Cyanobacteria problems

[petr nehyba]

Cyano seems to be sorted at the moment.
my NO2 doesnt move though. know u dont fancy measuring but what else i can do now? NO2=1.2 since. I stopped adding ammonia.

now please, how to continue?
a big water change and add fish slowly? My plants have been in the tank for about 50 days now and 90% r established and fine (I forgot to mention Java fern&moss). Is No2 gonna get undetectable after a water change?

or adding ammonia about 2ppm and wait for the No2 to drop and finish the nitrogen cycle in a planted tank? Is that actually gonna happen if I sterilized bacteria using hydrogen peroxide? In case I did, is that process going to continue naturaly and the BB will develop again? I saw a post where ceg4048 said u kill the BB with house ammonia as its highly toxic. also mentioning this ammonia is not good for plants either?

I really dont want to harm any fish but also dont want continue trying to achieve something not very appropriate for a planted tank?!

I have read all what you recommended but still not sure what way to choose for this tank?! ur advice is much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Petr

 

[Henry]

I'd throw in some floating plants and give it a week, dosing ferts at your normal rate (if any). This will help to stabilise the tank, but allow your other plants to keep up. I'd then start slowly adding fish, less sensitive ones first.

 

[ceg4048]

The course of action is to do nothing. You are responding and worrying about a test kit reading that means nothing. Stop adding ammonia and be patient. There is no reason to do anything. Throw the test kit away because the only thing you are doing is confusing yourself and making your life more inconvenient than it needs to be. Once you stop doing crazy things like adding ammonia to the tank, the tank will recover. It doesn't surprise me at all that you have these weird problems.

Do you recognize products like this?


They are really good at cleaning and killing bacteria on hard surfaces. The reason they work so well is because the active killing ingredient is ammonia salts like ammonium chloride. Ammonia kills bacteria, and is referred to as a disinfectant, even the bacteria that eats ammonia. So when you continue to add ammonia to your tank you are killing the very same bacteria you are trying to propagate, so stop doing it and allow the tank to recover naturally. Avoid adding fauna for at least another few weeks and just let the tank be. Continue to do large frequent water changes, feed the plants, pay attention to CO2/flow/distribution, and that's all. You do not need to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The more you fiddle with the tank, the more extreme your problems will become. Get on with the technique of growing plants and forget about all that other rubbish.

Cheers,

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I'd throw in some floating plants and give it a week, dosing ferts at your normal rate (if any). This will help to stabilise the tank, but allow your other plants to keep up. I'd then start slowly adding fish, less sensitive ones first.

Sounds a good approach to me.

my NO2 doesnt move though. know u dont fancy measuring but what else i can do now? NO2=1.2 since. I stopped adding ammonia.

Realistically you can just ignore it, the reading may be NO2- ions, or it may be another anion.

a big water change and add fish slowly? My plants have been in the tank for about 50 days now and 90% r established and fine (I forgot to mention Java fern&moss).

They are slow growing plants so I'd still add the fish fairly slowly.

Is No2 gonna get undetectable after a water change?

You won't have any NO2, but you may still get some colour on the test kit, if it is measuring another anion.

also mentioning this ammonia is not good for plants either?

Ammonia (NH3) is toxic to all organisms, the ammonium ion NH4+ is less toxic, but still damaging at large concentrations. A lot of plants preferentially uptake ammonia/ammonium as their nitrogen source, but there is a huge difference between the traces of NH3/NH4+ that are constantly diffusing from aquatic organisms (aquatic organisms can excrete ammonia because of the dilution effect of the water, but terrestrial organisms can't, and excrete the much less toxic urea or uric acid) and adding a concentrated dose of ammonia in a single hit.

In a planted tank we don't just rely on the filter bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrite and then nitrate, we have the plants themselves which take up all 3 nitrogenous compounds, and we also have a lot more surfaces where nitrification can occur. As a general rule plant/microbe systems are about x10 more efficient than microbe alone systems, partially because of the oxygen evolved from plants during photosynthesis.

cheers Darrel

 

[petr nehyba]

Im following ur advice which is greatly appreciated.

just one question yet. what u saying doesnt mean I (my fish) depend on my plants totally (even though we all depend on plants since the very beginning on earth actually). i mean the bio filter (i mean the Beneficial Bacteria, just in case not using the right expression) will still take place and develop in the tank and in case my plants suddenly die (the last think I would want) the bio filter will somehow exist in the tank anyway (even partly) without plants and manage to keep my fish happy?! In other words the cycling will proceed even without putting any source of ammonia into the tank?! Its having plants enough or do I need fish to arrive with their ammonia to start the cycle?! I just would like to know if the nitrogen cycle is done before adding fish or not?! sorry if i sound silly. dont want to be difficult and If I missed whats been already said I apology.

