# Raising the PH of a new tank to start filter bacteria.



## JohnC (16 Apr 2015)

Hey,

I'm so used to planted tanks and our lovely soils that it's been a while since I'd done a new plant less one. Added to this there is a complexity of tap water with tiny amounts of natural hardness and a ph of around 6.2....

Since the "friendly" bacteria in the various shop bought filter colony products prefer the ph above 7.2 to get established quickly I'm pondering on ways to buffer and raise the ph of the initial tank water. 

which then over the following weeks water changes (i'm not going to be in charge of them) will naturally dilute down to the range of the tap water (with a little GH/KH booster added in each water change).

thinking of a bi-carb of soda dose on set up with some gh/kh booster. 

suggestions of alternative? remembering that it's a short term aim.

Cheers,
John


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## alto (16 Apr 2015)

You only really need to get to ~ pH 6.5 for minimal effect (of pH) on the bacteria you're interested in ... my tanks run ~ pH 6.0 - 6.4 (seasonal variation in water reservoir) without issue - except if I bring a water sample into the lfs & they suggest raising the pH ...
You can add baking soda, just use a minimal dose as it obviously raises sodium (if you shop around you may find some potassium bicarb) - lfs suggest to begin at 1teaspoon/10 gal if I'm recalling correctly.
 Also check the actual salts used in the GH/KH booster as some brands include Na/K carbonates anyway.

(be careful with adding the powders direct to the aquarium, I had an oto graze on a leaf where some had collected, silly thing vacuumed up a rather large "flake" & was not feeling well for a couple of days - he looked very unwell shortly after & I was surprised he made it through the night)


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## Mr. Teapot (16 Apr 2015)

I found this article about nitrification at low pH really interesting:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC525248/


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## EnderUK (16 Apr 2015)

Trying to work out what you're doing, You need to setup the tank with the water you're planning on using. As soon as you start lowering the pH then that bacteria colony you grew at 7.2 will stop working and different bacteria will start to grow. Many black water tanks have low pH and still function, my low tech tanks sit around at pH 6.4. If you already have tanks setup in the same water then take some filter media out of that and stick it in the new filter.

If you want to keep a stable tank then throw a spoonful of oyster shells (chicken grit) into the filter and forget about it.


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## alto (16 Apr 2015)

Most bacteria will adjust to pH rather than "stop working" - there may be some lag phases in growth but it's very difficult to annihilate bacteria with such minor changes in pH as the OP is contemplating, further as the changes will be gradual through tank water changes rather than sudden addition of concentrated acid solutions, it's unlikely there will be any effect.


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## EnderUK (16 Apr 2015)

Why not just grow the bacteria you want to grow from the start? Seem very complicated then just add water to a tank and run the filter for a month.


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## Katch (16 Apr 2015)

The issue is a cycling tank will generate spikes of nitrite and nitrate.  If your water is pretty soft and acidic to start with, these spikes can cause the pH to crash and stall the development of nitrospira bacteria (the ones that eat nitrite and turn it into nitrate)

Optimum pH range for the growth of the 2 types of bacteria we are interested in is between 7 and 8.  Also, a warmer tank is better for cycling - 30 degrees C is optimal.  At the end of a cycle, you always perform a near 100% water change anyway (to clear the nitrate build up), so your water chemistry will go back to the same as your tapwater then. This final water change does not harm the newly formed bacteria at all.

When I cycle tanks without a soil substrate, I add sodium bicarb and use household ammonia to build the filter.  With dirt tanks, the soil tends to buffer the water and leach enough ammonia to cycle the filter. The benefit of the soil cycled tank is that the substrate will keep leaching ammonia for a couple of months or so, so you don't have to worry about adding an ammonia source in the time between cycling and adding fish.


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## EnderUK (17 Apr 2015)

Katch said:


> I add sodium bicarb and use household ammonia to build the filter.


 Okay I give up at that point.


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## Katch (17 Apr 2015)

EnderUK said:


> As soon as you start lowering the pH then that bacteria colony you grew at 7.2 will stop working and different bacteria will start to grow.



This is just not true and in no way supported by the evidence of hundreds of successful fishless cycles. I can point you to dozens of cases of people raising their pH to 8 to cycle then dropping down to 6.5 with a 100% water change after the cycle completes. The tank cycled at pH 8 will still eliminate 4ppm of ammonia within 12 hours after the massive water change at the lower pH.


