Too many water changes?

[seapug]

The ammonia isn't produced in the water column, it's produced on the surfaces of the live rock where the decaying matter is and nitrifying bacteria are consuming it. It will continue to be produced until the source is gone, so it seems to me that removing excess from the water column is not likely to effect the bacteria population as long as it's source (the decaying matter on the rock) is present.

Perhaps this is one for the Chemistry forum.....

[yakfishin]

Yes, but eventually that food supply is going to run out. The die off from the rocks will quit, and all of sudden the ammonia is not available in the same amount as it once was but you have this really high bacteria population- so what happens? Just like rodent populations crash, so will the bacteria, you can't have a tank with say 500 billion nitrite reducing bacterium but only food now available for 250B, the ammonia won't just keep becoming available in the higher quantities, somethings got to give. Nature always finds an equilibrium, when the tank finishes cycling you will have the same number of microbes with or w/o water changes- what will be different is the amount of other life still on the live rock. This is only my opinion, never did a controlled expirement.

[whosinpower]

Isn't is strange that we have yet to figure out a sweet spot for cycling? That is a value of ammonia that is enough to ensure a robust growth of bacteria, but not enough to poison and kill off beneficial organisms?

I am cycling a tank now and wondered that. Figured because TBS stated that ammonia over 1 would require a water change so you would not kill off more than necessary - some die off is inevitable.

I used uncured rock....and the die off and resulting ammonia was pretty massive. Day 2 had ammonia at over 1.5. I changed 10% water every day for three days and still had ammonia over 1.5.
Did I kill off more stuff by not doing more robust water changes....or was it dead already and just giving off what it normally does? I am not sure. After 1 week of enduring a stinky house, I syphoned off about 4 gallons of aquarium water and used that water to scrub the rocks. It was the smell that got to me. I also syphoned off the detritis on the sand and put the rocks back into the tank and added clean water to top everything up again.

I've decided to leave the water as it is now and continue the cycle only topping off with RO water. My regimen will be 10% water change per week from now on during and after the cycle.

Checked my water last night just for interest, and my ammonia is still hovering around 1.5....nitrites are beginning to show as well as nitrates. However, my house no longer smells to high heaven.
Skimmer is not pulling out quite as much stuff either. (is that good or bad - not sure so soon into a cycle????)

The other issue about water changes during a cycle that I have wondered about is excess nutrients. We all know that there is a ton of nutrients released into the water column during the die-off on the live rock while cycling. I may be naive, but the way I see it is if you reduce those nutrients with water changes, you may lessen the severity of algae blooms after your tank has cycled. You'll still have them, but perhaps not quite as robust as if you left everything as is. I may be totally wrong in this assessment....which leads me to the initial question of what would be considered a sweet spot of ammonia control during a cycle. You know - enough to precipitate a robust biological filter, but not so much that you will be swamped with nitrates after the fact, and suffering a long extended period of massive algae issues.

[yakfishin]

whoseinpower- curing liverock is going to produce high nutrients (smelly water) in almost every case, you'd have to cure it in a swimming pool to prevent that from happening. Lots of stuff is going to die, nothing you can do about it, there are many organisms that just can't survive in a container no matter the water quality. Despite your high levels and stinky water, you'll be suprised at how much can still manage to live once your tank has cycled and the critters start to show themselves. Do what you can to limit things from getting overly toxic, and you'll still have plently of life. The less toxic the water becomes the more and varied the life will be, but some orgainisms will survive just about anything.

[dwd5813]

this is turning into an excellent debate. the source of the ammonia is undoubtedly the dying/decaying matter on the rock itself. this, along with the sandbed, is also where the bacteria are living and reproducing. my question is this: do the bacteria present on the rock and sand get the ammonia directly from the rock and sand, or the water column? i'm no microbiologist, but as far as i know the physiology of bacteria is such that there is a membrane across which nutrients diffuse rather than an active feeding system. I would argue, then, that while the actual source of the ammonia is in fact the decaying matter on the rock, the bacteria are extracting it directly from the water column. assuming that this is true, it would be wise to leave it there for them to use. now, there is validity in the statement that the decay and death are the source of the ammonia, so removing excess from the water column will not affect the bacteria so long as the source remains. this raises questions for me also. what are the parameters for deciding what is excess? what is the "sweet spot" as whosinpower said? when do you decide that enough dieoff has occurred and that it is okay to let the remaining ammonia be consumed biologically? perhaps we need to separate curing rock from cycling a tank here.

