# bacterial colony or algae?



## Victor

Hi, guys! I'm cycling my tank for 9 days and during this time have appeared an odd yellowish dust on the plants, gravel, rocks and at whole tank. I'm putting crystalized bacteria every day (sera bio nitrivec and dennerle aqua rico) to cycling the tank faster. Do you think this dust is several bacterial colonies or just an algae bloom? Thank you.


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## darren636

Is it precipitation of some kind?


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## Victor

darren636 said:


> Is it precipitation of some kind?


 No, I think it's something alive. They are glued to objects.


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## Michael W

Doesn't look like algae to me. If in doubt stop using the product. As long as you have live plants in the the tank all you need to do is just wait a couple of weeks and your tank should be good to go.


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## darren636

Perhaps Diatoms. What is your lighting set up/ duration?


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## Victor

darren636 said:


> Perhaps Diatoms. What is your lighting set up/ duration?


 Hi, mate! My is lighting is 120 w T8 during 6 hours a day. My tank is 200 cm x 40 cm x 45 cm (height). do you think it's ok?


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## darren636

Your light should be fine. It might be this product you are dosing.


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## Sacha

Yeah, stop dosing it. "Bacteria in a bottle" products don't work. Are you doing a proper fishless cycle with aqueous ammonia?


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## dw1305

Hi all,  





Victor said:


> Do you think this dust is several bacterial colonies or just an algae bloom?





darren636 said:


> Is it precipitation of some kind?


 I'm pretty sure it is a precipitate of some kind, it may be from the bacteria addition. 





Michael W said:


> If in doubt stop using the product. As long as you have live plants in the the tank all you need to do is just wait a couple of weeks and your tank should be good to go.





Sacha said:


> Yeah, stop dosing it. "Bacteria in a bottle" products don't work. Are you doing a proper fishless cycle with aqueous ammonia?


 Michael is right, you don't need to add ammonia, or as Sacha says any bacterial supplements, the whole idea of "the cycle" isn't relevant to planted tanks. Have a look here and links <New shrimp set up | UK Aquatic Plant Society>.

cheers Darrel


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## Victor

dw1305 said:


> the whole idea of "the cycle" isn't relevant to planted tanks


 Hi, Darrel! Why the cycle isn't relevant to a planted tank? It's because the plants absorb all ammonia leaving nothing to bacterias?


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## dw1305

Hi all,





Victor said:


> Why the cycle isn't relevant to a planted tank? It's because the plants absorb all ammonia leaving nothing to bacterias?


 Pretty much, but they also provide areas in the root zone etc where nitrification can occur.

cheers Darrel


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## Victor

My tank receives indirect sunshine during all day and my light tubes turns on only during the night. The indirect sunshine counts as photoperiod part?


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## Wak

Early form of "physarum polycephalum" (that white mushroom thing)? It appears sometimes in a white form in aquarium apparently. Anti-fungus seems to works. (never face that problem for real, I've just read things about it...)


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## Victor

Good morning, guys! I've noticed the presence of brown algae growing on the gravel and plants. They're spreading fast and started to form threads. My tank is at 12 th day of cycling. I'm using 4 x 30 w T8 tubes above 8 cm water surface and them remain lit 6 hours during every night (the tank receives indirect sunshine during the day). My tank has 200 cm x 40 cm x 45 cm and the plant mass is still little. I've tested ammonia and got result 0. What I might to do? Thank you.


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## ceg4048

OK, let me break this down to make it a little more palatable:

1. Stop counting days of cycling. This path leads nowhere. It will take months for your tank to mature. Just having a tank "cycled" as described in common literature is a waste of energy.

2. I don't know how much you paid for your Nitroglycerine, but whatever you paid was too much. In the future, please realize that you can get billions of live bacteria for free by just going outside in your garden and digging up some dirt near any plant. In fact, dig up some weeds that you intend to throw away and take soil that it was removed from. The same bacteria in that soil are the ones in your tank. You do not need to spend money on lifeless, suspended animation, zombie bacteria sold for shocking and outrageous prices. None of that stuff helps your tank cycle any better than the dirt on the bottom of your shoes, OK?