PS: its almost scary to think nutrafin is selling expensive NO2 test (im having second for No2, got NH3, NO3, PO4, PH, GH/KH) about £70 which r being useless?! Is it really possible u can see the results on No2 showing another anion?! well if there is just a 10% a chance of this, Id really love to go with plants rather than stick to measuring. for the money i spent for kits i could have some really nice lovely ones 🙂 I guess PH & Hardness is ok though?! do u folks measure anything?!

many thanks
P

 

[ceg4048]

PS: its almost scary to think nutrafin is selling expensive NO2 test (im having second for No2, got NH3, NO3, PO4, PH, GH/KH) about £70 which r being useless?

Why is this scary? This is business as usual. How many products you see advertised actually do what they claim. These kits are useless for different reasons. The Nitrogen and Phosphorous kits are completely useless because they are easily fooled by other components in the water. The pH, GH and KH kits are more or less accurate, but they are useless because they measure things that don't really matter. So the best thing for you to do right now is to ignore them and to do the basic things that a planted tanks needs doing, those things that I mentioned above. Make your plants healthy by paying attention to those items and you will see that none of the readings in any of those kits will tell you more that you can see with your own eyes. You have already proven it to yourself if you added NO3 which resulted in an abatement of the BGA despite what the NO3 test kit readings were. Algae is more accurate than test kits, and unlike test kits, algae never lie.

In other words the cycling will proceed even without putting any source of ammonia into the tank?! Its having plants enough or do I need fish to arrive with their ammonia to start the cycle?! I just would like to know if the nitrogen cycle is done before adding fish or not?

Of course it will happen. It can't possibly not happen unless you continue to dump toxic waste products like ammonia into the tank. ANY water placed in ANY container automatically develops bacterial colonies over time. It's the law. Ordinarily, it takes 6-8 weeks to develop the variety and the population densities required to detoxify the tank. Plants and bacteria have a symbiotic relationship. They have an arrangement, so if you have healthy plants you automatically have healthy bacterial colonies, both in the filter and in the sediment. YOU DON'T NEED AMMONIA to accomplish this....EVER.

As I mentioned, just leave the tank to it's devices and carry on with the maintenance and feeding. They will take care of everything as they have done for billions of years.

Cheers,

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

just one question yet. what u saying doesnt mean I (my fish) depend on my plants totally (even though we all depend on plants since the very beginning on earth actually). i mean the bio filter (i mean the Beneficial Bacteria, just in case not using the right expression) will still take place and develop in the tank and in case my plants suddenly die (the last think I would want) the bio filter will somehow exist in the tank anyway (even partly) without plants and manage to keep my fish happy?! In other words the cycling will proceed even without putting any source of ammonia into the tank?!

Your plants aren't all going to die suddenly, but yes it would, a lot of nitrification doesn't take place in the filter, it happens in the upper layer of the substrate for example. Microbial communities are much more fluid and diverse than the conventional description would have us believe.

its almost scary to think nutrafin is selling expensive NO2 test (im having second for No2, got NH3, NO3, PO4, PH, GH/KH) about £70 which r being useless?

In my opinion the manufacturers of many "aids" to fish-keeping are at best disingenuous at best about what their filter media, supplements, chemicals and test kits can do. Even using analytical equipment you often have to perform a series of chemical reactions to reduce, oxidise, precipitate or complex interfering ions before you can get an accurate reading. The same applies to ion selective electrodes, often you can only measure the level of the ion you are interested in when you've removed interference from another ion. About the only meter or test kit that really does give you an accurate and repeatable measurement is a conductivity meter, which isn't probably the parameter you'd choose. I'd advise every-one to think in "shades of grey", answers to questions are very rarely a clear cut "good or bad" or "black or white". As soon as you have a simple test, dip meter or any product that claims to be a "magic bullet" I'd be initially suspicious.

I don't think it is any co-incidence that Diana Walstad had to publish <Ecology of the Planted Aquarium: A Practical Manual and Scientific Treatise for the Home Aquarist: Amazon.co.uk: Diana L. Walstad: Books> privately.