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## Katch (17 Apr 2015)

The purpose of raising the pH and adding buffering capacity to the water is to safe-guard against bio-acidification caused by nitrate spikes during the cycle that can crash the pH of soft acidic water below the threshold where nitrospira sp. and nitrosoma sp. bacteria will multiply and be active.


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## dw1305 (17 Apr 2015)

Hi all,





Katch said:


> If your water is pretty soft and acidic to start with, these spikes can cause the pH to crash and stall the development of nitrospira bacteria (the ones that eat nitrite and turn it into nitrate)
> Optimum pH range for the growth of the 2 types of bacteria we are interested in is between 7 and 8. Also, a warmer tank is better for cycling - 30 degrees C is optimal. At the end of a cycle, you always perform a near 100% water change anyway (to clear the nitrate build up), so your water chemistry will go back to the same as your tapwater then. This final water change does not harm the newly formed bacteria at all.
> When I cycle tanks without a soil substrate, I add sodium bicarb and use household ammonia to build the filter. With dirt tanks, the soil tends to buffer the water and leach enough ammonia to cycle the filter. The benefit of the soil cycled tank is that the substrate will keep leaching ammonia for a couple of months or so, so you don't have to worry about adding an ammonia source in the time between cycling and adding fish





Katch said:


> This is just not true and in no way supported by the evidence of hundreds of successful fishless cycles. I can point you to dozens of cases of people raising their pH to 8 to cycle then dropping down to 6.5 with a 100% water change after the cycle completes. The tank cycled at pH 8 will still eliminate 4ppm of ammonia within 12 hours after the massive water change at the lower pH.


 Have a look at <"Cycling a planted tank">, <"Advise for a blackwater tank"> & <"Talking with Diana Walstad">.  





EnderUK said:


> Okay I give up at that point.


 You mustn't give up. 

I've begun to realise that "cycling" is a huge multi-headed hydra, and that you have to keep chopping the heads off. If you don't you'll wake up one morning and, rather than having a cup of coffee, you'll pour some household cleaner into your fish tank. 



EnderUK said:


> If you want to keep a stable tank then throw a spoonful of oyster shells (chicken grit) into the filter and forget about it.


 I think that is a good idea, unless you want to keep "Black water" fish. 

cheers Darrel


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## alto (17 Apr 2015)

Katch said:


> The purpose of raising the pH and adding buffering capacity to the water is to safe-guard against bio-acidification caused by nitrite spikes during the cycle that can crash the pH of soft acidic water below the threshold where nitrospira sp. and nitrosoma sp. bacteria will multiply and be active.


but what do you think of the paper linked by Mr Teapot?


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## Katch (17 Apr 2015)

Generally (and I do mean generally), hobbyists cycling their tanks want to build an effective bio filter as quickly as possible so that they can get on with stocking their tank.  Fishless cycling with an added ammonia source has been proven time and again as a reliable method of doing this.  Properly fishless cycled tanks can be stocked to about 80% capacity as soon as the tank has passed a qualifying week of zero ammonia & zero nitrite.  Even the topic linked by Darrel suggests using household ammonia (http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/talking-with-diana-walstad.36661/) as long as it is free from surfactants and perfumes (Homebase household is fine - I had them send me the coshh and full ingredients documents and have used it on many tanks)

Any tank with a natural source of ammonia (soil) should cycle itself but I would be hesitant to stock heavily straight away like you can with an aggressively cycled tank.

Planted tanks can mitigate some of the need to cycle this aggressively due to the plant mass - but I'd still rather have a mature biofilter than take the risk on my fishes health.  It makes me nervous when people say things like aim to keep ammonia below 0.25 ppm - any detectable free ammonia is harmful to fish - if your kit shows anything but zero - you have a problem.

Which brings us full circle - the quickest way to build a mature bio filter that will eliminate free ammonia and nitrite to undetectable levels is fishless cycling with 4ppm ammonia

2p


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## dw1305 (17 Apr 2015)

Hi all,





Katch said:


> Fishless cycling with an added ammonia source has been proven time and again as a reliable method of doing this.


 Cycling a method that works for some people, but there are a huge number of posts to forums with titles like <"_cycle stalled_"> to suggest that it isn't fool-proof. 

It is "_horses for courses_". If you are going to have a bare tank you don't have any option other than "fishless cycling" or "sacrificial fish", I'm definitely not suggesting "sacrificial fish" but as soon as you add a substrate and plants you are into a situation with a lot more options.  





