Fishless cycling

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B.Scott
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Re: Fishless cycling

Post by B.Scott »

Hi everyone,
One little side note. I carried out a series of tests many years back while cycling a filter for a small Q-tank. The system volume was about 2000 liters and I ran the test each time for 6 weeks using a closed system without water changes. What I noticed was after about the forth week there was a stagnation in nitrite/nitrate convertion. In the second test I then added a bit of bentonite clay and the nitrite convertion picked up directly afterwards. My speculation is that it came down to a lack of some trace elements within the system. This raises the possibility that in starting a closed cycling system it might be benificial to add some trace minerals either but by adding them directly in the form of clay or perhaps even better occaionally changingout a small amount of water.

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Manky Sanke
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Re: Fishless cycling

Post by Manky Sanke »

I can understand that because the bugs don't just need ammonia or nitrite plus carbonate and oxygen to do the conversion of ammonia through nitrite and into nitrate. In addition to having to supply fishless cycling set ups with ammonia, oxygen and carbonate, they also need a trace amount of minerals such as phosphorous or phosphate or other minerals that they can synthesise into phosphate in order to make a compound called ATP (adenosine triphosphate).

All living creatures, including plants and bugs, need to make ATP which is often described as "the molecular currency of life" because it is essential in order to power biochemical reactions in individual cells and the cell can't even make DNA in order to replicate and divide in order to replace cells that die. Any cell that runs out of ATP and cannot get it replaced just simply stops working.

Whenever I get questions asking why a dustbin of media starts maturing quite nicely but suddenly stops I advise to check the pH and the KH and, if they are both ok, simply do a near 100% water change to replace whatever else has been used up. For small volumes of water, this is easier than trying to determine what has gone wrong and fix it.

I'll remember the bentonite idea though, especially for larger volumes of water because, in addition to water changes, that's another way to replace minerals the bugs might need.
B.Scott
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Re: Fishless cycling

Post by B.Scott »

Interesting,
So taking that all into account, a small amount of plant food would actually not be a bad idea in addition to ammonia. But as we both have mentioned, when push comes to shove a more elegant solution might simply be the classic "Just Add Water" :D

B.Scott
Manky Sanke
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Re: Fishless cycling

Post by Manky Sanke »

Plant food - now that's an idea, of course the problem will be to get people to take the idea seriously :roll:
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