This is via the "Skeptical Aquarist", <Substrate | The Skeptical Aquarist> &<De-nitrification | The Skeptical Aquarist>, who I can't recommend strongly enough.

The third function of the substrate is to offer a vast range of colonizable surfaces for a diverse community of bacteria some of which are the agents of biofiltration, together with water-filled interstitial spaces of varying scale. The aerobic bacterial communities that metabolize ammonium to nitrite and then to nitrate have been a well-known feature of the substrate since the introduction of the undergravel filter in the 1960s. But sometimes people don't seem to realize that for every free-floating bacterium in the water column, there are hundreds of thousands settled in the biofilm, efficiently metabolizing one another's waste products. ............

Researchers have determined that the mature biofilm on stem and leaf surfaces of water plants, which are substrates for bacterial nitrification, are also locally coupled with de-nitrification. The nitrifying process is stimulated in daylight by the oxygen diffusing from photosynthesizing surfaces, in a gentle diurnal pulse that only lab experiments can detect. The uppermost surfaces of the substrate are also prime locations for these biofilm populations, as you know. The nitrification process demands a lot of oxygen, more even than familiar cellular respiration. Only a few millimeters below the substrate's surface, or in the interstitial water of a mature biofilm, the diffusion of oxygen can't keep up with demand. As localized oxygen levels drop in a gradient, facultative anaerobic bacteria find their niche. "Facultative" in this sense merely means "opportunistic." Many ordinary bacteria are facultative anaerobes: when oxygen is in short supply, these kinds of bacteria are able to switch to a metabolism that doesn't require oxygen. Instead, some use nitrate. The familiar nitrating bacteria provide the nitrate, and their high oxygen demands also tend to exhaust the limited supply. So besides providing the nitrate, a thriving microzone of aerobic nitrifiers provides low-oxygen conditions too. You can visualize a mutually beneficial exchange between the two types of bacteria across a fluctuating boundary lying not far beneath surfaces. If there were no other reason not to disturb the substrate in an aquarium, this would be enough for me. If plants are well-rooted in your substrate, their rootzone (rhizosphere) provides further edge microzones for de-nitrification. Oxygen transported through the vascular system of stems and roots diffuses into the spaces adjacent to each rootlet, supporting surrounding microzones of nitrification. Just beyond this aerobic network, in hypoxic porewater, bacterial de-nitrification occurs. .

cheers Darrel

 

[petr nehyba]

doing as u said and its starting looking good ! thank you.

If you dont mind I would ask for ur kind advice with my second planted tank once more. I have done very similar things with it like with the previously mentioned one (adding ammonia). My second tank is just 35l, low light and on for four weeks. I got it used and didnt disinfect it with any bleach before use. Since the beginning all! stem plants are dying from the bottom. All starts in the substrate and goes up. Stems turn brown and get as soft that the plant looses its ground. If it somehow stays in the substrate the "illness" grows up and affects leaves. They turn brown and die. I did deep siphoning in the substrate, filter cleaning and replanted all tank with new fast growing stem plants and just after three days I can see the process repeating. I stopped adding ammonia obviously. Thought I may have damage the plant when planting but its seem not to be th ecase. Is this anything you may have seen before and know what to do about it?

oh forgot to say, there is one echinodorus barthii and its doing well.

many thanks
Petr

 

[ceg4048]

These are all symptoms of poor CO2. Neither illness nor disinfection have any relevance to those symptoms. So if you are using CO2 in that tank then your application of it is at fault. If this is a non CO2 enriched tank then it's likely that the lighting is not as low as you've imagined.

Cheers,

 

[petr nehyba]

Im dosing easycarbo daily. As there is no fish in the tank I rather tend to slightly overdose actually. Im very surprised that it may be CO2. Never thought of it here. There is a good water circulation in the tank too. Its T8 14W 18000K light. Il get some more CO2 and try that. Its happening in the substrate itself, stems get brown where the substrate touches it and the plant looses its ground. really thought I have poisoned my substrate somehow.

Thanks.will try more CO2.

