NH3 and NH4, cycling a new 90 gallon

[SaltyShrimpy]

No true, and this seems to be the crux of the confusion here. All of Brightwell’s numbers in that page are total ammonia, and in fact most everywhere else as well. Almost no one in the reefing community discusses free ammonia levels (except Seneye users) for a host of reasons, including they change hourly as the pH changes.

We can verify with Brightwell if you want, but look at it this way. If you add 1 ppm total ammonia and the pH is 7.8, the tank would be cycled instantly. By your reasoning. You are still at 0.6 ppm total ammonia by the Seneye, and would only have converted half of the 1-2 ppm total ammonia Brightwell recommends adding for cycling .

If your PH is changing hourly, that's a big problem. Unless you're talking about very small changes, from 8.2 to 8.3 perhaps. Which is such a small change that it's impact to NH4 -> NH3 conversion is negligible, and easily managed by the biofilter.

And I have made no claims about instant cycling - in my case I waited the appropriate time for my specific kit, because my kit includes dosing raw ammonia. My kit is a fishless kit.

The claims I repeated from others, were made by the hundreds of people who are NOT dosing ammonia, and who did dump in a bottle of bacteria and instantly add fish, instantly cycle. With great success, over and over. I mean, don't take my word for it, go read those forums yourself if you doubt their claims.

Kinda similar to the 'instant cycles' where people take a big block of marinepure out of an established tank, add it to a new tank, and then add livestock.

 

[SaltyShrimpy]

You are stating untrue things (the prime comments are false), and you are treating me as if i don’t understand the difference between NH3 and NH4+.

I am not going to spend any more time trying to convince you, but you may find it useful to read my ammonia article.m where u describe all of these things in detail, including discussing toxicity levels.

Ammonia and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

My man, everything I've said is either true from my own experience or pretty well documented from others experience. Just because we've found an area of disagreement doesn't make me a liar.

If you feel I'm treating you like you don't understand NH3 and NH4, well, it seems like you maybe don't. Or at least, you don't care about the difference. As I've stated many times, you're disregarding the fact, and yes it's a fact, that NH4 is not toxic to livestock. You're free to make that choice and you're free to offer that advice to others, even if it does seem old school, but you kinda cross the line by calling other people liars just because they disagree with your method and want to try and discuss newer, arguably better methods.

As for my claims about Prime, first, I've done it myself more than once, and friends and family have done it at my suggestion, with 100% success. And so have many others. You evidently don't believe me, but just because you aren't aware of something doesn't make it a lie.

Here's a couple sources:

https://fishlab.com/fish-in-cycle/#seachem-prime-fish-in-cycle

How to fish-in cycle with Seachem Prime

If you want to cycle your aquarium with fish inside, then you can do so safely by using Seachem Prime. In order to properly do so, you can take a look at this

aquariumblueprints.com

https://forum.seachem.com/forum/general-discussion/27330-stability-prime-7-days-no-ammonia

Cycling with Fish - Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community

Is it inhumane to cycle my tank with hardy fish? I know that if I cycle my fish tank with fish that that I should do 50 percent water change every day. I am also adding a bottle of bacteria to the

www.aquariumadvice.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You are misunderstanding so many things that it is hard to know where to begin,.

First, I defy you to find anyone in this thread who says that cycling is done if you added 2 ppm total ammonia and it is down to 0.6 ppm total Ammonia. That is your situation. At best you will find folks who say ignore the numbers and plow ahead after adding bacteria, not that they thing 0.6 ppm when accurately measured is an indication.

Second, you did not show it is ok since, as I mentioned, the Seneye may be inaccurate.

Third, the Prime comments are misguided. Recent research shows it does nothing for ammonia in seawater, but it most certainly does not just convert it into ammonium.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Seachem prime:

Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?

This started when @Dan_P was looking at measuring NH3 with seneye and was curious about performance near zero NH3. I suggested trying Prime to artificially zero out the NH3 sensor, and the results were weird... so I checked with my seachem kit. Prime by Seachem is commonly used to treat tap...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[SaltyShrimpy]

You are misunderstanding so many things that it is hard to know where to begin,.