[whosinpower]

Yakfishin - if we were to do cure that rock in a swimming pool....just make sure it is a outdoor pool!!!! LOL

And apologies if those thought I hijacked thread. Did not mean to.

DWD5813 - I did not know that about bacteria.....learn something new every day on this forum!

[dwd5813]

sorry for chopping up your post like this, but there are a few aspects i want to reply to, and i hope it is easier to follow this way.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by yakfishin
[B]Yes, but eventually that food supply is going to run out. The die off from the rocks will quit, and all of sudden the ammonia is not available in the same amount as it once was but you have this really high bacteria population- so what happens?the ammonia source becomes the livestock you add, i.e. fish, along with uneaten food. Just like rodent populations crash, so will the bacteria,that is true, but would it be better to have some bacteria die of starvation or your livestock die due to the ammonia spike caused by the lack of sufficient bacteria? you can't have a tank with say 500 billion nitrite reducing bacterium but only food now available for 250B, the ammonia won't just keep becoming available in the higher quantities, somethings got to give. Nature always finds an equilibrium, when the tank finishes cycling you will have the same number of microbes with or w/o water changesdo you not agree that larger populations are sustainable when larger food supplies are available? or are you saying that there will be a wave effect whereby the population will skyrocket, then decline? what will be different is the amount of other life still on the live rock. This is only my opinion, never did a controlled expirement.

[whosinpower]

Nature finds equilibrium.

On the one hand - if we did no water changes throughout the cycling process - you would have an explosion of nitrifying bacteria to happily digest the ammonia.....followed by the nitrate producing bacteria happily digesting the nitrifying bacteria.....and at the end of your cycle....it stands to reason that you would have an explosion of nitrates in your water.....which will be reduced with.....water changes. Livestock added will add more ammonia to the system that will in turn be transformed to nitrite, and then nitrate....and then exported via algae (refugium) or water changes. Am I correct thus far?

All the while - the real quest becomes finding the balance. Too much nitrate in the water results in algae - and something all aquarists do battle with to control....to attempt to balance the equation between livestock needs, microbiological bacteria needs and visual appeal.

I am hypothosizing now, so please correct me if I am incorrect.....if you instituted water changes into your weekly regimen of cycling and general tank husbandry....firstly, you will be taking out some ammonia from your system. You may not get quite as robust a bacterial population of nitrifying bacteria, and may not get quite as robust a population of nitrate producing bacteria......but at the end of the cycle.....would you still have as much nitrate in your water? Would your reach an equilibrium faster? And perhaps if you chose to do it this way....you might be more cautious in adding a biological load, so you would add less fish at a time.....and allow your system to rebalance. Does this make any sense at all?

[yakfishin]

