Q-Tank Cycling Question

[Beverly]

This is a dumb question that I should know the answer to, but am unsure of.......

I set up a bare 20g Q-tank two months ago. It has a heater, glass lid, an NO light of some sort, pvc elbow and T, two small powerheads, and an AquaClear Mini and AquaClear 200 both filled to the max with foams for maximum surface area for bacteria growth. Fed it heavily for use with two fish. Cycling seemed to take forever, but it finally cycled.

Okay, then, the tank cycled. I cleaned out all the algae, cleaned the foams in outgoing changewater and did a 100% water change. Put in the two fish that had been in my 72g tank of doom where the fish had ich off and on.

Fish have been in the Q-tank for over a week, no sign of ich. Hooray!!

Dang. Once I put the fish into the tank, I got .4 ppm ammonia and .2 ppm nitrite the next day. Have even been suctioning out all leftover food and poop. Had been doing twice daily 50% water changes to keep the fish eating, but then remembered that adding Prime would neutralize the ammonia, so I've been doing that daily and skipping some of the big water changes. Fish are eating well, no signs of ich. Hooray!!!!

Anyway, my question is this: Prime converts ammonia to ammonium. Are the same bacteria that process ammonia into nitrite the same as the bacteria that process ammonium into nitrite? I'm pretty sure the answer is YES, but I need to check this out.

TIA :smile:

[sleeman]

Beverly,
From what I understand, you are correct. Prime will neutralize, but nitrosomonas etc will still feed on the ammonium. I use prime as well when my q tank gets away, and have never had any problems.

Cheers,


Al

[Lofus]

Beverly,

I think the 100% water change and cleaning the foams probably eliminated most of your bacteria. The bacteria need the "dirty" water to feed.

That's why you need to feed the tank beacuse without the amonia source no bacteria will be established.

[Beverly]

The tank was cleaned and the water changed the day before the fish went in, so the bacteria would have still been in the foams, don't you think? Also, it's impossible to fully clean foams, no matter how hard a person tries. There would have been some detritus in the foams to keep the bacteria going for the day there was no fish or food in the tank.

[EmilyB]

I agree about the 100% water change and depletion of bacteria from the foam - it's certainly not something I would ever do anyway. :confused:

Even if you didn't kill all the bacteria Bev, if the tank was cycled, something was supplying them with food. The remaining bacteria could not handle it.

[Beverly]

I agree about the 100% water change and depletion of bacteria from the foam - it's certainly not something I would ever do anyway.

Interesting how folks say what they would not do, but do not offer what they would do instead :rolleyes:

Please enlighten me as to how you would cycle a a bare tank that will possibly be used to treat ich (or other diseases), then get it ready for occupancy. Also enlighten me on the care of the tank once the fish are in it for a 6+ weeks for treatment (probably hyposalinity), to keep nitate low when foams have already become nitrate factories.

Keep in mind that the tank had been moderately fed for 2 months with fish food, had lots of cyanobacteria on glass and pvc, and nitrate levels of 10-15 ppm.

[StirCrazy]

[quote=EmilyB]Please enlighten me as to how you would cycle a a bare tank that will possibly be used to treat ich (or other diseases), then get it ready for occupancy. .

do a water change on your biggest tank and use that aged water to kick start your quarantine tank. from that point 50% water changes as needed to control your nitrates in your q tank if and when they start to raise.
use your filtration and carbon if you are not medicating.

Steve

[Beverly]

Steve,

How would adding water from an established tank kick start the cycle in a new tank? Not trying to be contrary here, but all I would get from the other tank would be water with about 10-15 ppm nitrate and slightly low alk/Ca (common before weekly water change in my tanks), and no bacteria since bacteria typically do not live in the water column but live on surfaces in the tank. Also, if the established tank is cycled, there would not be any ammonia or nitrite, so I don't see a benefit from using water from an established tank for that reason either.

I must not be seeing the benefits of using old tankwater the way you see them....

[Lofus]

The biggest advantage to using existing tank water is that the water chemistry in the QT will very closely match that of the Main tank so it will minimise the adjustment needed by the fish when they come out of the QT.

The other benefit is that the existing tank water is already laden with the biological residue that decomposes into Amonia and Nitrite so you can start growing both cultures right away.

Starting from scratch on a QT, I would use 50% main tank water and 50% new water (my QT is 30 gal so I would have to do a 50% water change to the Maint tank to fill it. This would stress my main system too much).

