The greatest roadblock to understanding microbiology in reefing is titration testing

[brandon429]

Good detail agreed we can’t use real live rock forever as it's taking from nature but I still prefer it out here in Texas / Lubbock bc wherever they’re getting it from its skip cycle algae resistant coralline gold. One challenge with the system above is it will be ready to be invaded by any form of hitchhiker vs pristine purple live rock that is resistant from day one. We have no hitchhikers where I’ve been sourcing rock the last twenty years, perhaps an aiptasia occasionally. There’s so much coralline/hardly any room for bad hangers on

The exit of live rock use has entered the dawn of one million dollars in tanks lost to dinos due to lack of biodiversity


*we have people using your exact method above that qualify to be part of this thread* as nearly everyone is dry rocking nowadays but they’re not using your seneye, you put a quick end to the ghost extended ammonia reading but if they were using api, or salifert, or Red Sea, or the ammonia alert badge, we’d be talking about low level persistent ammonia and why the bottle bac added must’ve been dead, or dormant etc. if you are among the six people who can command non digital ammonia testing lol then your seneye is unneeded but a helpful backup as proof.

All the cycling threads in the new tank forum that we are putting quick resolution to after extended, multiple week mis-testing issues, reflect how the public at large deals with this misreading nightmare. They think their cycle has stalled

There’s always a handful who don’t have problems with testing, but there’s still that majority of people who need help, or seneye.

I'm certain due to nonpromotion of accurate microbiology in reefing, hundreds of thousands of dollars are needlessly spent. Using sound science saves money.

 

[brandon429]

Opening post: I have a one month old tank with a damsel, it's 8 ppm for sure, why

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ammonia-in-new-tank.629551/

Crowd:
Bc your bacteria is dead

Page two, you have zero ammonia, lays out predictions, then pics fulfill them and his fish is fine and there is no ammonia from the start.

I feel that accurate microbiology saved him money and sent his reef on track with a clear direction, and unclear microbiology caused him hesitation, doubt, and ready to purchase backup tests and more bottle bac

That's barely two example threads so far which show us that no matter how resolute someone can be with testing, mostly everyone else cannot be. We have to do something vs just hold course, it's bacterial madness out there.

There is no condition in reefing where a tail end of unoxidized ammonia stays free in the system while a greater portion gets oxidized, for weeks and weeks, that assumption is the greatest error we have going regarding how bacteria work and I've never seen a single person write that for the twenty years I've been reefing online, in fact I've read the opposite the whole time. That notion was invented in response to .25 low level readings which is the point of my post

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ammonia-presence-what-next.620931/page-2#post-6222912

#3 fixed


same flow as first and second one, API testing the sole cause.

 

[Stigigemla]

There is a lot of opinions in a subject like this. All tanks are different and new reefers are very different.

Having a LFS I have seen many beginners start their tanks. Its many tests to learn so I try to keep that number low.

First its temperature. You can not trust an electronic digital thermometer. They will break down sooner or later and it begins with false readings.
So I try to convince all my customers to buy a 1$ floating old school to have as a reference.

Then its the salinity. I tell my customers its better to try to taste the salinity then using a swing arm hydrometer. At least You know that You dont know the salinity.
I sell refractometers and show every customer how to calibrate it. If it is a lot of money in play I sell an old fashioned floating hydrometer. As long as they dont break they are showing the correct value. (With the same misreading).
Here in Sweden we generally have a very good water quality so it is possible to keep all animals except sensitive stone corals in tapwater with salt. But I try to sell a RODI to all because of the safer water quality.
In late spring the water has lower quality. Most places dont have chlorinated water. UVC and/or ozone have replaced it.

I normally only sell a nitrate test for the cycling. Nitrite will always follow ammonia and the nitrate tests show an extremely high value in the prescence of nitrite. So you dont have to care about ammonia.
With a nitrate test You will see the following. First it happens nothing. Then it happens nothing. After that the reading will come and reach a maximum because of nitrite. Then it will show a (much) lower value because of the nitrate. When the value is stable the cycling is ready. And You can begin to stock the tank.

