Maturing fish tanks. Which is the best?

I am a scientist, so here goes...

the question is.. how are you going to test for "mature" fish tank? the number of
bacteria is not a test because you dont know what these bacteria do. you need a
functional test. I would suggest a concentration of ammonia and you need to pretest
for this.

1. control
2. food (Hikari Gold fish food) or any food that releases ammonia within 15 minutes
when put into water.
3. ammonia in same concentration as released by the ammonia above
4. cycle with ammonia same as released above, or, with food
5. different bacteria with ammonia or food as above. my preference would be for the
food. weigh it to get it exactly right. and dont overload the tank.

OTOH, you might drop in a small GF and find out how much ammonia that GF puts out per
weight of food per day.

you need to be sure to keep the temperature the same and you CANNOT just use
distilled water. you must add some RO right or other "salts" or the bacteria will
fail. the pH will swing wildly. BTW, DO TEST THE PH every day too.

Ingrid

On Sat, 1 Dec 2007 03:57:01 -0800 (PST), redsockfluff
wrote:

>Hello everybody! I am a BSc student in the UK and for my dissertation
>I am comparing 4 different methods of maturing fish tanks and
>comparing the amount of bacteria grown on the filter sponges. Tank 1
>is a fishless cycle with nothing added. Distilled water (control tank)
>Tank 2 is a fishless cycle with 0.30g of food intended to rot and kick
>of the nitrogen cycles. Distilled water
>Tank 3 is a fishless cycle with Nutrafin Biological Suplement "Cycle".
>Distilled water
>Tank 4 is a fshless cycle with Bactinettes. Distilled water.
>
>As the water I am using is distilled (due to the terrible limescale in
>the tap water here and the fact that the microscope slides I put in
>the filter got covered in limescale so I couldnt see the bacteria!) I
>am not entirely sure my experiments will work because I am not adding
>ammonia to any of the tanks
>
>When using bactinettes and cycle do you have to add ammonia? Because
>it doesn't say to on the instructions. Does the fact that i am not
>adding ammonia make a difference? If i am just adding cycle and
>bactinettes, the bacteria, do I need ammonia in there to sustain their
>growth? And if I water test everyday; nitrates, nitrites, pH and
>ammonia in every tank each day... will i see any change?
>
>If anyone can make any suggestions or give me their opinion on any of
>these points i would love to hear from them and would appreciate it
>greatly!
>
>Please excuse spelling and grammar etc, i'm dyslexic!
>many thanks,
>
>red
 >> Stay informed about: Maturing fish tanks. Which is the best? 

"redsockfluff" wrote in message

> Hello everybody! I am a BSc student in the UK and for my dissertation
> I am comparing 4 different methods of maturing fish tanks and
> comparing the amount of bacteria grown on the filter sponges. Tank 1
> is a fishless cycle with nothing added. Distilled water (control tank)
> Tank 2 is a fishless cycle with 0.30g of food intended to rot and kick
> of the nitrogen cycles. Distilled water
> Tank 3 is a fishless cycle with Nutrafin Biological Suplement "Cycle".
> Distilled water
> Tank 4 is a fshless cycle with Bactinettes. Distilled water.
>
> When using bactinettes and cycle do you have to add ammonia? Because
> it doesn't say to on the instructions. Does the fact that i am not
> adding ammonia make a difference? If i am just adding cycle and
> bactinettes, the bacteria, do I need ammonia in there to sustain their
> growth? And if I water test everyday; nitrates, nitrites, pH and
> ammonia in every tank each day... will i see any change?
>

As Tynk said tank 1 will be a dud.

How about one tank with fish? I gather you're trying to avoid having any
pets after the experiment?

I've read that only the refrigerated bacteria products are of much value,
but I have no idea if they're available in the UK. Bactinettes sound very
good, but I've never seen them here.

