as I can tell anyway), is it safe to just let it be for now?


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## Manuel Arias (19 Aug 2016)

billiemackers said:


> Great info - thanks a lot for taking so much time to reply.
> 
> Another question, how important are water changes at this point? My water is visually very clear and the water chemistry doesn't seem to be changing much (as far as I can tell anyway), is it safe to just let it be for now?


 
Hi Billie,

It depends. I am not fan of water changes if no real need of that, but this depends a lot of your routine of maintenance, set up and state of the aquarium in a given point. From your data, I do not see any need of water change at this point unless:

-Your nitrate levels started to be too high.
-You are adding iron, phosphates, and/or micro elements in regular basis (for example, using a premium soil)
-You had a high DOC (dissolved organic carbon).

I mentioned this because premium soils usually need some wash up to remove excess of nutrients during the first stages, not only associated to nitrogen content, but sometimes to other components, so having some water changes helps to stabilize the tank. However, this is not always the best option, as it also depends on the parameters in the water you use. For instance, some tap water have high levels of nitrates and/or phosphates, and getting these parameters at lower level is difficult (unless you use RO water).

The DOC es something that mos people cannot measure, but you can track it at this stage if your ammonia levels start to grow. This represents the load of dissolved organic matter that eventually will be ingested by heterotrophic bacteria, protozoa and other microorganisms growing in the tank. Uncontrolled levels of DOC have some connections with algae growth if not corrected.

Nonetheless, in general terms, even if parameters are OK, water change once a week is always a good idea, especially if you are not sure about the parameters inside the tank.

Cheers,

Manuel


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