I'm not personally a fan of adding ammonia. I like <"plant the tank and wait"> until the plants are grown in method. The advantages of this are that you get a microbial assemblage that is more relevant to the ammonia level in the tank and you have all the advantages of a planted tank when you eventually add livestock.
I liked the ammonia method as I found it very easy to work (It was my first ever tank cycling) with and it is definitely fast. I dumped 15 mbunas in the tank as soon as I could once the cycle was over. Can't do that with other methods.
No, you can't. This it is a circumstance where <"ammonia based cycling"> maybe your only option. The issue for me would be that the canister filter is then a single point of failure and that <"eventual disaster is inevitable"> if you don't add some more nitrification capacity.
I have a cheap diy overhead sump just large enough to hold 2 of my BCBS in a chamber so that mechanically filtered water just flows around it not through it. The baskets have spacers underneath so that water flows around it (top right left and bottom too). Anoxic filteration "bugs" kick in after 2/3 months and I'm waiting for it as those bugs gotta do a lot of work .. because my tap water has 40/80ppm nitrates. So any water changes I do doesn't reduce nitrates in both my tanks. We'll see what happens. Point of failures are the pumps pumping water in the sump. 2 of them. 4" coral gravel substrate with slow water moving plenum underneath.
I would very strongly recommend adding some plants, would a floating one (like Nile Cabbage (Pistia stratiotes)) work with your over tank filter (is there enough light?).
cheers Darrel
I used bottled drinking water (20 liter cans) initially .. while cycling the nitrates were never more than 10ppm but I found out later that expensive water had high nitrites! So I switched back to tap water. I have Coontail in mind. Might keep some in a mesh bag in the sump. Yes there is light but the chamber in the SUMP is not that big. We'll see.Hi all,
I would very strongly recommend adding some plants, would a floating one (like Nile Cabbage (Pistia stratiotes)) work with your over tank filter (is there enough light?).
It isn't that the anaerobic denitrification of NO3- and out-gassing as N2 gas doesn't work, it can do, but the advantage of plant growth is that it allows you to <"see how much fixed nitrogen is being removed from the water"> in plant growth.
This picture <"from earlier in the thread"> suggests to me that the "biocenosis buckets" are working mainly by conventional aerobic nitrification, which isn't going to help you with nitrate (NO3-) reduction, but it will help reduce ammonia (NH3) and nitrite (NO2-) levels.
This is from <"Optimization of the phytoremediation conditions of wastewater in post-treatment by Eichhornia crassipes and Pistia stratiotes: kinetic model for pollutants removal">.
cheers Darrel
<"I like Ceratophyllum demersum"> (Hornwort or Coontail). It wouldn't be as efficient as a surface floating plant, because it doesn't have access to atmospheric CO2.