The salts I sell (and I believe practically all sold in the US) have a quality good enough for me to know that fishes and clean up crew will do good but a hardy coral or two will also do good.
Before beginning with stone corals it is important to know some values in the tank. Now it is time to test the other values. KH, Ca and magnesium must be tested and the nitrate and phosphate values are also good to know. The first three are a bit sensitive so You have to be very careful with those. Its not very important if a beginner gets a bit false reading. Its far more important to do the test the same vay every time to create stable values. It is many times hard to convince a beginner that the value of nitrate and phosphate is not so important. 1 or 10 mg/l of nitrtae is both very good in the beginning as well as 0,05 or 0,2 of phosphate.

The good thing with live rock is that it is self cleaning. There has been a bunch of threads with tanks crashed after a year or 2 started with dead rock. The thing that happens is that the rock will clogg together when it is packed with bacteria and their leftovers. If You just add a stone or 2 from a fellow reefer with a good microphauna they will colonize the exdry stones and the pods and small worms will clean the pores of the stones.
So for You using ceramic media: You must regularly change out a part of it to be shure that it is working properly.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I agree with you @brandon429, there does seem to be an issue with test kits, whether it be user error, test kit error, or simply over testing and chasing that magical number. When I cycled my tank, I did not test for ammonia. The only test kit I purchased was the Red Sea Nitrate/Nitrite kit. I only tested for Nitrite, and only tested twice a week while waiting for my tank to establish a sufficient bacteria filter in order to add a CUC and fish. I dosed ammonia, so I knew how much ammonia was added to the tank. I also added bacteria to help speed up the process. All I needed to do was wait for nitrite to show up, and then drop to zero. Once that happened, I knew I had nitrifying bacteria capable of converting ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. My next step was to dose back a known amount of ammonia and see if my tank could cycle it in 24 hours.

It was simple. Now, I look at my tests for trends rather than specific numbers and only test once a week. If I see an increase week over week, then I may make a change. The same thing with a continuous decrease. If I see test results that bounce around, as long as they are within range, I consider it stable. It takes a lot of pressure off of looking for that exact number, and my tank seems to be much happier that way.

 

[brandon429]

Idea: someone here go find a cycle challenge running somewhere, any forum since we're so inclusive here at rtr, and let's compare and contrast popular vs unpopular cycling details.

Post the link here, I have two more handy but want to see others handle the matter using rounded science, let's see some umpiring. Post up, find a seemingly noncompliant cycle, remark on it, link it here for us to see, and most importantly name the cycle completion date/put finality to things, and post up. The hallmark need of any cycle challenge thread is when can I start, make that call clearly, nobody else will be. They'll be dealing in arbitrary dates so nobody can hold them to anything.


You will know if your call was right by the end of the day, true lack of surface area/true lack of bacteria means their fish will die and they'll post flame to you within 12 hours.

 

[Rick Mathew]

ammonia and nitrite misreads have caused the greatest amount of completely wrong inference and takeaway about how bacteria work for our hobby over any other hardware ever introduced. It’s bad level, I’m talking the hobby is working in retrograde regarding understanding of what bacteria do vs progressing 2019+ and beyond like other areas in our hobby

The era of digital testing will undo the complete mythinformation but since there’s 20 yrs of it online, w take a while.


It’s takes a virtual crowbar to dislodge the test kit out of someone’s hand and tell them their tank is cycled, we have issues team and it’s with titration.

Before we begin proofing

Does anyone doubt I have forty ammonia misread links handy, twenty nitrate misreads (where other testers show vast difference etc) and fourteen thousand nitrite - after - Prime misreads. Exactly that many. This means the tests aren’t reliable and when someone posts a reading online, we shouldn’t just jump and assume it’s correct. I think posted titration readings are correct 30% of the time and they will hardly ever agree with any other brands test read regardless of param.