I feed the tank with a coctail shrimp to provide amonia. To jump start the process I have taken a small babyfood jar of sand from the tank and placed it in the QT. (Keeping the sand in the jar since the QT is bare bottomed.)

Once the tank has cycled, I check the Nitrates. I then perform 10-20% water changes using main tank water over the course of a couple of days to get the nitrates under 10ppm. While the tank is up I do a 10% water change every week using water from the main tank.

As an added bonus my main tank gets lots of fresh seawater in small doses over time.

I do not clean anything except the glass in the QT until I empty it.

I hope that helps.

Jim

[Beverly]

Jim,

Sounds like a good plan for a Q tank. But for a tank that harbours ich, like mine, not so good. Luckily, I got my fish out of the main tank while they had no ich, so I'm thinking I may not have to treat for ich, just QT them for 6 weeks.

Actually, it may be more than 6 weeks, because I think your idea of doing water changes from the main tank into the Q tank is a good one. Once the main tank has been fallow for 6 weeks, I may do several 20% water changes over the course of 3-4 days to easier acclimatize the fish to the main tank.

[Lofus]

Beverly,

If your main tank has Ich or any other deseases then I agree with you. Use new water for all your water changes until you are positive the desease has been eliminated from the MT.

Jim

[Buccaneer]

Are you using copper or hyposalinity to treat the fish ?

[Beverly]

Steve,

I am all set up to use hyposalinity, but there is no sign of ich on the fish, not for about 3 weeks prior to removal from the main tank and not now that they are in QT. I may not have to treat at all.

Just a side note on the additional ammonia and nitrite in the tank. Have been using Prime to neutralize the ammonia. Nitrite levels have stayed constant at about .2 ppm since the fish went into QT about a week ago. Measured nitrate today to see how the bacteria are working and found slightly less than 5 ppm. So, there are nitrifying bacteria in the foams, just not quite enough for the bioload. Will keep monitoring every day or two just to be on the safe side.

[StirCrazy]

Bev, where did you hear that bacteria doesn't live in the water?, there is plenty of bacteria in the water (just happens to be more in the sand and rock) otherwise you would never get nitrates in a bare tank, the benefit is that bacteria doesn't grow at a specific rate but rather it doubles so lets say you transfer 1 million of the little guys then in a bit you will have 2 mill, then 4 mill, then 8 mill, then 16 mill and so on and so on.. if you start by using new water and trying to cycle it it could take you significantly longer to reach the same population of bacteria.

Steve

[Buccaneer]

You will have to treat them ... ich does not go away by itself ... I suggest to treat with hyposalinity ( better than the copper on the digestive tract ) and leave main tank fallow for 6 weeks ... do 10% water changes at once a week ... leave at 1.009 sg then over 3 or 4 days at the end bring the sg back up to 1.026 or whatever you normally run at ... if you have a refractometer great ... if not then calibrate whatever you are using against one ...

Good Luck ... it will be all over and back to normal before you know it :cool:

Cheers

[Beverly]

Steve,

Didn't quite believe you when you suggested some nitrifying bacteria live in the water column, so I asked the question on RC. Seems you are right, at least according to one source. Okay, so now I am a believer.

One thing that I had on hand was a small foam from a cycled tank. Used it to begin the cycle in the 20g Qtank, though I did have to add another AquaClear and about 4 times as much foam to have enough surface area for the size of fish that were to go into the tank.

The Other Steve,

Since the fish are showing no signs of ich for the past 3-4 weeks, and if they don't show any signs in the few weeks to come, I see no reason to treat for something they do not have.

As you have said and as I have read on ATJ's hyposalinity treatment page, if the main tank is left fallow for 6 weeks, the ich will not have hosts when they hatch and become active, and the main tank will be free of ich too.

[apepper]

Since the fish are showing no signs of ich for the past 3-4 weeks, and if they don't show any signs in the few weeks to come, I see no reason to treat for something they do not have.

I would be worried that they may still be carrying the parasites but in some undetected location, possibly hidden within the the gills. This is a quote from the article in Reefkeeping.

"It is possible that immunity could protect the fish from massive infestation, but still allow small numbers of parasites to remain and reproduce undetected by the aquarist. This is where the 'Ich is always present' argument comes into play..."

I would probably take the extra precaution and treat the fish anyway just to ensure that the 6 week fallow period has every chance of being successful.