No, I am not misunderstanding, I just disagree with you, and it appears you're unable to process disagreement.

First, I defy you to find anyone in this thread who says that cycling is done if you added 2 ppm total ammonia and it is down to 0.6 ppm total Ammonia. That is your situation. At best you will find folks who say ignore the numbers and plow ahead after adding bacteria, not that they thing 0.6 ppm when accurately measured is an indication.

I'm gonna go ahead and defy you to tell me anywhere that I claimed cycling is done. My claim is that it's safe to add livestock - not that the cycle is 'done'.

Second, you did not show it is ok since, as I mentioned, the Seneye may be inaccurate.

You're really just shooting in the dark here. As you mentioned, "the Seneye may be inaccurate". Based on what? You're own mistrust about a device you have no first hand experience with? You've taken the effort to do the conversion math between NH4 and NH3 based on the TAN readings from my salifert kit, a few times in this thread, and each time it basically matches up with the seneye readings. I only say basically, because if the seneye needs trimming, it may be high or low by a few THOUSANDTHS of a PPM, which is a negligible difference.

You've basically shown yourself that it's accurate. And I mean, if it was not accurate, wouldn't my poor clownfish be dead by now? Or at least, gasping at the surface and showing signs of distress? But yeah, by all means, continue to argue against actual, real things that are happening in the real world right now.

Third, the Prime comments are misguided. Recent research shows it does nothing for ammonia in seawater, but it most certainly does not just convert it into ammonium.

Again, that's your opinion. You're free to offer it, and I'm free to disagree. Have you ever done a fish-in Prime cycle? Cause I have. I can base my opinion on actual real world observed results, instead of whatever vague 'recent' research you are referring to.

But aren't you contradicting yourself in that sentence? Research shows it does nothing for ammonia in seawater? And, it certainly does not JUST convert it into ammonium?

So which is it? Does it convert it into ammonium, or does it do nothing?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

As for my claims about Prime, first, I've done it myself more than once, and friends and family have done it at my suggestion, with 100% success. And so have many others. You evidently don't believe me, but just because you aren't aware of something doesn't make it a lie.

I did not say you lied. You gave false information about Prime. You believe it so it is not a lie. Just false. There is no evidence it forms ammonium and Seachem gives zero info about how it might work.

The fact that it seems to not work is even more vexing, but it’s the ammonium claim that I commented I commented in relation to.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Ok, let’s just agree that I didn’t say your tank was unsafe (I don’t know) , and we can be done. You are obviously not interested in any deeper understanding.

 

[SaltyShrimpy]

Ok, let’s just agree that I didn’t say your tank was unsafe (I don’t know) , and we can be done. You are obviously not interested in any deeper understanding.

I'm fine with letting this die, but you definitely still misunderstand. Because, I am not sure what deeper understanding I should be seeking. I started this post with a rudimentary understanding and through this post and all the other searching and investigating I've done over the last few days, I feel like I understand quite well. We don't agree on the importance that should be placed on some factors of the nitrogen cycle. It's not that either of us fails to understand.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’ll summarize the only points I tried to make here. Except the last one, I hope we do not disagree on them.

1. I do not know how accurate the Seneye numbers are for NH3 or pH.

2. The values it did report reflect a total ammonia of 0.6 ppm (I’m basing this on the NH3 and pH from the Seneye only).

3. If you dosed 2 ppm total ammonia and still have 0.6 ppm, that does not seem like very good ammonia processing capability has been established.

4. Going by just those numbers, most reefers, including me, would be concerned about its readiness for adding fish now.

5. Ignoring the numbers, adding bacteria can often instantly cycle a tank, and you may be good to go. Fritz turbo start seems best at this, but the product you used may be adequate.