Katch said:


> Even the topic linked by Darrel suggests using household ammonia (http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/talking-with-diana-walstad.36661/)


 In the thread Diana Walstad suggests using fishless cycling for Rift Lake cichlids, where you would have hard water and may need to introduce a lot of fish in one go.  





Katch said:


> Planted tanks can mitigate some of the need to cycle this aggressively due to the plant mass - but I'd still rather have a mature biofilter than take the risk on my fishes health.


 You aren't taking a risk on your fishes health, realistically it is relying on the biofilter that is taking a risk with fish health. If you look at the scientific literature there is a huge amount of evidence that "microbe & plants" systems are much more efficient than "microbe only" systems. The key metric for biological filtration is oxygen. As long as you dissolved oxygen supply always exceeds your "Biological Oxygen Demand" (BOD), you don't have a problem. I wrote this article specifically for plec. keepers about 10 years ago, but it is relevant to all fish keepers <"Aeration and dissolved oxygen.....">, despite its title it deals a lot with biological filtration. 

There is a more complete discussion of "microbe only" and "plant/microbe" systems here  (warning it is quite a long thread) <"Using deep gravel.......">.  





Katch said:


> t makes me nervous when people say things like aim to keep ammonia below 0.25 ppm - any detectable free ammonia is harmful to fish - if your kit shows anything but zero - you have a problem.


 In some ways this is the real problem, you can't accurately test for low levels of NH3/NH4+, NO2- or NO3-, even with a lab. full of analytical equipment it isn't straightforward. 

We need techniques that allow us to maintain water quality without the need for testing.  There is more about the philosophy behind this in <"Wood for tanks"> and the <"Duckweed Index">

cheers Darrel


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## sciencefiction (17 Apr 2015)

dw1305 said:


> If you look at the scientific literature there is a huge amount of evidence that "microbe & plants" systems are much more efficient than "microbe only" systems.



A new setup by an inexperienced aquarist throwing plants and fish together in an uncycled tank is a recipe for disaster regardless of the scientific data saying otherwise.



dw1305 said:


> Cycling a method that works for some people, but there are a huge number of posts to forums with titles like <"cycle stalled"> to suggest that it isn't fool-proof.


 
Yes, they stall because of two reasons, the Ph crashes(Kh drops) or nitrite spike to unreadable value, the latter could be waited out though.  But that's well known. All you need is a large water change and the bacs start working perfectly again.


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## EnderUK (17 Apr 2015)

Please if you really insist on doing a cycle in a bare tank then do it without the bottled germ killing floor cleaner. Get some cheap fish food and feed your invisible fish a small amount daily for a month. Another option would be to throw in some leaf litter or bark that will break down slowly and produce ammonia. While you're at it you might as well not waste money on the crap test kits.

Another option of raising the KH would be cuttlebone. Again I really don't know why you want to do this. John hasn't really explained what his goal for this tank is but if you want to be lazy about the whole thing I would do as I suggest and throw in some cuttlebone or oyster grit into a filter (can use or filter bag) or place it under the substrate or sprinkle it on the bare tank as this will keep the pH at about neutral which you can then forget about.


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## dw1305 (17 Apr 2015)

Hi all,





sciencefiction said:


> A new setup by an inexperienced aquarist throwing plants and fish together in an uncycled tank is a recipe for disaster regardless of the scientific data saying otherwise.


I don't think any-one is recommending that. I like at least 6 weeks for the plants to grow in, and I always have spare filter sponges etc., but it does depend on the plants to some degree.

For a new tank (and new canister filter) If you offered me the choices of "_cycling with ammonia_" or "_adding 1/3 cover with Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) or Water Lettuce (Pistia stratiotes)" _before adding the fish a week later, I'm going to take the plants every time. 

This isn't some abstract theory with no practical basis, even if I didn't have a library of scientific references, I'd have the experience of working with "waste water".  

I don't what else I can say, other than: 

Plants with the aerial advantage (of access to atmospheric CO2) will offer a much faster and more flexible response to changes in bioload than filter bacteria will. 

Plant & microbe systems are about an order of magnitude more efficient than microbe alone systems.

Biological filtration is about the oxygen supply exceeding the oxygen demand.

