# Filter cycling?



## Zoe (28 Feb 2018)

I've just ordered my tank - Fluval Spec V, I'm intending to wait until mid this month - next month to get the substrate and plants, is it possible to get my filter cycling in the mean time? 

What is the best method? (Please feel free to point me at existing threads if they're out there)


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## mantozhke (28 Feb 2018)

Bucket. Water. Raw fish peace. Filter ON 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Angus (28 Feb 2018)

Set it all up once you have everything you need if you add the substrate after cycling you will just make a mess and ruin the tanks equilibrium.

Substrate rocks wood and plants first, and then cycle the tank.

i know you are using tropica aqua soil, i don't know if it gives off ammonia like ADA soil, but if it does, then you can use that to cycle your filter media, it takes a few weeks, if tropica soil doesn't release ammonia you can just buy some pure ammonia to cycle the tank, it would be good to go and read a few articles on the nitrogen cycle of aquariums, and how ammonia gets converted to nitrite and nitrate, you will understand a bit more then.


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## Furgan (1 Mar 2018)

What about using the filter in a friends tank for a couple of weeks


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## Zoe (1 Mar 2018)

Furgan said:


> What about using the filter in a friends tank for a couple of weeks


Not an option I’m afraid


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## Zoe (1 Mar 2018)

fozziebear said:


> Set it all up once you have everything you need if you add the substrate after cycling you will just make a mess and ruin the tanks equilibrium.
> 
> Substrate rocks wood and plants first, and then cycle the tank.
> 
> i know you are using tropica aqua soil, i don't know if it gives off ammonia like ADA soil, but if it does, then you can use that to cycle your filter media, it takes a few weeks, if tropica soil doesn't release ammonia you can just buy some pure ammonia to cycle the tank, it would be good to go and read a few articles on the nitrogen cycle of aquariums, and how ammonia gets converted to nitrite and nitrate, you will understand a bit more then.


I don't recall seeing anywhere that it releases ammonia, I have read up on this but there's a lot of contradicting opinions.


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## mow said (1 Mar 2018)

when i cycled my 60l tank 2 years ago i used kleen off household ammonia and testing kits. It does take time weeks or more than a month. If you can get cycled media from a fish store then that would work wonders but if you cannot then just use the ammonia and some tests kits. I provided some link to follow. kleen off Ammonia has 10%  strength .

1) First you need to know how many litres of water are in your tank. This is easy – measure the height, width and length in centimetres and multiply those figures together and then divide by 1000 (or use the calculator on the right). For example a tank measuring 100cm by 50cm by 30cm would hold 150 litres. If you have a lot of substrate and décor in your tank you need to take 10-20% off your calculated figure to allow for this.
2) Use the ammonia calculator at the bottom of the page to work out the amount of ammonia in millilitres (ml) to introduce and add it to the tank.
3) The following day use the ammonia test kit to measure the ammonia in the tank.If it’s below 3ppm (parts per million) use the ammonia calculator below to calculate how much ammonia to add to bring the level back to 3ppm. It may take several days before you see a significant drop.
4) Repeat step 3 every day. This process is to start the cycle off (the initial bacterial growth) and keep the bacteria alive by feeding them ammonia at the correct concentrations in the tank water.
5) After about a week you can start to test for nitrite in the water. Ammonia is converted to Nitrite in the first part of the cycle so when you can detect it, it means the cycle has started.
6) Continue testing for ammonia every day. Whenever it drops below 3ppm add enough ammonia to bring the level back up to 3ppm using the calculator to obtain the correct dose. Also test for nitrite every other day. You should see nitrite rise and then start falling after a few weeks.
7) Start testing for Nitrate after a few weeks. Nitrate is the last part of the process where the bacteria convert the nitrite to nitrate. When the test kit starts showing a fall in the nitrites you should see a rise in the nitrates.

http://www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kleen-Of...hash=item35c46e6184:m:md6R6rBSZaNmueoCkf9cSaA
http://spec-tanks.com/how-to-fishless-cycle-a-new-aquarium/


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## Zoe (1 Mar 2018)

mow said said:


> when i cycled my 60l tank 2 years ago i used kleen off household ammonia and testing kits. It does take time weeks or more than a month. If you can get cycled media from a fish store then that would work wonders but if you cannot then just use the ammonia and some tests kits. I provided some link to follow. kleen off Ammonia has 10%  strength .
> 
> 1) First you need to know how many litres of water are in your tank. This is easy – measure the height, width and length in centimetres and multiply those figures together and then divide by 1000 (or use the calculator on the right). For example a tank measuring 100cm by 50cm by 30cm would hold 150 litres. If you have a lot of substrate and décor in your tank you need to take 10-20% off your calculated figure to allow for this.
> 2) Use the ammonia calculator at the bottom of the page to work out the amount of ammonia in millilitres (ml) to introduce and add it to the tank.
> ...