You might also try a tank with Amquel+ or Prime, which won't speed up your
cycle but will give your 'fish' a better quality of life during the cycle.
It would be interesting to see cycle time vs. water quality (fish health).
In other words, you don't care too much if one method takes a week longer to
cycle provided your fish are not harmed. I would expect to see this with the
Amquel+, Prime products.

You'll need to feed your bacteria regardless of the route you go.
 >> Stay informed about: Maturing fish tanks. Which is the best? 

Thanks for the responses! Much appreciated

All the tanks are the same size and have a Fluval 1 filter in.
The distilled water was concerning me too. Do you think it's a good
idea to just use tap water and treat it with a water hardness
adjuster? Can't get RO water here... well not with any ease anyway!

Tank 1 - is my control tank
Tank 2 - I'm not worried about as the food is there to breakdown and
produce the ammonia.
Tank 3 - I've read on these threads that in a lot of peoples pinions
that due to the lack of nitrospira that Cycle won't work at this stage
of tank cycling which, if it fails as a maturation method doesn't
concern me because then it just shows that it doesn't work. But it
won't work either way if there is no ammonia present or this is what I
gather from what you're saying... so I think I will use the fish food
like in tank 2, same amount.
Tank 4 - Again from your response I gather I need a source of ammonia
so I think I'll go for the food option... again same amount.

Have never seen BioSpira, Amquel or Prime over here so I don't know if
it's available. I worked in a big fish shop last year selling fish and
aquaria products and I never came across those. I do have a limited
knowledge of fish keeping but before I started work I had no knowledge
at all so I am still learning. As for trying a tank with fish - I
doubt my college would allow it to be honest! I want to do 7 max, 5
min repetitions of the experiments. The final dissertation is due in
May 5th and due to things like inspections (Ofsted etc), Christmas
holidays and half terms the amount of time I have to do it I is
getting shorter and shorter. Feeling a little out of my depth and I'm
extremely gratefully for you guys helping me!

I am cycling 7 days (I know its 7 to 10 but because of the time
constraints I am only doing 7 days). I am water testing daily for
ammonia, nitrates, nitrites and pH except for weekends when I don't
have access to the labs.

To the scientist - Ingrid.
My methods of counting the bacteria probably a bit rubbish!
- I have put 2 slides in each filter and at the end of cycling for 7
days I take them out and gram stain them and counting the amount of
bacteria through random fields of vision.
- At the end of the 7 day cycle sponges are removed, put into a jar of
distilled water and put in a shaker for x amount of time. The water is
then sampled and bacteria cells then counted using a haemocytometer.

The lab technician and I have been looking at ways to culture the
bacteria from the sponges but keep hitting a brick wall. We know it's
possible to culture but we can't find out exactly what the media is or
what exactly it's made up of.

Please excuse my ignorance but what do you mean by a small GF. Did you
mean goldfish?

Thanks again for all your help everyone.
 >> Stay informed about: Maturing fish tanks. Which is the best? 

"Bill Stock" wrote in message

> How about one tank with fish? I gather you're trying to avoid having any
> pets after the experiment?
============
I hope he doesn't put any fish in distilled water. =:-O
--
RM....
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }<((((*> ~~~ }<{{{{(ö>
 >> Stay informed about: Maturing fish tanks. Which is the best? 

"redsockfluff" wrote in message

> Thanks for the responses! Much appreciated
>
> All the tanks are the same size and have a Fluval 1 filter in.
> The distilled water was concerning me too. Do you think it's a good
> idea to just use tap water and treat it with a water hardness
> adjuster? Can't get RO water here... well not with any ease anyway!
=====================
My water is so alkaline and hard due to our serious drought this past summer
I've started to collect rain water to mix with tap water. Rain water is
free. My fish have really picked up.
--

RM....
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }<((((*> ~~~ }<{{{{(ö>
 >> Stay informed about: Maturing fish tanks. Which is the best? 

don't worry i am not stupid enough to put fish in distilled water.

i really want to avoid a fish cycle. want to concentrate on fishless
cycling
 >> Stay informed about: Maturing fish tanks. Which is the best?