Cycle not lowering ammonia levels.

Garf

5000 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 23, 2020
Messages
5,017
Reaction score
5,854
Location
BEEFINGHAM
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
If there are enough nitrates to support algae growth then how can your tank not be cycling?

@Brandon249 just discussed this in detail in another cycling thread.

Algae, unlike plants, cannot store essential nutrients. For growth, algae require nutrients to be present in the surrounding environment. The needed nutrients are nitrogen nitrate (N), phosphate (P), and potassium (K).
They can uptake ammonia directly. I never used to cycle my phyto cultures, lol
 

Lavey29

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 29, 2021
Messages
10,850
Reaction score
11,304
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I was under the impression that algae would prefer to get its nitrogen from ammonia as some additional energy consuming processes are required to use nitrate. Nitrate is used when not enough nitrogen can be obtained from ammonia. That would, in theory anyway, mean that algae could form in an uncycled tank. I would guess that it probably doesn't due to phosphate limitation. I will agree that tanks with positive nitrate test readings are probably cycled, but ammonia could still be present.

In this case, where ammonia tests show positive ammonia, it seems inappropriate to rely on assumptions rather than trying to find out why the elevated ammonia levels and indications that the tank had probably cycled existed.
You are probably correct in your interpretation however, if a tank shows limited ammonia on one end and nitrates on the other then the cycling process is working. Now perhaps nitrifying bacteria need additional time to process that ammonia to almost an instant zero as it is introduced to the tank but the cycle is operating as intended. I'm sure you remember getting your ammonia number and then checking nitrates and see 0. Then later you see ammonia number going down and then nitrates going up so you know the tank is cycling. Now if OP had ammonia levels that were hazardous and 0 nitrates of course that is cause for concern. Not really the situation here.

I belive all your posts are spot on.
 

Lavey29

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 29, 2021
Messages
10,850
Reaction score
11,304
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I was under the impression that algae would prefer to get its nitrogen from ammonia as some additional energy consuming processes are required to use nitrate. Nitrate is used when not enough nitrogen can be obtained from ammonia. That would, in theory anyway, mean that algae could form in an uncycled tank. I would guess that it probably doesn't due to phosphate limitation. I will agree that tanks with positive nitrate test readings are probably cycled, but ammonia could still be present.

In this case, where ammonia tests show positive ammonia, it seems inappropriate to rely on assumptions rather than trying to find out why the elevated ammonia levels and indications that the tank had probably cycled existed.
Do you think his small live rocks had some die off resulting in small ammonia level similar to when a fish goes missing in the tank?
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,494
Reaction score
23,574
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
No


there’s no advanced coverage to be dying off they’re barren, but pigmented as submerged rocks would be.


live rocks moved among tanks dont dieoff that’s been made up twenty years no joke

lastly, threads like this one show -all- reef tanks can take direct massive bumps of liquid ammonia and the ammonia is resolved in five minutes or so


on these non digital kits, I’ve seen days long lag times.

even if he had a big fat worm die the ammonia doesn’t hover slightly out of control a while, they can’t even get ammonia control to take longer than 5-10 mins after huge liquid doses. That above shows the shock absorbing system all cycled reefs have, including this one here.

because: on a cycling chart the ammonia line never goes back up after it goes down, this is the rule for all display reef tanks post-cycle. They all have enough surface area even with a few rocks, don’t forget a thousand nano reefs have made absolute gem tanks off that much rock/ all over the web.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,494
Reaction score
23,574
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
It is very very hard to just immediately dispense with cycling doubt in a thread like we've done and not allow for potential to be not cycled




The inability to find any recent possible examples of a failed cycle on any reef site, meaning a tank that cannot carry fish, should give good backup in the matter. We aren't on a continuance of loss during cycling using all these various ways folks cycle


A cycling chart covers them all

And by day ten, the inherent ammonia control date, we dispense with cycling concerns where live rocks go, or bottle bac cycles. All searchable examples for those in recent reefing are full passes, only non digital test kits cause cycling panic. No seneye owner is cycle panicked after they learn slide prep rules.

An aberrant display reef tank cycle at day sixty has never been documented with digital nh3 tracking in reefing. An article entry does not exist for the claim, it's made up solely on web forums

This whole thread matches every stalled cycle post ever made
 

ReefGeezer

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 9, 2009
Messages
1,972
Reaction score
2,849
Location
Wichita, KS
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Do you think his small live rocks had some die off resulting in small ammonia level similar to when a fish goes missing in the tank?
It could account for a small input of ammonia. In the pictures, they look more like base rock. There are less things on it to die and decay. However, in many cases, that little bit of ammonia only serves to feed bacterial growth that occurs quickly, and is seldom noticed. More likely, the OP's misunderstanding of his test kit caused the problem. The readings he posted were really a safe .2 or .3 ppm and likely closer to 0 if you take kit accuracy into account... kind of like the API kit that always seems to report .25 ppm.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,494
Reaction score
23,574
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I have never seen one single digital nh3 measured cycle take longer than one day; ten is a steal

I'm agreeing with RGeezer above, being at day sixty evened out any worst case scenarios


That extra time covers weak bottle bac, a big eunice worm dying inside live rock, all the common variables. I have never seen a true stalled cycle by day ten, nor by day one, stalled cycles don't exist in seneye threads.

I believe uncured ocean rocks lined in ocean animals can legit dieoff possibly days out of ammonia compliance, due to mass rot of the curing items.
 

Spare time

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 12, 2019
Messages
12,042
Reaction score
9,682
Location
Here
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
If there are enough nitrates to support algae growth then how can your tank not be cycling?