I should clarify that my statement, "the food supply will run out....die off from rocks will quit" isn't quite accurate. Of course, there always will be ammonia being produced, and organisms are constantly dieing and creating nutrients through other processes , but we know that this does slow down quite significantly. We hope to end up with a sufficient number of bacteria to breakdown the ammonia to where it doesn't present a problem, hence what we call the end of the cycling period. I can't remember about bacteria either actively feeding or nutrients crossing the membrane, if I recall correctly, don't some bacteria surround matter and then sort of absorb it- perhaps they do a little of both, but method of eating and really where the food comes from shouldn't matter to a large extent. We're only interested in getting the bacteria, and for some perhaps in the quickest way possible, but that is limited more to how fast bacteria can split to keep up with the ammonia being produced, not the eventual numbers of bacteria present right at the end. If your goal is to end up with the greatest number of bacteria possible, perhaps in theory you're correct. If you leave all that much more ammonia available, more and more bacteria will be allowed to multiply. Perhaps then you could start adding fish right at the correct time at the end of the cycle, after the amonnia starts to drop but before the bacteria start decreasing, allowing you to put more fish in the aquarium at that time than what is normally recommended because you have a higher than usual bacteria count to cope with the higher than normal bioload. But this isn't really the accepted practice of adding livestock, is it? What is recommended is that you add a fish, wait for the bacteria count to catch up with the increased bioload, and then add another fish. This is because at the end of the cycle you would 'normally' only have sufficient numbers of bacteria to account for the bioload of the now cycled aquarium, not an excess of the critters. Taking it a step further, why don't we add some food to increase nutrients in the cycling process, perhaps table scraps, in with the rock to even get more nutrients in there, because more has to be better...right? Not trying to be smart at all, just making a point but I think you catch my drift. In short, there is probably countless factors involved in how quick live rock will cycle. How about putting your hand in the water after having just taken a bath with anti-bacterial soap? In short , I'll let others debate the quickest way to the end of the cycle, because for me the quickest way for anything in this hobby rarely ends up being the best way. If in the end my live rock takes a couple of days or even weeks longer to cycle (but mind you I don't believe that to be really the case), but I end up with a more diverse group of critters having survived, then I'm more satisfied with the end result. I don't blame someone that says having nemo swimming around sooner is the better result for them. Continuing, there might not really be a need to separate curing live rock and cycling the aquarium, really it's the same process, just one is a bit more extreme than the other.

[yakfishin]

"Nature finds equilibrium"

Hey Whose- nature does usually find an equilibrium, but there really isn't anything 'natural' about trying to create a mini-ocean within a glass cubicle, so we need to help out. I was thinking more along the lines of predator to prey relationships when making that statement. You know, the rabbit population rises and so does the fox, rabbit population goes down and so then does the fox- that sort of thing. Your right, balance is the key. Keep in mind that we don't want to do water changes to get rid of the ammonia- only to make it less toxic. When it comes to aquariums we want things clean, but not sterile.

[wolf pup]

I like this link as a general overview:

http://textbookofbacteriology.net/growth.html

The goal is to have your appropriate bacteria grow to cover the appropriate available surface. Two factors are availability of a food source (if your ammonia is above 0, there is food available) and presence of growth surface. Bacteria do not live forever so you have constant division/death taking place. Add a fish to your "cycled" tank and it is doubtful that you will see a NH3 increase despite having placed the environment out of "equilibrium." This is because bacteria do not "eat" at a fixed rate but are part of a growth cycle The question of a "sweet spot" for feeding Nitrifying bacteria is not only going to relate to the availability of nutrients, but of the space for colony expansion. There have been controlled experiments on this (mostly for sewage treatment) and I will try to find some once I get off my horrifically slow work server.

[whosinpower]

Yakfishin

What would you recommend for a regimen of water changes during a cycle? Daily, every other day, weekly? Amounts?

Understanding that everyones own situation is unique - what parameters would you use as a guide?

[wolf pup]

http://www.bioconlabs.com/nitribactfacts.html

Its from a product lab but it has some interesting information on growth rates

whosinpower - I figure that my rock is rock. Base rock & one piece of seeded rock/sand + high temp and high NH3 is all about feeding the bacteria. After they grow up then its time to seed worms, pods, etc. All life will grow better when the tank is "cycled" so why drag the process out? Just my 0.02 - not even worth that for sure.

[dwd5813]

Originally posted by yakfishin
If your goal is to end up with the greatest number of bacteria possible, perhaps in theory you're correct. If you leave all that much more ammonia available, more and more bacteria will be allowed to multiply. Perhaps then you could start adding fish right at the correct time at the end of the cycle Taking it a step further, why don't we add some food to increase nutrients in the cycling process, perhaps table scraps, in with the rock to even get more nutrients in there, because more has to be better...right? Not trying to be smart at all, just making a point but I think you catch my drift. If in the end my live rock takes a couple of days or even weeks longer to cycle (but mind you I don't believe that to be really the case), but I end up with a more diverse group of critters having survived, then I'm more satisfied with the end result.