[Beverly]

I would probably take the extra precaution and treat the fish anyway just to ensure that the 6 week fallow period has every chance of being successful.

Alex,

I will consider your suggestion. The Qtank is not yet cycled for the bioload it has to handle. I'm leery of upsetting the current nitrifying bacteria by reducing salinity at this point, but you are right that ich may have entered the Qtank undetected.

What I will do, while the tank completes its cycle, is carefully monitor the fish. In the confines of a 20g, it would take a relatively short period of time, imo, for ich to present itself. I'd rather extend the Q time by a few weeks, especially in an uncycled tank (dang!!), and treat if necessary than to treat solely on the possibility ich may be present in the Qtank.

Will let you know if the fish get ich while in the Qtank.

[Buccaneer]

More info on hyposalinity and actual cures for ich ... it is a 5 part series and should be read in it's entirety

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2004/mini5.htm

[Beverly]

Will let you know if the fish get ich while in the Qtank.

Just thought I'd update at this juncture...

It's been a day shy of four weeks since the two fish from the ich display tank went into QT. I've been watching closely for signs of ich and there have been none. Appetites are great and activity levels are high.

Typically, when the fish were in the display tank, they'd get ich for 3-4 days then be ich free, then get ich again in 2-3 weeks. With the fish in QT not having ich in 4 weeks, I'm coming around to believing they did not carry any with them from display to QT tanks :smile:

Of course, there are at least another two weeks before I put them back in the display tank. They could still come down with ich between now and then, but I'm doubting it from what I've seen of ich with these fish in the display tank. BTW, Qtank is on the kitchen counter where there is a lot of traffic and where the fish could be stressed more than usual, and still no ich :smile:

[trilinearmipmap]

Beverly,

You stated that the tank seemed to be cycled, then you got an ammonia/nitrite spike after cleaning the tank and introducing the fish.

Perhaps instead of having cycled filter sponges in the tank, the large growth of cyanobacteria was consuming the ammonia, so when you tested the tank prior to introducing the fish, ammonia tested zero. After cleaning the tank (removing the cyano) there was nothing left to consume the ammonia.

Just my opinion.

[Beverly]

trilinearmipmap,

You may be correct that the cyano was eating some of the ammonia (and a whole lot of phosphate). I cleaned the tank in anticipation of dropping the salinity to 1.010 to treat my fish for ich and did not want a die off of cyano to cause a large ammonia then nitrite spikes.

As it turned out, the fish did not carry ich with them, so I did not have to drop the salinity. There is now another healthy growth of cyano in the tank :rolleyes: , which cycled about two weeks ago before the cyano regained its foothold.

What I could do once the fish are back in the display tank in another ten days or so (gotta check the calendar), is drop the salinity for a week or two to see if the cyano in fact does die off. Knowing this would be useful if I had to treat new fish for ich in a Qtank that has cyano.

However, dropping salinity to find out the effect it has on cyano will not help me if new fish have velvet, a bacterial infection or whatever, which would require different treatments than hyposalinity. Before putting in new fish, I will probably still clean away the cyano anyway in anticipation of treating any possible health problem and not having any spikes due to cyano die off.

What I won't do, though, while cleaning the cyano is have the two AquaClears running but will instead syphon the the tank dry, then immediately add NSW and get the system running right away. The foams won't get filthy from catching all the loose cyano and there will be no need to do a thorough foam cleaning. I will do a gentle foam cleaning to rid them of large pieces of crud, which is what I do each water change. Even though I suck out any poop I find in the bare tank 2-3 times a day, some of it still gets caught in the foams. Leaving the large crud in the foams is just asking for trouble, imo. You wouldn't believe how dirty a half bucket of water gets from even this partial cleaning :eek:

[Beverly]

do a water change on your biggest tank and use that aged water to kick start your quarantine tank.

Had a fish die in QT 10 days ago. Had been treating it for cloudy eyes, but was not sure if the cause was bacterial or parasitic, so I bleached and thoroughly rinsed/dechlored the tank, filtration systems, the whole shebang then started again using about 2/3 water from water changes and 1/3 NSW as suggested.

Am using ammonia (with no additives) to cycle the unlit tank instead of fish food, so there will be no cyano or algae growth to contend with later on. Tested the water this morning for nitrite which would be a sign that the bacteria from the old SW would be doing its thing already after 5 days. Nitrite is 0 ppm :confused: Shouldn't the cycle kick-starting have begun to happen already?