Thank you, that was really, really helpful!


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## dw1305 (1 Mar 2018)

Hi all, 
You can try cycling the filter in a bare tank with ammonia, it can work and for people who keep bare tanks they don't have any alternative, but you're honestly better off planting the tank up and then letting the plants grow in. 

Cycling is a contentious issue, but all the recent research points to the traditional linear view of cycling being incorrect, mainly because the organisms that were thought to be the major nitrifying organisms in aquarium filters aren't actually present.  Have a look at <"cycling without plants"> & <"Beginner planted ....">.

cheers Darrel


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## foxfish (2 Mar 2018)

I would not bother trying to get you filter established before you set up your tank, like others have said you can just plant up your tank and start your filter the same day. There is no need to add ammonia.
As long as you don’t intend to add any livestock & carry out regular water changes, then the plants will do the rest & the filter will mature over a few weeks.


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## Zoe (2 Mar 2018)

Ok, so the choices are planted with no ammonia added or bare with ammonia added? I may just go for planted and see how we go, I'm not fussed about waiting, I was expecting to wait a good few months to get the filter ready!

Sadly my tank was supposed to be in today but I'm doubtful it'll get to the store, not that I can get to the store with this snow!!


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## Angus (2 Mar 2018)

you can still ammonia cycle the tank with plants and hardscape in, you will just have to go a lot lower than 3ppm, probably around 1ppm which is what the ADA aquasoil releases each day with 50% daily water changes.

I would be worried about just setting the tank up and letting the filter go for a few weeks without ammonia, it might not be fully cycled, but you could do this and add a light fish load at first (1/4th to 1/5th of your total stocking) whilst carrying out daily water changes of 25-50% for the first week or 2 depending on ammonia and nitrite test results.

Do you have any friends with mature filter media? that would be the absolute best way to set up a tank, nick some of their ceramic media or bio balls.


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## dw1305 (2 Mar 2018)

Hi all,
Snowy here as well. 





Zoe said:


> Ok, so the choices are planted with no ammonia added or bare with ammonia added?


Yes pretty much.





fozziebear said:


> I would be worried about just setting the tank up and letting the filter go for a few weeks without ammonia, it might not be fully cycled, but you could do this and add a light fish load at first (1/4th to 1/5th of your total stocking) whilst carrying out daily water changes of 25-50% for the first week or 2 depending on ammonia and nitrite test results.


I think adding the fish a few at time is always a good idea. 

You honestly don't need the ammonia, the two problems are that the microbial assemblages you get with high ammonia loading aren't the same as the ones you get in established biofilters, and that measuring monovalent ions is more problematic than most people imagine. 

Most of the discussion of cycling on forums etc. vastly underestimates the contribution of plants to biological filtration and is based around ammonia levels and water testing. 

We are interested in ammonia (NH3) and nitrite (NO2) because they are toxic to fish and shrimps, but in terms of the biological filtration processes the availability of oxygen is much more important. 

Have a look at <"Japanese Bonsai....."> and <"Do I need to cycle...."> & links.

cheers Darrel


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## Angus (2 Mar 2018)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all,
> Snowy here as well.


Understatement of the century... haha


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## Zoe (2 Mar 2018)

fozziebear said:


> you can still ammonia cycle the tank with plants and hardscape in, you will just have to go a lot lower than 3ppm, probably around 1ppm which is what the ADA aquasoil releases each day with 50% daily water changes.
> 
> I would be worried about just setting the tank up and letting the filter go for a few weeks without ammonia, it might not be fully cycled, but you could do this and add a light fish load at first (1/4th to 1/5th of your total stocking) whilst carrying out daily water changes of 25-50% for the first week or 2 depending on ammonia and nitrite test results.
> 
> Do you have any friends with mature filter media? that would be the absolute best way to set up a tank, nick some of their ceramic media or bio balls.


