Reef Aquarium Fact #65 Ammonia is the first step of the nitrifycation process?

[skinz78]

We are going to continue discussing the reef aquarium facts submitted by our members. Do you agree or disagree? What are your thoughts?

Fact #65

In most cases in the early stages of "cycling", or setting up a new system there will be an increased level of ammonia present. This is the first step in the nitrification process. This is a natural process that occurs when bacteria convert ammonia into less harmful nitrites and eventually nitrates.


Truth or False? What else might we need to learn on this subject? Please also share any pictures that may pertain to the subject.

 

[revhtree]

Very true!!!

How do most people cycle their tanks?

 

[skinz78]

I've always just added the rock and substrate and let it do it's own thing with the lights and skimmer functioning as normal.

 

[steamer51]

There has been an ongoing discussion on our local club forum about using sponge filters in a QT tank. One of our members was kind enough to post an article about dosing ammonia that I quote here. This process can be used for getting sponge filters ready for QT use or providing a very quick cycle on a new tank with no life in it.

jasonm posted the following on lmas.org:

"Re: Using Sponge Filtersby jasonm on Tue Nov 29, 2011 12:00 pm
Here is my article that I also put up on my site:

http://www.petresearch.net/2009/02/22/a ... -fish-tank

This is a general article that works for both fresh and saltwater systems just fine....

This system works greatly as I have used it many times before with huge success. The thing you have to remember about dosing with ammonia to start up a system is consistency. If you allow all the ammonia in the system to be used up before you add more the bacteria will start to die off. Also when no more ammonia exists no more nitrite will be created which kills off the other bacteria thus causing fluctuations in your cycle process. I have successfully cycled a system by adding large amounts of ammonia to a system ( I often did this with my sponge filters in the bucket ) without inhabitants which allowed me to not add it every day. However, with this process often you have to do a large water change to remove the ammonia in the end or else waiting for it to all be transformed takes quite awhile. This has no effect on the sponge filters as the ammonia stays in the water and doesn't collect in the sponge so even with very high amounts of ammonia in the water you can quickly remove a sponge filter and drop it in a new system without failure. Also to note about doing the sponge filters I have found after about a week a second sponge filter should be added to the new system with life in it. This is what I have found... Often when you add the fish and sponge filter to the new system with fish the nitrite eating bacteria die off quite a bit before there is enough ammonia to sustain it. This in turn could cause a nitrite spike in the system which is worse than an ammonia spike. So I always put a second sponge filter in after about a week regardless ( however I monitor the nitrite levels and if I ever detect any at all I go ahead and put the second filter in right away ) so that there are plenty of both of the needed bacteria to keep the system healthy. If you don't want to dose all the time you could get a two liter bottle, add enough ammonia to it for say 3 days with RO/DI water, then do a very slow drip so that all the water is dripped into the system over a period of a few days. This will allow for the system to be constantly feed without you having to attend to adding ammonia every day. The most important thing is to not let the system be ammonia deprived as within a few hours after it is the bacteria colonies start to die off."

He replied to my question about how much to dose with:

"I always dosed my buckets very high. Probably at any time you could find 4ppm or more of ammonia at least in them ( Doing this starts the cycle REALLY fast too if you are starting one up ). When cycling a tank the dosage is 3 drops of ammonia per day per 10 gallons of water for a fully stocked system. Fully stocked is pretty vague as different people assume fully stocked as a different numbers of fish. I have never had a problem with ammonia spikes from dieing bacteria and I have done this system a LOT. Also if you have a good bacteria colony in the system they will quickly gain when additional ammonia/nitrite become available in the system. Don't quote me on this but I believe the bacteria can split itself into two every 8 hours if it has appropriate food. This means the bacteria colony can triple the amount of ammonia/nitrite it can consume in one day if it needs too. If you want to be safe you can probably just dose 5 drops per day per fish and have more than enough bacteria to sustain the new system ( remember the bacteria will be living in multiple filters in your bucket ). This is over doing it but it's better to have too much than too little. The best way to be 100% safe is to dose high in the bucket until you get the fish with 3 or 4 sponge filters. This way you can continually add the filters to the uncycled system if you notice any kind of spike.

Also this is probably commonly known but I'm going to say it any way just in case. When adding a new sponge filter to your already cycled bucket with other cycled sponge filters in it, it takes about 2 weeks for the new one to become saturated with bacteria. If all sponge filters are removed from the bucket even if you continually dose with ammonia and add new sponge filters the process to get it fully back to high levels of bacteria will take awhile as only a very small percent of the bacteria remain in the water and on the sides of the bucket. I made sure I always had at least one fully cycled sponge filter in the bucket at all times and I marked new sponge filters I added with the date they were added. This way I always knew which sponge filters would be ready for action when I needed them. Doing this will give you the fastest turn around time for creating new bacteria saturated sponge filters..."