again, sorry for the hacked post, but i think i left the idea of it intact. let me know if that is not the case.

the goal is to find an equilibrium for sure. by advocating not changing water during the cycle, i dont feel that i am straying from that goal. my understanding is that you want to have a biofilter capable of processing wastes produced by the livestock you are planning on adding to the tank at the end of the cycle. it makes sense to me to tip the scales in favor of a larger than necessary biofilter to begin with, then even things out with the livestock addition. no, i am not saying in any way that the goal should be a larger than recommended bioload, or that it should be rushed in before the dieoff. what i am saying is that if i can have a biofilter capable of handling my intended bioload in place before that load is put on, why not? i do understand your table scraps comment, but that's really not where i'm coming from. in the end, if my tank takes three months to cycle, i dont care because i know that when it is done the biofilter will be able to process the wastes of the fish i add later. changing water during this process seems to me to be only a way to attempt to speed it along.

[whosinpower]

Sorry to interfer.
DWD5813 - I think I understand where you are coming from....however, in my case, I would have to weigh the cost of killing off other organisms that may have survived if I lowered the level of ammonia in the water. Worms, brittle stars, crabs, corals....all that stuff. Lowered the level...not eliminate.

I guess this is where it comes down to personal preference.

Wolfpup - I didn't pay for baserock and a little liverock to seed for a biological filter. I paid for liverock. I paid for that stuff, and if water changes ends up dragging out the cycle, but saving some of the life that I already have.....then why allow that life to die, and then have to reseed it later?

And note - I said dragging out the cycle....does not mean that my bioligical filter will not be adequate. Might mean that I can only add one or two fish at a time instead of 4 or 6....so what? There is no such thing as hurry in this hobby methinks. More like....hurry up and wait! LOL

[dwd5813]

there is no interfering, only additional comments.
i see the point being made about hitchhikers. the thing that makes me leery of changing water during the cycle is ensuring that there is ample ammonia left in the system to ensure adequate bacterial growth. if that is not affected by changing water, then by all means protect the life you paid for. my understanding of the needed ammonia level may have been incorrect. all in all, there must be some balance, and if you are able to find that balance you are doing it right.
thanks for the discussion.

[tinmanny]

look at water changes like this and you may decide to wait
if a given tank needs a given amount of bacteria to handle the bioload in it then by removing the very items you just produced by using fish food or fresh shrimp to start the cycle would take longer to create the required amount. Amonia to nitrite to nitrate to 0 in one big process or small amounts at a time, if you do water changes. Consider this to change an imbalance you do what? change the water so you are reduicing the ppm by doing so and during the cycle you would be doing the same thing.
Next you change water why? to replace the minerals and trace elements it had as new with salt added, because the salt is where they come from remember you cleaned the fresh water up with a RO DI unit if you are not using them up what would you gain by doing this. 2 weeks is a safe zone to avoid massive loss in a healthy cycled aquarium.
Water changes are to replace essential elements your plants and fish need so if you are loosing 2% in 2 weekd it would make no sense to do a 25% water change no more for the same reason you don't just run out and buy bottles of all the trace elements and minerals and just start pouring them in if it is nit low or falling you did nothing but spend money.
Good Luck
Manny
Just my 2 cents

[yakfishin]

