Re: NANFA-L-- Denitrifying bacteria question

marxxx (marxxx-in-earthlink.net)
Thu, 3 Feb 2005 12:31:21 -0500

I do think that cycling is very important. The process of taking a handful
of gravel or filter media from one tank to another is an accelerated cycle
(and a fabulous thing to do for your fish). Really, this is putting live
bacteria in the new tank. They multiply very quickly (I believe they double
every 24 hours as long as there is enough food... ammonia in this case).

This is all completely eveident by using test kits. The ammonia level will
rise very quickly-in-the start of the cycle. The ammonia is broken down into
nitrite, and the nitrite is then broken down into nitrate. When the ammonia
level falls, and the nitrates are present, the cycle is complete. Nitirite
is toxic as is ammonia (nitrate is normal, but can become harmful with a
high concentration). The toxicity of ammonia is intensified by high ph
water. The higher the ph, the more toxic the ammonia.

I have started new tanks and just added fish. There are some species that
can hadle this just fine. I suspect much of the success of this method (not
cycling) may be attributed to the quality of the water they start in (low
ph, soft water).

There is also a correlation between the cycle and the lowering of ph. This
is mainly present in softer water with less of a buffer. In hard water, the
buffer is greater, and the ph may take a very long time to drop. The point;
if a tank is not properly cycled it can also cause the ph to crash. I would
think this is likely to happen when water has not been changed for an
extended period, and the bio load is signifigantly increased very quickly
(adding a bunch of new fish). A ph crash can shock and kill the fish.
Unfortunatley, I don't remember all the details abuot this...

I hope all this makes sense...

Mark

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Unmack" <peter.lists at>
To: "nanfa-l" <nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Denitrifying bacteria question

> G'day folks
>
> I'm not sure if the purpose of all this bacteria discussion is relative to
> marine or freshwater aquaria, but having kept fish for over 20 years I
> believe most of the stuff about cycling freshwater tanks is extremely
> overblown. I've never done it, and never will as I have never personally
> experienced a situation that needed it. However, I will preface that by
> saying that I rarely ever set up a completely new tank with everything
> totally fresh and clean. I always either add a handfull or so of gravel
> from an established filter to a new filter (I usually use a goldfish bowl
> undergravel filter in a plastic goldfish bowl sized container that I put
> in the tank, ugly but effective and cheap), or-in-least add some water
> from an aquarium that is well established and healthy. But I have at
> times started new tanks, added a whole pile of fishes (way more than you
> should), and fed the crap out of them from day one and all have done very
> well. Granted some fish may be more sensitive than others though. I have
> had problems with ammonia once when I did a water change (I usually always
> change 70-90% of the water if I am going to bother doing a water change)
> and totally cleaned out the filter-in-the same time. I didn't age my
> water (which typically had only very small amounts of chlorine) and a few
> days later lost the fish. But that was due to my own complete stupidity
> rather than a lack of bacteria I suspect.
>
> Tootles
> Peter Unmack
> Canadian River, Oklahoma
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