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Yoghurt and cycling

brumbird

Member
Joined
11 Feb 2014
Messages
69
Hey folks

I am sorry if this is in the wrong place, but I wanted to confirm whether yoghurt (which I used to paint on some wood to grow moss) is going to affect bacterial growth in my filter? I'm cycling with a good chunk of mature media but nothings moving and I wondered if the yoghurt.might be doing something to affect it?

Any advice gratefully received :)
 
Thanks for the reassurance! I spose I'll just have to be patient :)
 
Hi
I would think that the yogurt method would probably only work well in a DSM set up, so putting in aquarium filled with water probably wouldn't be worth doing. But having said that, I can't see the yogurt doing anything bad to the water, as it would be so dilute.

I'm cycling with a good chunk of mature media but nothings moving
Can you be more specific, what's not moving?

Fern
 
Sorry I have been very vague! I used the yoghurt for a DSM technique but I only left it a week before I put it in the tank.
The nitrogen results aren't moving ie ammonia isn't going down etc. I've just got to be patient!
 
Ah ok!
You say ammonia isn't going down, and nitrogen results aren't moving, are you testing with a kit? If you are I would just forget the results, stop testing, and continue with large daily water changes. Are you adding ammonia to cycle? If you are I would forget that too, I'm assuming you don't have any livestock yet, and just have plants, let the plants do their job
 
I'm using the fishless cycling technique using ammonia and testing - how do you cycle a tank without ammonia? Will it still grow sufficient numbers of nitrosomona and nitrobacter to deal with a fully.stocked tank?
 
hey, below is a post by clive in another thread that will explain things a little...

quote -
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 ofthose 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?
31b3veIeo5L._AA160_.jpg

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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Well Brumbird, basically plants consume ammonia and nitrate as nitrogen source, there is no need to build up nitrifying bacteria as long as there are enough plants growing well from the start. You can choose quick growing plants that will do their job and can be replaced with something else later, if you wish.
Cycling is all about building up “something” that can prevent deadly levels of ammonia and nitrites in the water, plants do this very well This then allows you to add fish, a small shoal, and build up gradually if you wish. With time, there will always be a natural build-up of bacteria in the filter with or without our help
You just have to make sure you do large daily water changes for a week or too, and then every few days, then a couple of times a week, keep lighting lowish, and feed your plants!

Ah, beaten to it while eating lunch lol
 
Brumbird, things work a little differently over here with regards to cycling. I can provide further details later when I am not at work and trying to sneek using these forums! :)

LOL, it's a struggle switching between the two sites isn't it!! :D
 
LOL, it's a struggle switching between the two sites isn't it!! :D

Yep. :)

I accpet what Clive and others say on cycling (and again I think we have to remember that this is a forum dedicated to planted tanks) but can you imagine trying to suggest this on PFK!

Let alone dumping the test kits. :D
 
Yet another falls for the "fishless cycling" matrix myth and wonder why things don't work, them nicely sterilising their tanks adding ammonia.

"Fishless" cycling | The Skeptical Aquarist

Years ago (pre-1999) I remember reading about people would put pots of garden soil in the tank to provide a bacterial start or even leave their washed gravel/sand outside in a bucket for a week or two before putting in the tank, in order to "seed" the filters.
 
Well.... this approach feels like a sort of gentler, more elegant refinement of the basic principle. People on this site are as much gardeners as pet owners, if not more, so it stands to reason that the focus will be different.

I think PFKs approach is to hammer home the basics and get peoples tanks ready for fish asap, there are still so many fish keepers out there who don't know about any of this and I get the impression that this is their priority on the PFK forum
 
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["ian_m, post: 337694, member: 8584"]Yet another falls for the "fishless cycling" matrix myth and wonder why things don't work, them nicely sterilising their tanks adding ammonia.

"Fishless" cycling | The Skeptical Aquarist

Years ago (pre-1999) I remember reading about people would put pots of garden soil in the tank to provide a bacterial start or even leave their washed gravel/sand outside in a bucket for a week or two before putting in the tank, in order to "seed" the filters.[/quote]

I used ammonia in my first tank and have not experienced any problems.... what sort of thing are we talking about?

Tanks
 
I used ammonia in my first tank and have not experienced any problems.... what sort of thing are we talking about?
People pile in ammonia and wonder why they have continuous and repeated nitrite issues. It is because the ammonia is killing the very bacteria that they are trying to grow.

Much better ways are :-
- Be patient let it all happen naturally, maybe 6 weeks.
- Be not so patient, but with frequent water changes.
- Use 2nd hand substrate and/or filter media.
 
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