No one I know has a tank!


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## Angus (2 Mar 2018)

So you have 2 options.. a light ammonia cycle with plants, which is tricky to get the right PPM, or set up the whole tank with plants and everything else leave it 2 weeks, and then add fish in small amounts with gaps inbetween for the filter to build up the appropriate bacteria, start with the cheapest fish first as the first fish added will be at the highest risk of mortality.


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## Angus (2 Mar 2018)

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/cycling-a-planted-tank.23546/ another interesting thread to read for you on the cycling in a planted tank issues.  Regards, Gus.


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## dw1305 (2 Mar 2018)

Hi all,





fozziebear said:


> or set up the whole tank with plants and everything else leave it 2 weeks


I'd leave it longer, and make sure you have some floating plants, they aren't CO2 limited, so can make use of all the available nutrients in the water column. I like <"Amazon Frogbit">, but there are other options. Have a look at <"Questions about new tank">.

Diana Walstad talks a lot about the <"aerial advantage"> in <"her book">, if you don't have a copy it is well worth getting one. 





fozziebear said:


> read for you on the cycling in a planted tank issues


We have quite  a few cycling threads.

cheers Darrel


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## Angus (2 Mar 2018)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all,I'd leave it longer, and make sure you have some floating plants, they aren't CO2 limited, so can make use of all the available nutrients in the water column. I like <"Amazon Frogbit">, but there are other options. Have a look at <"Questions about new tank">.
> 
> Diana Walstad talks a lot about the <"aerial advantage"> in <"her book">, if you don't have a copy it is well worth getting one.
> 
> cheers Darrel


The problem with doing it for longer than 2 weeks and not adding fish if you are not adding ammonia, is that the plants and filter bacteria will exhaust their resources and you get a "dip" before you add fish, which can lead to the filter bacteria dieing off due to a lack of "food" for want of a better term.

So at 2 weeks, you are almost at the perfect point to add some urea producing fish, because the tank is naturally exhausting its resources to build up bacteria inside the filter already.

Effectively we are talking about a "fish in" cycle, if you are not adding any extra ammonia.

i always cycled quite short compared to some, i know some guys that cycle for a month.


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## foxfish (2 Mar 2018)

I cant understand why anyone would add fish expecting them to die!"!!!!!!!!!"!"!"!"!"!"!
I thought we liked fish?
And why on this earth would you want to deliberately add a toxic substance when there is no need to?
Darrel has explained that there is no need to add ammonia.


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## Angus (2 Mar 2018)

i'm not saying i would add fish without cycling first, what i am saying, is that if you are not adding ammonia, compost, or ada soil, then you are not really cycling the tank, and once you add fish that will effectively be the propper beginning of your cycle process.

If i am wrong or this information is out of date, i would really like to learn what has changed in the understanding of cycling with plants and substrate in the tank.


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## sciencefiction (2 Mar 2018)

Zoe said:


> I've just ordered my tank - Fluval Spec V, I'm intending to wait until mid this month - next month to get the substrate and plants, is it possible to get my filter cycling in the mean time?



I am going to be jumped at as usual because of saying that again....I've cycled with ammonia many times. One of my old tanks was first cycled empty with filters and ammonia, then I added the substrate and plants and fish almost at the same time, never read any ammonia or nitrite despite getting stocked fully.  I can't tell you what type of microbes develop while cycling with ammonia, but whatever they are, they keep going strong when fish are added....

The trick about ammonia cycling is not to add any more than 3ppm. Do not add anymore ammonia until the initial dose has gone down to zero, only then re-dose.  Do not let the KH drop to zero, do water changes if needed which will naturally bring it up. Do not let nitrites get out of hand during the nitrite stage, do water changes to bring them back down and re-dose ammonia when it gets down to zero. Follow this until the ammonia dose of 3ppm and subsequent nitrites have gone down to zero in 24hrs. It takes 3 weeks, in worse case scenario 4 weeks. Do a 100% water change. Then stock the tank fully with whatever you want providing your new soil does not leach ammonia also...


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## foxfish (2 Mar 2018)

But why?
It has been established that you don't need to add ammonia to a planted tank for the cycle to take place.


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## sciencefiction (2 Mar 2018)

foxfish said:


> But why?
> It has been established that you don't need to add ammonia to a planted tank for the cycle to take place.