6. While free ammonia at pH 7.8 may be adequately low, at pH 8.2 it may not be, and tanks can change from pH 7.8 to 8.2 and back again over the course of a light cycle. If ammonia is actually at the values you indicate, I’d be sure to not try to raise pH.

7, Seachem prime does not appear to reduce free ammonia in seawater, and it does not appear to attempt to do so by converting it into ammonium. The many experiments supporting these assertions, even in light of many people saying it works for them, are discussed at great length in the link I posted. These are not my experiments, but I did critically evaluate their ability to support these claims.

 

[brandon429]

for number three, I think there's a tendency in the chemistry community to believe any test kit reading stated by a respondent. who says the stop really occurred leaving things short? that could be a test drift error etc.

I have never seen any known mechanism to show that partial ammonia control happens during a reef cycle


with the degree of surface area we employ, things amplify very fast is the pattern at hand...by day ten pretty much any reef tank can carry a bioload is the true outcome pattern I think anyone who searches threads will find.

 

[brandon429]

I think there's ways to use seneye that give snippets of the future of cycling science.

for example, just from this seneye thread alone, I spot these impacts:

Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

So, after an interesting discussion on nitrate dosing and looking at my Walt Disney coral and seeing it slightly less colorful than I have seen it in others tanks, I have decided I want to learn about and then try dosing ammonia instead of buying 20 damsels. Nitrate additives I see abound and...

www.reef2reef.com

we can see that by and large, matured tanks run in the low thousandths ppm nh3 and pretty much any jolt of ammonia dosed as a test, or a nitrate supplement, is initially oxidized within about 15 mins on highly calibrated units.


truly, honestly, has anyone in reefing ever seen 20 API ammonia test owners align to show load handling in 15 mins, for over ten pages of different test feedbacks? heck no


seneye reveals the impact of stacks of excessive surface area heated and swirled in a reef tank. the tightness in control across all those tanks shows the shock absorber effect

*even people who don't own a seneye have this same inherent tank ability, that's a big deal*

it's not just for some tanks and not others...anyone who copies the tested design (stacks of rocks in a reef tank) gets this outcome above, in short order. that's the fascinating part. the collective ability of all seneye posts actually shows us we don't need to measure ammonia at all in reefing, even during dry start cycles. we can use calculated wait times for known arrangements to cycle by an exact end date now. it's no longer open-ended wait cycles.


seneye reveals how that mechanism works in my opinion.

if someone wants to take time to pm the posters from the above ammonia dosing threads about their initial cycle logs which Ive done a lot of times, we see some starts in the hundredth ppm nh3 and what we always see, always always, is total ammonia compliance by day ten IF no uncontrolled rising + apparent fish health matters in that measure. some people choose to accept that anything but hard zero ammonia means safe for fish, and some people think test drift is still so imperfect all we need are the little snippets of repeating truths to see what reef tanks do.

that seneye above will not show an uncontrollable loss of ammonia control after day ten, that's the bet. it'll carry whatever bioload is added, like Ike did in his instant dry start reef tank thread.

in all fairness those are fully matured reefs and yours is new, that's not apples to apples.

but again even this new system met some predictable results before, during and after load testing/ the trending is down not up in overall nh3. any bioload you add is going to live normally I'll bet, if they're acclimated well and disease doesn't factor into behaviors.

by day ten the system will carry bioload and feed in a stable manner, that's the bet, coming off the total degree of seneye posts I've seen.

if all I'd seen was API posts, we'd still be assuming some cycles stall and some don't, some never fully work, and results would be all over the place vs very very tight: in the thousandths or low hundredths ppm for literally any seneye post I've seen. that's very very consistent in fact.

I think those snippets of pattern mean something big for the hobby, we'll know one day as testing evolves.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW, some readers of this thread may find this other thread of interest;

How toxic is ammonia, really?

In the context of trying to understand why so many people believe Seachem Prime was useful for them in an elevated ammonia situation, against the data in the link below about Prime potentially doing nothing to free ammonia in seawater, the question arises, why...

www.reef2reef.com