3. Diatoms often occur at tank startup. It can usually be attributable to the effects of too much light in an environment that is in it's infancy. The lighting should be reduced to 1 or at most two bulbs for now. You can also do a 3-4 day blackout preceded by and followed by huge water changes (huge means nearly 100%) Vacuum and clean the plant leaves and continue the 2X-3X water changes for the next couple of months.

4. Stop adding ammonia as Darrel suggested. You are trying to cultivate a tank with living things and to keep it as clean an unpolluted as possible. Adding ammonia to your tank is like throwing sewage into your house. Please stop doing that. It doesn't help make your tank healthy, instead it causes problems such as what you are experiencing now. Some people get away with it because of other factors related to their tank and maintenance, but you are not getting away with it, so stop it.

5. Stop testing ammonia. Stop testing for everything. Test kits do not tell you anything that you cannot already see with you own two eyes. Do you have algae? Are there weird unknown substances on your plant leaves? Well that's all badness and it's unhealthy, and I didn't need a test kit to tell me that. I just figured it out. So, whatever you paid for your test kits was too much. I've saved you at least 50 quid so far. With the money saved buy a bigger filter or a better CO2 rig or more nutrient...or more plants. That will have a 100X bigger impact on returning your tank to health than dumping overpriced chemicals into the tank or testing.

6. Have patience. The tank takes the same amount of time to stabilize, regardless of what delusional products you are told to buy from The Matrix.

The....Matrix....has..you...Neo.

Cheers,


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## Sacha

Ceg, I am surprised that you are telling him to stop adding ammonia. 

Don't you use the fishless cycle method of adding ammonia to cycle tanks? 

Without ammonia, the Nitrosomonas will die off.


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## ceg4048

Well get ready for more surprises:

Ammonia is toxic to bacteria, even the bacteria that eat ammonia. Adding ammonia to your tank is like feeding a baby a drink of water from a fire hose. It's just too much. Adding ammonia kills more bacteria that it propogates. It especially is toxic to the bacteria that DO NOT eat ammonia. The problem is that there are many more of _those_ that are just as important to the health of your tank as the ammonia eaters which are wiped out when you add too much ammonia to the tank. So just because there is a perceived increase in Nitrosomonas, it does not mean that you are doing the tank any good.

Just as a reality check, can you see this product?




Well it has ammonia and we use it to kill bacteria on the floors and kitchen surfaces. It's pretty effective. That's probably why you have it under your sink, remember? So don't be quick to jump on the ammonia bandwagon. It's a toxin and it doesn't help any more than simply adding nothing at all.

Secondly, Nitrosomonas/Nitrobacter are in a class of organism s called "che·mo·au·to·trophs" which means that they are able to make their own food from different inorganic substances, like CO2, for example. Because there are varied substances that they can use, they are NOT dependent on only ammonia. They simply switch to a new source of nutrition when the primary nutrient is in short supply,

Thirdly, there is always ammonia being produced in the tank. Any body of water will automatically develop bacterial colonies, even if there is nothing in it at the beginning. Residue, spores and precipitates from the air settle into the water and there develops a culture in the body of water whether we want to or not. Why do you think stagnant pools of water have an odor? The odor is produced by bacteria.

Even better is if you plant your tank at startup with lots of plants. All the bits and pieces that fall of and decay results in small amounts of ammonia which build in concentration naturally and at a proper pace. If you didn't have any plants you could just toss in some flake food and let it go at that. whatever animals or vegetable matter dies in the water immediately produces ammonia, so in reality Nitrosomonas never runs out of ammonia. In 6-8 weeks the tank can be considered mature and stable.

Fourthly, ammonia in the tank has to be converted to NO2/NO3 which, if there is a population of Nitrosomonas, will crash the Oxygen availability in the water. The bacteria require more Oxygen than ammonia, that's for sure. So sudden population rises ssuffocate the tank, which then kills bacteria because these guys are aerobic. When the tank goes into Oxygen debt those species we are trying to propagate fail at the expense of toxic anaerobic species, further deteriorating the health of the tank. People can't see that because they are measuring useless information like NO3 and they do not generally have tools to measure the things that really matter, like Oxygen or bacteria population demographics.