Also

Aquarists are at total war with google cycling charts regarding timing and linking of ammonia to nitrite, requisitely

Why doesn’t google scholar search return show all varying charts to suit the posts from reef forums? Because cycling doesn’t vary much. A million charts show ammonia and nitrite complying by day 30


Have bacteria broken aeons of adaptation only recently, discovered by us, or are titration test kits the biggest game of horseshoes going on this side of the Milky Way? Was bottle bacteria necessary when they wrote the cycling charts in the 50’s? Go look in the new tank forum right now at the number of ammonia misread threads we are umpiring. Step up and post if feelin’ froggy.

What bacteria do in an aquarium is predictable without test kits, every time, 100% of the time. Something needs to usher in a change to stop the hesitations and put confidence back into biology. We do that by making work example threads. It would be neat if someone did an updated article on today’s titration comparisons/ multiple people sent a calibrated unmarked sample/take and log measures/ everyone posts back. If that’s done, especially with a verified .25 ammonia sample and a zero ammonia sample, I predict results will back up the horseshoe theory. Send them some sealed nitrite samples to work with, not any two people will get the same measure even on the same test kit I’ll bet, nitrite is the absolute worst of all due to number of confounds that skew the test. I can’t stand nitrite testing, why not just base the cycle on argon testing.


I know six people who can command an api master kit in ways I’d trust 100% but that’s the problem. It’s not just api. We collect misreads across tester brands and for sure there are many who can use api fine, I’m only remarking on what’s going on in the new reefers forum on every board right at this second check any board, an ammonia misread is happening making someone think a cycled tank isn’t cycled. For twenty years twenty times a day

B

Good write up!!!

For the most part I agree with your assessment, but I believe is extends beyond just titration and other test kits. It also includes digital as well as ICP. The issue in testing methodology in general. Poor laboratory practices and "sloppy" test methodology will yield errors regardless of the kind of testing done. It might be provocative to say this but it might be better not to test at all than to do testing that is "sloppy". The reason is when a test result requires some type of action, if the result is incorrect the action is incorrect!... As you mentioned "you now 6 people who have a command or the api master kit". This means they have developed good practices that yield results that can be trusted. Also often missing from the conversations on testing is valid reference standard....A know or valid target. Some test kits provide one but not many.....This means we are running a teat wit no reference point...Like trying to sight in a gun with no target!

Testing in our hobby is not a primary focus. In my experience is that most see it as a "painful duty". Therefor the level of care to the task is not real high. This is why, as you so well stated it is "like a game of horseshoes"
...Ok that is probably enough....Here a couple of links to my responses about testing you might find them interesting....Or Not!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-often-do-you-guys-run-icp-tests.602018/page-2#post-6092304 It is on page 2 sixth one down-----This is about ICP Testing

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/trident-support-curiosity.611714/page-3#post-6158136 It is on page 3 13th one down-----This is about the difference between Triden Readings and test kit results

rick

 

[brandon429]

Rick I never knew it extended beyond the test kits sitting on the shelf for nine bucks at the lfs

I figured those others were the gold standard calibration / am reading up thank you for that added info to study.

The training materials we have all been given = all cycling articles I’ve ever read omit other forms of progress that don’t require testing, we keep an entire thread running of dry and skip cycle tank examples where testing is never used- merely time underwater until we decide the tanks are ready for fish + bioloading and for years we’re doing fine.


Turns out the graphs online still apply to every reef tank being set up nowadays since everyone is boosting either bac, ammonia or both. The tanks are ready sooner than the graphs show due to the boosts, but -no- tanks stall out past 30 days regarding ammonia control and that is the sole parameter that matters in reef tank cycling.

Not once in all of reefing on anyone’s board did ammonia hover at .25 or .5 for months, it’s literally a million searchable entries on the internet and the only three that really endured it were dosing cupramine or something sim. It never ever occurred in a non medicated reef. Why do 98% of posters in this hobby not have the same confidence in bacteria? Our training materials told us to focus on testing and never told us 15% of what we measure will be accurate.

