Maintaining nitrifying bacteria in an empty tank

[raklassen]

I have a question about maintaining nitrifying bacteria in a tank with no livestock.

Basic run down of my situation: I've got a new tank I started a month ago, did a fishless cycle with Fritz Turbo Start 900, about 10 days later the numbers were looking good so I added 2 Clownfish. 9 days later they were both dead that morning. I'm not 100% sure exactly what happened, but my best guess is Brooklynella. So to be safe I'm doing a 6 week fallow period. I've been checking nitrates and parameters regularly just to keep up on everything. I've also been dropping a few food pellets in about twice a week to help with some sort of bio lode.

Is there anything I need to do to make sure the good bacteria in my tank will thrive with no fish, inverts, corals, or any kind of natural bio lode? It's a 30L AIO tank with Carib-Alive sand, reef savor rock, and a small bag of bio-pellets

 

[PatW]

You can get a bottle of ammonia for cycling aquariums. All you need to do is add a little bit every now and then. Bacteria do not need much energy to survive so their requirements are low. A drop to a few drops every few days would work unless you have a really big tank.

 

[Azedenkae]

I have a question about maintaining nitrifying bacteria in a tank with no livestock.

Basic run down of my situation: I've got a new tank I started a month ago, did a fishless cycle with Fritz Turbo Start 900, about 10 days later the numbers were looking good so I added 2 Clownfish. 9 days later they were both dead that morning. I'm not 100% sure exactly what happened, but my best guess is Brooklynella. So to be safe I'm doing a 6 week fallow period. I've been checking nitrates and parameters regularly just to keep up on everything. I've also been dropping a few food pellets in about twice a week to help with some sort of bio lode.

Is there anything I need to do to make sure the good bacteria in my tank will thrive with no fish, inverts, corals, or any kind of natural bio lode? It's a 30L AIO tank with Carib-Alive sand, reef savor rock, and a small bag of bio-pellets

I agree with @PatW. Normally you don't even need to do anything because nitrifiers can survive plenty long ammonia-starved, but given you are doing a 6-week fallow, some species are known to start dying off then. It kinda varies and hard to know unless you sequence the metagenome of your live rock and figure out what species you have, but that's super costly and difficult. Easy way is to just dose ammonia. Probably something like 2ppm a week would suffice.

 

[raklassen]

I have some Fritz bacteria left, should I dose that also or just stick with a little ammonia?

 

[brandon429]

this one is easy: if you add one pinch of fish food, that will hold the cycle in place exactly as it is now.

and if you don't, same outcome. the water is what keeps the bac alive, it traps feed and provides a place for contaminations to land. nobody has ever demonstrated a starved cycle, not a single time we can read as a link. that also factors heavily in your assessment. we have been taught that bacteria in water need our requirements to thrive, they only needed water and a non sealed top for the tank.

we recently cycled an entire system in 60 days adding only water and nothing else, no bac no feed. it tested on api as fully able to reduce ammonia. that is another reason you can't starve your setup, we already cycle reefs by merely the wait + water. cycles cannot be starved they'll just hold with the same carry ability you removed before fallow, cycles do not get weaker during fallow either, they maintain steady state. many work threads exist to scrutinize these claims, yet I cannot find one single example of a starved cycle to investigate a counter claim. handy patterns

 

[adittam]

Make sure you turn up the tank temp to at least 81 degrees, and go fallow for 45 days, if you don’t want to be right back where you started after 6 weeks.

 

[brandon429]

nice call agreed, very nice detailing for best use of time. Ive been shortchanging cyclers by leaving that temp trick out, we talk about fallow as the next step after cycle ready

extremely nice detail.

 

[raklassen]

Make sure you turn up the tank temp to at least 81 degrees, and go fallow for 45 days, if you don’t want to be right back where you started after 6 weeks.

Got it. I'm almost 2 weeks into my fallow, but I went ahead and cranked the heat up a bit from 78 to 81 for the final 4.5 weeks. Been on fallow since 6/14. Plan on adding fish again on 7/30

 

[adittam]

Got it. I'm almost 2 weeks into my fallow, but I went ahead and cranked the heat up a bit from 78 to 81 for the final 4.5 weeks. Been on fallow since 6/14. Plan on adding fish again on 7/30

I'm not an expert, but from what I’ve read, I would at least think about starting your 45 day counter now. The 45 day fallow has only been shown to be effective if the temp is at 81 degrees or higher for the entire time. Otherwise, 76 days is the standard.

 

[Azedenkae]

I have some Fritz bacteria left, should I dose that also or just stick with a little ammonia?

You are trying to maintain your current microbes, not add more, so yes just dose ammonia.

Not that dosing additional Fritz bacteria will harm anything, just won't help anything.

 

[Tcook]

I'm not an expert, but from what I’ve read, I would at least think about starting your 45 day counter now. The 45 day fallow has only been shown to be effective if the temp is at 81 degrees or higher for the entire time. Otherwise, 76 days is the standard.

I would look into this. No time to short change yourself now. You don't want to have to repeat this anytime soon.