So nobody needs to dump ammonia into their tank, which is actually counter productive. People all over The Matrix turn their tanks into toxic waste dump sites and they think they are doing the right thing. Later they have plant or fish problems that developed from these procedures but they do not trace the problems back to this practice of pollution.

Change you water frequently to help control Oxygen levels, feed you plants with nutrition and ample CO2, keep the tank clean BE PATIENT and in a short will the tank will develop the necessary populations and diversity required to keep the tank healthy.

Cheers,


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## Nathaniel Whiteside

Just... Wow!


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## Sacha

Yeah, wow. I've been doing it wrong all this time.


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## scrud

the whole adding ammonia this never really made much sense to me. nice to see an explanation as to why it is wrong though!


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## darren636

scrud said:


> the whole adding ammonia this never really made much sense to me. nice to see an explanation as to why it is wrong though!


 fish add ammonia to your tank all day long.


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## scrud

darren636 said:


> fish add ammonia to your tank all day long.


 
yeah I realise that, I meant people adding it.


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## darren636

scrud said:


> yeah I realise that, I meant people adding it.


 I've done it multiple times. I've watched people do it. Works for me. 2ppm . Nice.


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## scrud

but it's completely unnecessary so why bother?


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## darren636

scrud said:


> but it's completely unnecessary so why bother?


 it cycled the filter in 21 days. Ready for fish. Plants green and lush. Aqua soil does it also......


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## scrud

fair enough


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## darren636

Ada amazonia creates a bunch of ammonia, I don't see people running around in a panic about it.  At the start of my fishless cycle it took 11 days to even start processing ammonia. By day 21 all ammonia and nitrite gone in less than 12 hours.  Is that a bad thing?


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## Victor

ceg4048 said:


> 2. I don't know how much you paid for your Nitroglycerine, but whatever you paid was too much. In the future, please realize that you can get billions of live bacteria for free by just going outside in your garden and digging up some dirt near any plant. In fact, dig up some weeds that you intend to throw away and take soil that it was removed from. The same bacteria in that soil are the ones in your tank. You do not need to spend money on lifeless, suspended animation, zombie bacteria sold for shocking and outrageous prices. None of that stuff helps your tank cycle any better than the dirt on the bottom of your shoes, OK?


I thought the "zombie bacteria" was a top product . I was wrong. Thank you by the great explanation, Ceg.



ceg4048 said:


> 3. Diatoms often occur at tank startup. It can usually be attributable to the effects of too much light in an environment that is in it's infancy. The lighting should be reduced to 1 or at most two bulbs for now. You can also do a 3-4 day blackout preceded by and followed by huge water changes (huge means nearly 100%) Vacuum and clean the plant leaves and continue the 2X-3X water changes for the next couple of months.


My tank is too large, so to cover it with a black plastic to do a blackout is a hard task. I'll do large water changes and I've already removed 2 light tubes  . You meant to do 2X-3X huge water changes every week or during a couple of months? It's better I add some floating plants to reduce the light intensity even more or there isn't necessity? For now, the tank is lit by 2 tubes (60 w total).



ceg4048 said:


> 4. Stop adding ammonia as Darrel suggested. You are trying to cultivate a tank with living things and to keep it as clean an unpolluted as possible. Adding ammonia to your tank is like throwing sewage into your house. Please stop doing that. It doesn't help make your tank healthy, instead it causes problems such as what you are experiencing now. Some people get away with it because of other factors related to their tank and maintenance, but you are not getting away with it, so stop it.


But I wasn't dosing any ammonia .

Ah, there ins't any problem if my tank receives indirect sunshine during the day and the lights bulbs turn on only during the night?

Thank you, guys.


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## dw1305

Hi all,





darren636 said:


> At the start of my fishless cycle it took 11 days to even start processing ammonia. By day 21 all ammonia and nitrite gone in less than 12 hours. Is that a bad thing?