The OP's tank is a new tank. They'll be waiting for substrate and plants, one might as well cycle the tank till then. 
The power of plants in a new set up is exaggerated....You've got to go really slow on stock and you have to make sure your plants are growing really well before adding stock, a lot more complicated and unforgiving if you have fish, and get the plant part wrong.....


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## Angus (2 Mar 2018)

I read the threads that darrel posted and i see merits to the concept, but in my opinion without a propper seed to simulate the bioload of the tank when stocked, you are not actually cycling the tank it just goes against everything i have learned about fishkeeping, and when you introduce a bioload to the tank it will result in a lack of capacity in the bacteria that are present in the aquarium(substrate filter and plants), the plants will do a good 50% of the work for you, as long as they are mature and have developed some good roots, which can take a week onwards, but i am not confident in their ability to make up the shortfall, and large water changes would be a necessity.


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## sciencefiction (2 Mar 2018)

I am not disputing Darrel's information. I just think it is a speculation to say that an ammonia cycled tank develops the wrong type of microbes, especially considering anecdotal evidence/experience pointing to the contrary.  Also, no-one knows what the type of established bacteria/archaea is in their particular tanks. 

However, no matter how you call it or decorate with words, a planted soil tank, with ammonia leaching from the soil is pretty much an ammonia fishless cycle, with that difference you can't control the levels of ammonia.....

Between the soil leaching ammonia, taking up huge amounts of oxygen due to decomposition of organics and plants not yet being established, I am pretty certain a lot of people's initial fish didn't last long after that....especially if the tank was started from scratch with new filters....If you start an inert substrate planted tank, the only back up are the plants. Some people take up a year to master plant growth.....It is easy to say from the perspective of experienced plant keepers that all you need is plants and water....

There's one of my old tanks I had just cycled with ammonia and added kuhli loaches to it. This was happening 5 years ago.  It was not a new tank at the time but the original population and filtration was moved to another tank so I ended up cycling this one with ammonia.

As you can see on the video, I had placed a few plants in there at the start but the light over the tank was way too low to grow anything at all besides anubias, so the plants packed bags eventually.The kuhli loaches were a new purchase I added straight after cycling the tank, and are still alive 5 years later. I had only cycled it for 3 weeks empty, with ammonia.


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## ian_m (2 Mar 2018)

There are other cheaper sources of ammonia that work well.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160314022344/http://skepticalaquarist.com/fishless-cycling
Its a real shame this site has gone as it was a really good source of "manufacturer free" & practical information.

Also if you have to add fish to a new uncycled tank, like my mate had to when his tank split, emptied all water onto floor and filter with no cooling water burnt out, either do daily water changes or use something like Prime/AmQuel to remove ammonia & nitrite daily. Works well, though difficult to test for ammonia due to interference from Prime. Eventually you do get positive nitrate results indicating it is all working.


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## sciencefiction (2 Mar 2018)

On a scientific level:

_Digestion of ammonia-oxidizer SSU rDNA with five restriction enzymes showed that a *high ammonium level *resulted in a great community structure change that *was reversible* once the ammonium concentration was returned to its original level. The smaller changes in community structure brought about by the two *pH extremes*, however, *were irreversible.*_

As for toxic ammonia levels, same study says the following:
_
Nitrifying bacteria exhibit different substrate concentration sensitivities (26). Media containing low substrate concentrations (10 mg of NH4+ liter−1) can give larger most-probable-number counts of ammonia oxidizers than media containing higher NH4+ concentrations (6, 26). Also, ammonia oxidation is inhibited at high substrate concentrations. The growth rates of Nitrosomonas spp. cultures were reduced in the presence of 1,050 to 2,800 mg of NH4+-N liter−1

In environments with high inputs of ammonium, such as wastewaters, biooxidation of this substrate increases the oxygen uptake and lowers the pH. Such modifications of the environment not only affect the production of nitrite and nitrate but can also select a different nitrifying community that is perhaps specialized for these new conditions. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC106468/
_
So basically, the change in nitrifying microbes was brought by pH extremes(irreversible) and not by high ammonia levels(reversible). Plus the extremes in ammonia mentioned 

Hence in a fishless cycle it is important to never let the KH and thus the pH drop. Anyone that has done enough fishless cycles knows nitrification stalls when that happens. According to the above study, it doesn't just stall but totally different nitrifying bacteria gets established...Problem is, you're still going to use your clean tap water for water changes, so not letting the KH going down to zero and pH cras while cycling is the way to go....Even without knowing the science behind it, fishless cycling fish keepers have come to the same conclusion...