Not really sure if water changes would be nessary Whose. You could start with fully cured live rock, and perhaps your place of purchase is right across the street. If that's the case your not very likely to see your spikes for ammonia and nitrite get very high. I would go by the test kits for ammonia and nitrite, but it's been too long since I have cycled my aquarium to remember at what exact figures I did water changes. This really isn't exact science we're talking about, so you'll be fine as long as you don't go to one extreme or the other, in otherwords, don't change your water too purity and, at least I wouldn't, don't allow it to turn into a toxic brew either. I cured my own live rock, came from the ocean to LA, and then to the airport where I picked it up. Talk about a mess, it still had big globs of algae hanging all over it. I had 220lbs of it and had to hand scrub each and every piece before placing them in my large rubbermaid containers for curing, I was up until like 4:30 in the morning. The purpose of getting everything dead off is to prevent the higher spikes in ammonia and nitrite. A pain in the tail to be certain, but in the end I ended up with brittlestars, chitons, elephant slugs and a host of other critters that are rarely seen for sale, but are good inhabitants none the less. Even saw an orange scallop the other day when rearranging my liverock, not a flame, but a neat looking one anyways about the size of a quarter- I remember seeing him before but he was tiny and I assumed he wouldn't live too long in the aquarium. Anyway, like another poster mentioned, most people want to think they're getting liverock with a good bit of biodiversity, but it won't matter if you allow it to brew in waste. Some people do as wolf pup says and buy base rock and seed it with an active biofiliter, and that is perfectly acceptable as well. There is more than one way to sucessfully start a marine aquarium. DWD- I don't see anything wrong with having a larger biofilter before adding livestock, but larger doesn't to me necessarily equate with having had a faster cycle. I'm still of the opinion that you start off with so many bacteria in the rock to begin with, and each one can only split but so fast, and I'm not sure they split any faster just because of 'excess' nutrients being in the water, and splitting or coming in new from the outside is the only way I know of that the population can grow. Not saying they don't, I have been wrong before and will be wrong again! As far as a larger population of bacteria being better, I have always added just one fish at a time and of a suitable size for the aquarium. So the population of bacteria existing once cycled has always been more than sufficient to breakdown that fishes waste without causing a spike of any harm. I wait about 4 weeks, the length of time the next fish in waiting has be QT'ed and then add the next.

"changing water during this process seems to me to be only a way to attempt to speed it along."

Not really sure what you mean by that, I thought you have been saying that changing the water slows down the cycling process? **Now how about changing the discussion to wether or not too light the aquarium while cycling!**

[yakfishin]

Timanny- if you cycle by that method, your correct, you wouldn't want to do any water changes, your just waiting to build up bacteria on a sponge, filter, or other bio media until the tank cycles. I didn't really think this method of cycling was used much except for perhaps 'fish only' systems, and they're kinda rare. Also, by no means am I advocating just haphazardly changing water while cycling. I'm just a believer in getting as much stuff on the rock through the cycling process alive as possible, as opposed to just worrying about the bacteria. I can't see the bacteria, I love viewing my critters and other growth! I supposed it would also matter wether or not you feel there is anything on or in the live rock worth protecting, perhaps in some cases there isn't.

[CruzinKim]

sorry, dp

[CruzinKim]

No water changes during the cycling process, until it is over. With at least 1lb to 1.5lbs of live rock per gallon of display tank water, your cycle will be really quick, could be less than a week, definitely not more than 10 days. After that, measure your nitrates and see how much you need to eliminate. For example, if it's reading 20ppm and you want it to be less than 10ppm, do a 50% water change.

During your cycling process, let your skimmer take out the waste. Skim really wet and pour out the collection cup often. If your water level's too low, replenish.

[dwd5813]

what i was saying is that i think the cycle is sped along when changing water because there is less ammonia to process.
the other thing i was saying is that the total bacteria population will be smaller at the end of the cycle if you are changing water along the way than if you changed no water.
the way i am thinking of it is this- take two identical brand new tanks and add the same amount of ammonia and bacteria with the same amount of surface area available for colonization.
on tank 1, perform no waterchanges whatsoever.
on tank 2, perform regular waterchanges.
the experiment ends when no ammonia is detectable in either tank.
at the end, which tank will have a greater capacity for biofiltration?
and which one will be the first to read zero?

i have never done this, but i would think that tank 2 would test zero before tank 1, and tank 1 would have a greater capacity for biofiltration.
of course, either tank if left with no additional source of ammonia would lose all capacity for biofiltration, but typically this is the point at which livestock is added. and i do understand that the biofilter balances out to match the bioload, but i would rather have that balancing consist of bacteria starving and dying than my fish having to endure the ammonia spike while the biofilter catches up. on the speed of reproduction, i do not think that individual bacteria will reproduce faster if given an unlimited supply of food, just that the overall rate of growth, the whole colony, will increase as time goes by until the food source is gone. perhaps more clearly, every time the colony reproduces, the next reproduction results in more new bacteria than the last time. i was saying that i wouldnt want to cut off the supply, but i guess it would be streaming by and they could take what they can get. i dunno. thats why i'm using dry base rock and seeding it with a few choice pieces of cured live. and waiting.