@Brandon249 just discussed this in detail in another cycling thread.

Algae, unlike plants, cannot store essential nutrients. For growth, algae require nutrients to be present in the surrounding environment. The needed nutrients are nitrogen nitrate (N), phosphate (P), and potassium (K).


Ammonia and nitrite are forms of nitrogen that algae and plants can use. They can also store it.


https://www.britannica.com/science/algae/Nutrient-storage


 

Lavey29

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 29, 2021
Messages
10,850
Reaction score
11,304
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Ammonia and nitrite are forms of nitrogen that algae and plants can use. They can also store it.


https://www.britannica.com/science/algae/Nutrient-storage


No it can not store it. Multiple studies for this. Plants can store, algae cant.
 

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal

Just another girl who likes fish
View Badges
Joined
May 14, 2019
Messages
13,107
Reaction score
19,544
Location
Spring, Texas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
No it can not store it. Multiple studies for this. Plants can store, algae cant.
Really??



 
Last edited:

Lavey29

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 29, 2021
Messages
10,850
Reaction score
11,304
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Really??



You like me to much to keep me on ignore huh or are you a crazy stalker?

 

Garf

5000 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 23, 2020
Messages
5,017
Reaction score
5,854
Location
BEEFINGHAM
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Ok but what about the other required nutrients to establish growth?
He’s been feeding a fish for one. I’m not even sure the OP has been asked on this thread about what fresh Australian live rock actually means to him. So is this a liverock transfer, uncured rock, cured rock, whatever. Without knowing that it’s not wise to say the tank is safe. Was it shot over to his tank from Australia by a massive canon? I posed this very question (in a round about manner) on his other thread about the same thing;

 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,494
Reaction score
23,574
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Garf, fair question but that creates fear with no precedence

you're hinting at a worst case outcome nobody can provide...link from any recent post where the crash happened?


Spare time
-plants that uptake ammonia:
agreed, that's why I don't buy the guys post on a nine month display tank that went uncycled, he had fifteen pounds of macro right in the display greening up everything. with zero rock he wouldnt have had the stated ammonia issue
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,494
Reaction score
23,574
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Precedence, ie any thread any of us can search for proof shows any way we want to cycle works out fine


we aren't on a continuum of fails, or able to find even sporadic cycling fails


all we can find is wins (tanks that carry fish fine but api or red sea disagrees) and some poor acclimation threads from 2004 at best. or potentially those reefers we see occasionally who don't know you put rocks in the tank while cycling/some cycle water only having not researched


given any semblance of normalcy, any cycling approach is fine by day ten the landslide of evidence shows.
 

Garf

5000 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 23, 2020
Messages
5,017
Reaction score
5,854
Location
BEEFINGHAM
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Garf, fair question but that creates fear with no precedence

you're hinting at a worst case outcome nobody can provide...link from any recent post where the crash happened?


Spare time
-plants that uptake ammonia:
agreed, that's why I don't buy the guys post on a nine month display tank that went uncycled, he had fifteen pounds of macro right in the display greening up everything. with zero rock he wouldnt have had the stated ammonia issue
Liverock comes in many forms from pristine with great fish carrying capability to downright toxic, of that there is no question. Dying macros turn from an ammonia sink to an ammonia producer, fact. The “liverock = skip cycle (liverock transfer)” is false, fact.
 

Spare time

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 12, 2019
Messages
12,042
Reaction score
9,682
Location
Here
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Garf, fair question but that creates fear with no precedence

you're hinting at a worst case outcome nobody can provide...link from any recent post where the crash happened?


Spare time
-plants that uptake ammonia:
agreed, that's why I don't buy the guys post on a nine month display tank that went uncycled, he had fifteen pounds of macro right in the display greening up everything. with zero rock he wouldnt have had the stated ammonia issue


Algae definitely gets nitrogen hungry haha
 

Lavey29

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 29, 2021
Messages
10,850
Reaction score
11,304
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Can you show it to me?
There are a variety or resources to look at. Just randomly choosing this one states that algae growth is limited by the availability of nitrate and phosphate. So they need nutrients in the water column not storing them for a rainy day. Algae can store energy and stuff like carbs but not primary nutrients from the sites I have looked at.


 
Last edited:

Spare time

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 12, 2019
Messages
12,042
Reaction score
9,682
Location
Here
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
There are a variety or resources to look at. Just randomly choosing this one states that algae growth is limited by the availability of nitrate and phosphate. So they need nutrients in the water column not storing them for a rainy day. Algae can store energy and stuff like carbs but not primary nutrients from the sites I have looked at.




Limited doesn't mean it can't store it. Can you find the exact line? There isn't a species on earth that has no environmental/dietary limits to population growth. That has nothing to do with energy storage. Its also evolutionarily not something that would make sense.



Also, "Algae can store excess phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) inside their cells resulting in high amounts of P and N that can be stored in vacuoles or the cytosol (Ismagulova et al., 2018). Excess supply of phosphate, or similar P sources, can be stored as polyphosphate granules in storage bodies (Miyachi et al., 1964). Additional nitrogen is stored in form of crystalline guanine rich inclusions (Moudříková et al., 2017)."




This paper also discuses the storage of phosphorus in phytoplankton to handle environmental instability h"

Phosphorus physiological ecology and molecular mechanisms in marine phytoplankton"​

 
Last edited:

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

  • Ball valves.

    Votes: 66 52.0%
  • Gate valves.

    Votes: 67 52.8%
  • Check valves.

    Votes: 32 25.2%
  • None.

    Votes: 28 22.0%
  • Other.

    Votes: 9 7.1%
Back
Top