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## Zeus. (2 Mar 2018)

I cycled my FX6 with a big tub of water and added some urine every few days did it for quite a few weeks whilst doing a DSM, added a few fish flakes occasionally also, no heaters OFC


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## dw1305 (2 Mar 2018)

Hi all, 





fozziebear said:


> The problem with doing it for longer than 2 weeks and not adding fish if you are not adding ammonia, is that the plants and filter bacteria will exhaust their resources and you get a "dip" before you add fish, which can lead to the filter bacteria dieing off due to a lack of "food" for want of a better term.


This is really the point, you always sources of ammonia in the aquarium, as proteins are denatured they are split into their constituent amino acids and as these are further degraded ammonia is released. Fish are an obvious source of ammonia, but chlorophyll is also protein rich, and decomposition processes will release this. Fixed nitrogen (so nitrogen that isn't in the form of N2 gas) is a scarce and patchy resource in natural ecosystems and the organisms that rely on it are adapted to a "boom and bust" existence. 

Have a look at <"New High Tech Setup..."> 





fozziebear said:


> i'm not saying i would add fish without cycling first, what i am saying, is that if you are not adding ammonia, compost, or ada soil, then you are not really cycling the tank, and once you add fish that will effectively be the propper beginning of your cycle process


This is still looking at ammonia as the most important factor in biological filtration, but it isn't oxygen is,  scientists talk about Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) because it quantifies the total amount of pollution. Cycling is an ongoing process, and it never really starts or stops, the more complex ecosystems are the more resilient they become. If you think of cycling as a web, rather than a linear process (with a switch from "non-cycled" to "cycled"), it becomes easier to visualise whether systems are likely to maintain water quality. 

If we look at BOD values, clean rivers have a 5 day BOD value of about 1 mg/L, and at 8mg/L they are heavily polluted, and raw sewage averages about 400mg/L. You can only get about 8 mg/L of oxygen into aquarium water (warm water holds less dissolved gases) so you can see that if you want to treat the ammonia in sewage that, as well as a community of nitrifying organisms, you need to constantly replenish the oxygen. We can actually treat sewage with a relatively small volume of bacteria if we get enough oxygen into it. Normally we add air (~21% oxygen), but we can improve the efficiency of nitrification by adding pure oxygen (O2) (like plants do via photosynthesis). 

A relatively small wet and dry trickle filter has much more nitrification potential than a big canister filter, mainly because the amount of oxygen that enters the canister is finite, and it can't be replenished in a sealed container. Wet and dry trickle filters have huge gas exchange surfaces, and that is really why they are so good. You can improve a wet and dry trickle filter by planting it, and there is a lot of scientific work on this for effluent treatment using <"Constructed Wetlands">. 

You can make your canister filter even less efficient by stuffing it with media so that it can fulfill the anaerobic denitrification arc (converting NO3 to N2 gas). I'm not even going there, that is a sure recipe for eventual disaster  





sciencefiction said:


> and you have to make sure your plants are growing really well before adding stock,





fozziebear said:


> but i am not confident in their ability to make up the shortfall, and large water changes would be a necessity.


These are important points, plants only work to improve water quality when they are growing. Submerged plants are CO2 limited, but a floating or emergent plant aren't, when you add a floating plant it starts working straight away. Floating plants are widely used in <"sewage treatment etc."> in warmer regions, because of their high potential growth rates.





sciencefiction said:


> In environments with high inputs of ammonium, such as wastewaters, biooxidation of this substrate increases the oxygen uptake and lowers the pH. Such modifications of the environment not only affect the production of nitrite and nitrate but can also select a different nitrifying community that is perhaps specialized for these new conditions.





sciencefiction said:


> I just think it is a speculation to say that an ammonia cycled tank develops the wrong type of microbes, especially considering anecdotal evidence/experience pointing to the contrary. Also, no-one knows what the type of established bacteria/archaea is in their particular tanks.





sciencefiction said:


> According to the above study, it doesn't just stall but totally different nitrifying bacteria gets established..


That is right, but I'm pretty sure the community we want is the community is specialised for these new conditions. 