Have a look at this one: <"Application of _Eichornia crassipes_ and _Pistia stratiotes _for treatment of urban sewage">

cheers Darrel


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## JohnC (18 Apr 2015)

hey again, 

thanks for all the reply's so far. great reading as ever. 

just to clarify what i'm aiming to do. 

set up plantless tank (a few anubias only)
gravel and sand base. 
couple of internal filters.

i'm aiming to use this product (http://acrylictankmanufacturing.com/products/water-treatment/biologicals/colony-nitrifying-bacteria/) to kick start the filter bacteria.  with heavy aeration and the fish added pretty much the same day as the bacteria. 

bacteria need ph 7.2 to 8 (reading the bottle here) and 90ppm min alkalinity. hence the bicarb question. 

I'm happy to let the PH and hardness drop off over time. 

The tank is not something i'll get too very often so i'll be leaving instructions with the person on when to add fish, how many, when to start feeding etc.

So basically i'm skipping the ammonia source to stimulate the bacteria and just adding them straight, in large quantities. The fish are then added quickly to stop the mass starvation of the same bacteria. With extra oxygen to help things along. As the ph drops with water changes over the coming weeks the now established colony evolves to the right type and size as more fish are added.

John


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## dw1305 (19 Apr 2015)

Hi all,





JohnC said:


> i'm aiming to use this product (http://acrylictankmanufacturing.com/products/water-treatment/biologicals/colony-nitrifying-bacteria/) to kick start the filter bacteria. with heavy aeration and the fish added pretty much the same day as the bacteria.


 Don't do it. 

I can post you as many floaters as you like for the cost of P&P. Put them in, wait a week, add the fish. Keep changing a reasonable volume of water. If you only have _Anubias_ you don't need to add fertilisers regularly (or any as very small doses), and you are better off with some floaters to diffuse the light. 

cheers Darrel


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## Katch (19 Apr 2015)

Snake oil in bottles... this hobby is full of it.


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## JohnC (19 Apr 2015)

forgot to add i'll be using mature filter material too.


Katch said:


> Snake oil in bottles... this hobby is full of it.



yup deffo. as i mentioned at the start it's not the normal way id do things. 

i'd actually pondered this on a whim and using some of the other ATM products thought id do some research of user experiences. From that i thought id give it a shot. Now some may be true but I have to hold my hand up and say during a review of reading on the product today I've discovered a large number of posts on forums by users with 1 or 2 posts. Coming on to said forums JUST to post about it. i.e agressive marketing forum spam by ATM. 

this does also remind me of the discussion I had with the LFS owner (a very respected guy in the marine world) whom had used it successfully a number of times. He'd had the rep from ATM give him the full low down (ie hard sell).



dw1305 said:


> Hi all, Don't do it.
> 
> I can post you as many floaters as you like for the cost of P&P. Put them in, wait a week, add the fish. Keep changing a reasonable volume of water. If you only have _Anubias_ you don't need to add fertilisers regularly (or any as very small doses), and you are better off with some floaters to diffuse the light.
> 
> cheers Darrel



It shall be so.

-----

So with some further reading, i ceed to the advice (which is always why I come ask here) and go back to doing it the normal way. 

I'll mature the filter media in tanks here this week. Set up tank add floaters then leave instructions for the owner based on a week.

-----

Drilling down into what the colony instructions do, you add the "oil" with the bacteria with the fish (which i was never going to do) and a tiny bit of food. Then no feeding for a period of days. With this technique (if the bacterial colony is live) you are rapid cycling the tank with the fish exposed to slowly raising amounts of ammonia. Not completing the cycle before adding the fish, cycling with the fish in the tank. With obvious risks.

The bottle is a month old and unopened so probably does contain the bacteria it states. So i'll chuck it in anyway. 
----

Thank you for all the contributions always a joy,
John


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## Andy Thurston (19 Apr 2015)

JohnC said:


> I've discovered a large number of posts on forums by users with 1 or 2 posts. Coming on to said forums JUST to post about it. i.e agressive marketing forum spam by ATM.


 you should report these posts to the forum admins and get them removed along with said members profiles


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## alto (22 Apr 2015)

JohnC said:


> So with some further reading, i ceed to the advice (which is always why I come ask here) and go back to doing it the normal way.


 if you hang out with the African cichlid crew, adding bacteria in a bottle + fish all in one go, IS "normal" 
- the only consideration is investing in the _right_ bottle (back in the day it was Dr Hovanec's version, if your bottle is decent, it should have a it's fan club ... of course, like anything else, there's a technique & always the possibility that bacteria were impacted during storage/shipping etc but cycle failures should be the exception)


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## Mr. Teapot (22 Apr 2015)

I'm coming round to the idea that while one or two species of bacteria are important, the microbial biofilm as a whole is critical to keeping a tank healthy. Healthy biofilms are made up of hundreds of species each supporting the colony as a whole - a complex web of bacteria, bacteriophages, fungi, algae… I would suspect a bottled monoculture would be very fragile, seeding from old media sounds a better solution.