 Honestly adding additional ammonia serves no useful purpose and can only be damaging.  Just read Clive's post earlier in the thread.





ceg4048 said:


> Ammonia is toxic to bacteria, even the bacteria that eat ammonia. Adding ammonia to your tank is like feeding a baby a drink of water from a fire hose. It's just too much. Adding ammonia kills more bacteria that it propogates. It especially is toxic to the bacteria that DO NOT eat ammonia. The problem is that there are many more of those that are just as important to the health of your tank as the ammonia eaters which are wiped out when you add too much ammonia to the tank.





ceg4048 said:


> Secondly, Nitrosomonas/Nitrobacter are in a class of organism s called "che·mo·au·to·trophs" which means that they are able to make their own food from different inorganic substances, like CO2, for example. Because there are varied substances that they can use, they are NOT dependent on only ammonia. They simply switch to a new source of nutrition when the primary nutrient is in short supply, Thirdly, there is always ammonia being produced in the tank. Any body of water will automatically develop bacterial colonies, even if there is nothing in it at the beginning. Residue, spores and precipitates from the air settle into the water and there develops a culture in the body of water whether we want to or not. Why do you think stagnant pools of water have an odor? The odor is produced by bacteria. Even better is if you plant your tank at startup with lots of plants. All the bits and pieces that fall of and decay results in small amounts of ammonia which build in concentration naturally and at a proper pace. If you didn't have any plants you could just toss in some flake food and let it go at that. whatever animals or vegetable matter dies in the water immediately produces ammonia, so in reality Nitrosomonas never runs out of ammonia. In 6-8 weeks the tank can be considered mature and stable. Fourthly, ammonia in the tank has to be converted to NO2/NO3 which, if there is a population of Nitrosomonas, will crash the Oxygen availability in the water. The bacteria require more Oxygen than ammonia, that's for sure. So sudden population rises ssuffocate the tank, which then kills bacteria because these guys are aerobic. When the tank goes into Oxygen debt those species we are trying to propagate fail at the expense of toxic anaerobic species, further deteriorating the health of the tank. People can't see that because they are measuring useless information like NO3 and they do not generally have tools to measure the things that really matter, like Oxygen or bacteria population demographics. So nobody needs to dump ammonia into their tank, which is actually counter productive. People all over The Matrix turn their tanks into toxic waste dump sites and they think they are doing the right thing. Later they have plant or fish problems that developed from these procedures but they do not trace the problems back to this practice of pollution.


 Cheers Darrel


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## darren636

At the start of my cycle nothing happened... The addition of ammonia MUST  have cultured something beneficial in order to process 2 ppm ammonia within a handful of hours, and then to deal with the resulting nitrite too.  I mean, at the start , there was no activity. Nothing. 10 days of nothing.  So how can my actions be negative?  Fish added at day 22, with more than enough filter bacteria to see 0-0 readings on my...ahem... Test kit.  I would never advise fish in cycling. I've seen what happens when it goes wrong.  And lets face it, beginners don't have the experience or knowledge to understand warning signs.  One reason to use a test kit at least. Up the creek without a paddle is no fun. Especially if water changes are neglected- the fish in cycle really does become a torrent, and having a paddle is no help at all. Many become capsized and end up in the washing machine of death


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## tim

darren636 said:


> Ada amazonia creates a bunch of ammonia, I don't see people running around in a panic about it.  At the start of my fishless cycle it took 11 days to even start processing ammonia. By day 21 all ammonia and nitrite gone in less than 12 hours.  Is that a bad thing?


No panic, but advice on the forum is the same for all new setups daily water changes week 1 every other day week 2 every third day week 3 twice week 4 this will surely deal with ammonia from new aquasoil.


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## Rob P

tim said:


> No panic, but advice on the forum is the same for all new setups daily water changes week 1 every other day week 2 every third day week 3 twice week 4 this will surely deal with ammonia from new aquasoil.



Can I ask please, as I'm setting up two new tanks, one will be hi tech 130 litre, the other low tech 20 litre. Both will use florabase substrate. For the hi tech, planning to follow the daily for a week etc, but what volume do you do, all if it, half of it etc??

Low tech with florabase, planning to plant quite heavily from outset, what should I do regard setting this tank up and water changes etc? Same thing??

Cheers,
Rob


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## darren636

Rob P said:


> Can I ask please, as I'm setting up two new tanks, one will be hi tech 130 litre, the other low tech 20 litre. Both will use florabase substrate. For the hi tech, planning to follow the daily for a week etc, but what volume do you do, all if it, half of it etc??
> 
> Low tech with florabase, planning to plant quite heavily from outset, what should I do regard setting this tank up and water changes etc? Same thing??
> 
> Cheers,
> Rob


 Depends. If your filter is mature. If so, water changes will see ammonia quickly dispatched. If you are setting up with a new filter, the released ammonia will cycle it pretty quickly, although very high ammonia will still need diluting with a water change or two per week. Some soils release  massive amounts of ammonia.