I don't know what organisms I have in my tanks, I don't know what the BOD is and I don't know what the exact water parameters are, and nor does any-one else who keeps an aquarium. I could potentially get a snap shot of BOD, dissolved oxygen and reasonably accurate chemical parameter values because I have access to analytical kit in the lab., but even that would only be a snap-shot, and I don't have access to any RNA analysis techniques.    

Before the development of RNA libraries we were reliant on culturing bacteria (from sewage treatment etc) to find out what organisms were involved in nitrification, which led to many of the assumptions about aquarium cycling that we now know to be incorrect. It isn't surprising, if you look at raw sewage it is a very different medium, from even very polluted, aquarium water. Dr Tim Hovanec talks about this is in <"Bacteria revealed">, and there are a number of papers specifically on the nitrifying organisms in aquarium filters which suggest that their assemblage shows a fluid response to varying ammonia loadings, with a stable core of archaea and an ever changing cast of nitrifying bacteria. This is described in <"Freshwater Recirculating Aquaculture System Operations Drive Biofilter Bacterial Community Shifts around a Stable Nitrifying Consortium of Ammonia-Oxidizing _Archaea_ and Comammox _Nitrospira"_>.

cheers Darrel


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## sciencefiction (2 Mar 2018)

dw1305 said:


> This is described in <"Freshwater Recirculating Aquaculture System Operations Drive Biofilter Bacterial Community Shifts around a Stable Nitrifying Consortium of Ammonia-Oxidizing _Archaea_ and Comammox _Nitrospira"_>.



A nice read. Thanks. There is a bit more on Nitrite oxidising bacteria below, also species dependence on pH.
http://aem.asm.org/content/82/6/1838.full.pdf



dw1305 said:


> If you think of cycling as a web, rather than a linear process (with a switch from "non-cycled" to "cycled"), it becomes easier to visualise whether systems are likely to maintain water quality.



Well I don't think of a cycle as a linear process, neither am I one of the people thinking my cycled  tank has zero ammonia 

I can't access the full article, just a portion, but this is what it says about the cycling phase "being over" in relation to recirculating aquaculture systems(RAS)

_This study showed that bacterial activity was not a straightforward predictable parameter in the waterphase as e.g. nitrate-N would be in identical RAS, and showed unexpected sudden changes/fluctuations wthin specific RAS. However, a bacterial activity stabilization phase was observed as systems mature and reached equilibrium, *suggesting a successive transition from fragile to robust microbial community compositions.
*_
http://orbit.dtu.dk/en/publications...ms(adcf8667-f52d-487f-9b1d-0b8c0812ca9f).html


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## sciencefiction (2 Mar 2018)

dw1305 said:


> These are important points, plants only work to improve water quality when they are growing. Submerged plants are CO2 limited, but a floating or emergent plant aren't, when you add a floating plant it starts working straight away. Floating plants are widely used in <"sewage treatment etc."> in warmer regions, because of their high potential growth rates.



Yes, that's pretty much the best way to utilise plants. I am a total convert of emersed plants via submerged due to CO2 and even light limitations.
If I place the emersed growth I have over my mini pond inside the tank, the plants will probably fill it right now, and are more than likely higher than the tank itself. So I'd call this big plant mass.  But being outside the water, the maintenance they need is almost zero...No fuss, and happy fish. I don't have to worry about gassing my fish with CO2 either...My plants also have access to direct natural light...


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## dw1305 (2 Mar 2018)

Hi all, 





sciencefiction said:


> There is a bit more on Nitrite oxidising bacteria below, also species dependence on pH.


I don't know much <"about _Nitrotoga_ spp">, other than they are more abundant in colder temperatures. I would suspect that we've only touched the surface with microbial diversity, and that the more people look the more they will find.

I don't have access to "Bacterial activity dynamics in the water phase during start-up of recirculating aquaculture systems" either.  It is another novel technique for investigating microbial diversity using enzyme activity. 





sciencefiction said:


> suggesting a successive transition from fragile to robust microbial community compositions


 It is back to "good things come to those who wait" I would love to know what the microbial dynamics of an aquarium system are, and the time scale for the development of a robust microbial community, and I expect that some-one will attempt to quantify these for aquaculture, probably for salmonid culture, due to their high water quality (particularly dissolved oxygen) requirements.

cheers Darrel.


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## Zoe (3 Mar 2018)

Picked up my tank today  have decided to cycle it with the plants in, so just got to find some wood that I like and that fits now!


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