The reef hobbyists have it right with their live rock model. Big chunk of pre-conditioned media.


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## dw1305 (22 Apr 2015)

Hi all,





Mr. Teapot said:


> I'm coming round to the idea that while one or two species of bacteria are important, the microbial biofilm as a whole is critical to keeping a tank healthy. Healthy biofilms are made up of hundreds of species each supporting the colony as a whole - a complex web of bacteria, bacteriophages, fungi, algae… I would suspect a bottled monoculture would be very fragile, seeding from old media sounds a better solution.


 I'm 99% certain that this is the answer. "Microbial biofilms" are a really hot topic in Biology at the moment, partially because you can now use rRNA analysis both to separate the Archaea from the Bacteria, and give you  measure of microbial diversity.  The answer this approach has given is that things are a lot more complex than was originally thought. One of the problems in microbiology is that the _in vitro_ culture methods are only suitable for a very small fraction of the organisms present in the initial innoculum.

I think this one should be available <"Relative contributions of Archaeae.......">.  





Mr. Teapot said:


> The reef hobbyists have it right with their live rock model. Big chunk of pre-conditioned media.


 Exactly, this is really a water quality issue, where people have tried lots of different approaches, both chemical and biological, but have reverted to an integrated "ecological" approach using live rock for nitrification and deep sand beds for anaerobic out-gassing of NO3-. Reef keepers need to maintain high quality water, but haven't got easy access to higher plants in the way that fresh-water aquarists have. 

Because plants remove nitrates, this give you the advantage of not needing anaerobic out-gassing of N2 gas, (which is difficult to manage), as well as creating surfaces (both in the water column and the substrate) where nitrification can occur. As roots grow within the substrate they are leaky structures, continually shedding cells and and leaking compounds and gases into the rhizosphere. One result of this is that in a planted fresh water aquarium a mature substrate can perform the role of both "live rock" and "deep sand-bed" without any intervention from the aquarist. 





alto said:


> if you hang out with the African cichlid crew, adding bacteria in a bottle + fish all in one go, IS "normal"


As a long time cichlid keeper I belong to a few cichlid forums, and it would be fair to say that a post like this one would be quite likely to generate some comments, mainly unfavorable, and often quite abusive.

cheers Darrel


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## alto (23 Apr 2015)

dw1305 said:


> Click to expand...
> As a long time cichlid keeper I belong to a few cichlid forums, and it would be fair to say that a post like this one would be quite likely to generate some comments, mainly unfavorable, and *often quite abusive*.


nothing new there 

Bio-Spira had a decent run, there are others on the market now - perhaps the use has fallen out of vogue


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## dw1305 (24 Apr 2015)

Hi all, 





alto said:


> mainly unfavorable, and often quite abusive......nothing new there


I think there must be something about keeping cichlids that makes people particularly argumentative. 





alto said:


> Bio-Spira had a decent run, there are others on the market now - perhaps the use has fallen out of vogue


 They don't make "Bio-spira for freshwater" any more. Presumably because it had to be kept refrigerated, and had a limited shelf life, it wasn't a big enough seller.

The replacement is "Tetra Safe Start", which doesn't need to be refrigerated.  I think the premise that _Nitrosomas & Nitrobacter_ (from Tim Hovanec's original work and patent) are the only organisms that matter has been largely invalidated by later research_._

New techniques for investigating microbial communities are discovering a whole raft of different organisms:
<_"Evaluation of autotrophic growth of ammonia-oxidizers associated with granular activated carbon used for drinking water purification by DNA-stable isotope probing"_>,
<"_Low-ammonia niche of ammonia-oxidizing archaea in rotating biological contactors of a municipal wastewater treatment plant_">,
<"_Aquarium Nitrification Revisited: Thaumarchaeota Are the Dominant Ammonia Oxidizers in Freshwater Aquarium Biofilters_">  (from <"Talking with Diana....">, and the best study we have access to.)
&  <_"Nitrotoga-like bacteria are previously unrecognized key nitrite oxidizers in full-scale wastewater treatment plants"_>.

Also have a look at this thread <"Alfagrog for reducing nitrate.."> for "Greg's Pea" posts.

cheers Darrel


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