on the other topic, what levels of ammonia can hitchhikers live in? i don't know the answer to that. probably not much. this thread has made me reconsider my stance on the topic. perhaps the freshwater guy in me is shining through here and not considering the differences, i dont know.
thanks again for the discussion

[yakfishin]

You make a good point, I'm not really sure how it would work out if you kept up with water changes to a large degree to decrease ammonia at the expense of creating a biological filter. I think most live rock has too much biological activity occuring all the time for water changes to keep up forever with the ammonia being produced. In otherwords, as soon as you stopped changing the water to that extent, the ammonia will once again rise and so you never really did end the cycle. It's all about moderation. Cycling the tank is about building up a large enough biofilter to handle the biomass of the aquarium, supplemented most of the time with other filtration such as skimming, algae scrubbing and others. I guess if you did enough daily water changes perhaps you could theoretically keep fish alive without a biofiliter, but this wouldn't be natural and so in my opinion not as healty of a system. So again, you want the ammonia in the water to build up the biological filter. The purpose of doing a water change is not to get rid of the ammonia, only to decrease the level of it's toxicity, assuming it gets that high, to prevent the die off of organisms that could otherwise be saved. These other critters can help the tank along in the future just as well as the biofilter. I have also read of theories concerning cycles that were extended due to the toxicity levels getting too high, I guess even the good bacteria can start to die. Think of it as a sports car, sure you want to give it some gas- just don't redline it!

[yakfishin]

Forgot to add, this is all going to all depend on the quality of live rock you start with, and how it is handled or shipped. Are you starting with fully cured live rock? Did you get it at the LFS just down the street or was it shipped to you by truck without being packaged very well- perhaps sitting in the back of that truck in 95 degree heat all day. All of this is going to influence how high the ammonia levels are going to reach and wether or not there is even still life worth saving. Your going to have people tell you to never do a water change during cycling, that's their opinion, and it might be correct for all I know. I'd rather monitor things and adjust accordingly if things get out of whack.

[ralphie16]

Originally posted by whosinpower
Nature finds equilibrium.

On the one hand - if we did no water changes throughout the cycling process - you would have an explosion of nitrifying bacteria to happily digest the ammonia.....followed by the nitrate producing bacteria happily digesting the nitrifying bacteria.....and at the end of your cycle....it stands to reason that you would have an explosion of nitrates in your water.....which will be reduced with.....water changes. Livestock added will add more ammonia to the system that will in turn be transformed to nitrite, and then nitrate....and then exported via algae (refugium) or water changes. Am I correct thus far?

All the while - the real quest becomes finding the balance. Too much nitrate in the water results in algae - and something all aquarists do battle with to control....to attempt to balance the equation between livestock needs, microbiological bacteria needs and visual appeal.

I am hypothosizing now, so please correct me if I am incorrect.....if you instituted water changes into your weekly regimen of cycling and general tank husbandry....firstly, you will be taking out some ammonia from your system. You may not get quite as robust a bacterial population of nitrifying bacteria, and may not get quite as robust a population of nitrate producing bacteria......but at the end of the cycle.....would you still have as much nitrate in your water? Would your reach an equilibrium faster? And perhaps if you chose to do it this way....you might be more cautious in adding a biological load, so you would add less fish at a time.....and allow your system to rebalance. Does this make any sense at all?

nitrate is not the final result in our live rock/sand tanks. nitrate is converted in the final stage by bacteria thriving in an anaerobic environment (deep in the sand, many say deep in the crevices of live rock, etc). so yout dont need to do water changes to remove nitrate. the bacteria will eventually consume & convert it. this is one of the signs of a mature tank.