P

 

[ceg4048]

Hi Petr,
Any structural fault in an aquatic plant is caused by poor CO2. That makes it easy to diagnose.
Unfortunately, diagnosis is 100X easier than the cure. More info in the thread What causes leaves to melt, and what to do now? | UK Aquatic Plant Society

Cheers,

 

[petr nehyba]

read that trough. got one more CO2 system&ordering salts soon 🙂

Thanks very much dangerous man !
P

 

[petr nehyba]

 

[mark4785]

The pH, GH and KH kits are more or less accurate, but they are useless because they measure things that don't really matter

Wouldn't agree with you on this. The KH needs to be at a given level, typically 4dH, to buffer the pH from large swings or crashes. All of the 3 parameters are equally important to consider before placing wild caught fish in to closed systems as their natural environment won't be one that allows them to experience the large GH/KH/pH fluctuations that water goes through when it is in short supply (i.e. in closed aquarium system).

 

[ceg4048]

Well, disagreeing won't change the truth. I've used just about every KH from 1 to 15, every GH from 3 to above 26, and every pH from 3.5 to 7.5 and I've rarely suffered any problems with softwater fish or plant health. This includes Discus as well as African and South American dwarf chiclids. Whatever problems were encountered were not resolve by directly addressing any of these parameters.

On the other hand, you adhere to the policy of micromanaging pH/GH/KH and yet, you perennially suffer all kinds of problems.

There is no way you will ever reproduce a fishes natural habitat. It can't even be done in your dreams simply because we do not know all the things that have an effect. So we need to discover what are the most important priorities and execute those things that have a positive effect on fish and plant health. At the very top of the list is Oxygen availability, and that is accomplished by having a tank that is as clean as possible and is free of organic waste as much as possible.

A net benefit of increased plant health is additional Oxygen production, which benefits the fish, so doing things that maximizes plant health.

In CO2 injected tanks there is a strong correlation between the cleanliness of a tank and improved fish and plant health. And this can be achieved with any pH/GH/KH combination or any level of instability.

One can have any pH/KH/GH combination which is stable, and yet still have massive problems. So it appears that if there is any negative effect of instability or absolute value in these parameters, it is thoroughly mitigated by the availability of higher Oxygen availability.

Cheers,

 

[mark4785]

Well, disagreeing won't change the truth. I've used just about every KH from 1 to 15, every GH from 3 to above 26, and every pH from 3.5 to 7.5 and I've rarely suffered any problems with softwater fish or plant health. This includes Discus as well as African and South American dwarf chiclids. Whatever problems were encountered were not resolve by directly addressing any of these parameters.

On the other hand, you adhere to the policy of micromanaging pH/GH/KH and yet, you perennially suffer all kinds of problems.

There is no way you will ever reproduce a fishes natural habitat. It can't even be done in your dreams simply because we do not know all the things that have an effect. So we need to discover what are the most important priorities and execute those things that have a positive effect on fish and plant health. At the very top of the list is Oxygen availability, and that is accomplished by having a tank that is as clean as possible and is free of organic waste as much as possible.

A net benefit of increased plant health is additional Oxygen production, which benefits the fish, so doing things that maximizes plant health.

In CO2 injected tanks there is a strong correlation between the cleanliness of a tank and improved fish and plant health. And this can be achieved with any pH/GH/KH combination or any level of instability.

One can have any pH/KH/GH combination which is stable, and yet still have massive problems. So it appears that if there is any negative effect of instability or absolute value in these parameters, it is thoroughly mitigated by the availability of higher Oxygen availability.

Cheers,

Empirical scientific testing and reading about the results of such testing gets you to the truth not hobbyist experience. I will never profess that the experiences I have gone through have lead me to the truth. My arrogance might say otherwise but fortunately I'm not an arrogant person.

With regards to micro-managing, I indeed do do this with the parameter of nitrate and currently have 2 thriving aquariums with only minor algae issues but thank you, Ceg, anyway for trying to lower my confidence because having our own opinions is a big no-no when we are graced with your presence.

 

[petr nehyba]

i cant see any big No No anywhere here. especially not connected with Ceg presence.its in every way the opposite and the help here is much appreciated. not sure who is we and not sure why testing and experience shall be put against each other on the opposite sites either. its all about words like truth and oxygen 🙂 the same words that make every girl walk away from me when using them in a text message 🙂 texting is tricky. thanks to all for this great forum, ceg in particular for such a great knowledge, experience, testing results or true, for the oxigen which so far always worked for me. also for such a prompt reactions when helping others! even nietszche said that some people gonna stop liking you when you simply too good. even those things happened ages ago. more oxygen helps though! keep working hard,u doing great job here.cheers P