The rate and reliability in which microbes infest bodies of water directly inoculated for them is already so well known entire industries and branches of science have been built around the reliability, it’s why making sense of a reef tank cycle in two seconds is possible in upcoming examples regardless of their tested params. Let the prediction stand that in not once single upcoming case does the poster really, truly, have sustained 8 ppm ammonia. All the examples coming up are a representation of how massive test drift has darn near removed basic microbiology from our training gear, but we won’t let that happen. Most reef tank params are rough estimates and that stings

Though we need testers for ion control / alk and ca+++ we don’t need any testing whatsoever to cycle a reef tank or to manage the transfer of one. Cycling can break away from testing easily, and then accurate testers like seneye will just end up confirming the 1957 data and we can watch for patterns of accurate ammonia behavior to slowly come back to the hobby.
B

 

[brandon429]

Bump

due to mass free ammonia hysteria in the new forum and the general forum.

 

[brandon429]

Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

I found a bottle of ammonium hydroxide from the supermarket but it doesn't tell the strength. From a little research I'm finding that most household solutions are 3%. (I'm hoping this is a safe guess!). I'd like to ask for someone to confirm my math: 3% = 30mg/ml. Tank vol = 150 L I...

www.reef2reef.com

Ive discovered a human trait that impacts ammonia tracing work threads. How a thread is titled controls the diagnostics, not objectivity.

case in point: title a thread “dosing ammonia into reef” and nobody stalls, panics, or even bothers to react to api. Seven pages they’re all dosing liquid ammonia as powerful nitrogen sourcing, and corals love it.


but title a reef “crazy ammonia spike” and 100% of the respondents agree it’s accurate test, the bacteria are dead or compromised, buy more bottle bac.


same test, two different titles controls the assessment.

 

[Rick Mathew]

Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

I found a bottle of ammonium hydroxide from the supermarket but it doesn't tell the strength. From a little research I'm finding that most household solutions are 3%. (I'm hoping this is a safe guess!). I'd like to ask for someone to confirm my math: 3% = 30mg/ml. Tank vol = 150 L I...

www.reef2reef.com

Ive discovered a human trait that impacts ammonia tracing work threads. How a thread is titled controls the diagnostics, not objectivity.

case in point: title a thread “dosing ammonia into reef” and nobody stalls, panics, or even bothers to react to api. Seven pages they’re all dosing liquid ammonia as powerful nitrogen sourcing, and corals love it.


but title a reef “crazy ammonia spike” and 100% of the respondents agree it’s accurate test, the bacteria are dead or compromised, buy more bottle bac.


same test, two different titles controls the assessment.

Very interesting observation...Something to ponder...thanks for posting the thought

Rick

 

[brandon429]

Rick one thing I’m certain: our hobby does not have pinpointed rules on what nh3 does in reefing, even Randy agreed we are in a frontier-like time setting (my words lol) for the measure. If I can find the post, the general comment is that exact known dynamics are yet to be discovered.

that’s neat, that big info is yet to be discovered for the most basic molecule we deal with daily.


millions of dollars of reefs are built on assumptions, not fact, in what nh3 does.


an article on how activated surface area works, nh3 dynamics paired with surface area dynamics and not dissociated for once, is certainly needed so badly in this hobby.


nobody can answer if free nh3 issues cause symptoms we can see without api letting us know of the damage, or if reefs act consistently after a cycle or vary wildly etc

cycling charts from eighty years ago seem to stake a claim for consistency


the team of scientists who run the wastewater treatment plant in my city have no trouble not stalling, they’re running the surface area plant consistently for decades. What differs in reefing...a little green vial we got at petsmart. Or how long we let it sit before reporting, or if we shook the reagent. Or if it’s expired, or the lighting hue in the room, expiry, there’s ten more confounds we know.

doubted in some posts, uplifted in others, but in every city and every country the water treatment teams have no trouble.

convention managers from Macna never had trouble getting consistency for entrant reefs. Only forums have this issue among surface area dealing peers.

we are finding a decent amount of seneye machines that report consistency in the thousandths ppm after cycle, as well as ability to handle daily raw ammonia additions and uptake it in minutes. Those are the horizons of the new discovery, I’ll bet.