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## tim

Rob P said:


> Can I ask please, as I'm setting up two new tanks, one will be hi tech 130 litre, the other low tech 20 litre. Both will use florabase substrate. For the hi tech, planning to follow the daily for a week etc, but what volume do you do, all if it, half of it etc??
> 
> Low tech with florabase, planning to plant quite heavily from outset, what should I do regard setting this tank up and water changes etc? Same thing??
> 
> Cheers,
> Rob


Hi rob, I've found 50% of the tank volume with the frequency stated above good on start up even with low techs, you should be able to drop this to around 20% weekly as the tank matures, 50% weekly being the norm for high techs, though I've found I need to carry out two per week on my 3ft to keep algae in check.


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## ceg4048

darren636 said:


> it cycled the filter in 21 days. Ready for fish.


But so what? Rolymo added fish in 7 days and no ammonia was used My first ever aquarium. Juwel Rio 180l | UK Aquatic Plant Society

There is no benefit whatsoever.

Cheers,


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## darren636

ceg4048 said:


> But so what? Rolymo added fish in 7 days and no ammonia was used My first ever aquarium. Juwel Rio 180l | UK Aquatic Plant Society
> 
> There is no benefit whatsoever.
> 
> Cheers,


and your advice was to return the fish. His lfs sent him up a creek without a paddle.

Now then. In every other respect I would never disagree with you . But on cycling, particularly fish in cycling , I won't stand for it. I've seen it when it goes wrong. Disease, infections, death. Jumping, scraping and suffocation. . It makes my blood boil to hear fish in cycling recommended in shops etc. I've cycled 6 tanks in 3 years , and the only problems with fish health I have seen is when ' others' do not prepare their filter and the results are poisoning and floaters. That's not only a waste of money, but a waste of precious life too.


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## ceg4048

Correct, because it's always bad policy to get fish so soon. The point is that he kept them and the tank did well without any fatalities. Simply by doing water changes and by keeping the tank clean the tank matured in time. So all of that testing and adding ammonia  prooves nothing, first of all because test kits tell you nothing. Therefore it's all an illusion.

Adding ammonia means that you are more likely to get into trouble. As I mentioned previously, you can get away with it but it is in effect pointless.

Cheers,


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## darren636

That's the problem, people tend not to know about performing very large water changes with new set-Ups or they don't care and let their 'hardy' fish suffer.	here, on this forum, with so many people with knowledge and experience, people have the ability to keep on top of things like water changes, the average parent at the local garden centre has no clue, resulting in ' I've got 9 baby goldfish in a 15 litre tank, I think they're happy"	. Anyway- happy trails.


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## ceg4048

Victor said:


> My tank is too large, so to cover it with a black plastic to do a blackout is a hard task. I'll do large water changes and I've already removed 2 light tubes  . You meant to do 2X-3X huge water changes every week or during a couple of months? It's better I add some floating plants to reduce the light intensity even more or there isn't necessity? For now, the tank is lit by 2 tubes (60 w total).


That will be fine. Just keep the lights on for 8 hours or less per day. The water changes should be done 2X-3X per week for the next 6 weeks or so.

Cheers,


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## Victor

Brown algae have something to do with CO2 badly distribution?


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## ceg4048

Yes, but mostly due to too much light and immature sediment. Do a blackout, improve CO2/flow/distribution and it will go away all by itself.

Cheers,


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## Victor

Can I get rid brown algae without removing them? I can't take off all them because they are growning in whole tank and on the plants.Currently there are two 30 w T8 tubes over my 300 L tank (60 w total). They're about 7 cm from water suface and now both of them are covered by printer paper. If I keep doing 50 % water chances twice a week theses algae will disappear by themselves?


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## ceg4048

You can do a 3-4 day blackout and that will put a serious dent in them but you must improve CO2, flow and distribution so that they do not return.

Cheers,


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