water change during curing cycle

[amadent]

can I do any water changes during my curing cycle?. Its been about two weeks and my phosphates are rising and I have brown diatoms on all the live rock and on the sand substrate. I will be using ro water. I have no skimmer, is now the time to buy? Can I put some clean up crew? amm=0 nitrites =30 nitrates = 10 ph=8 specific gravity 1.023. temp is 78.8. :help:

 

[lion_crazz]

No clean-up crew can be added during the cycle. You also do not want to do a water change either. That will just prolong the cycle, as will a skimmer. You will want the skimmer on when the cycle is over though, so I would look into getting one.
Don't worry about the algae, it happens to every new tank.

 

[chickadee]

you can use a "phosphate sponge" to help soak up your phosphates during the cycle. It's like activated carbon, only it removes phosphates instead. it worked wonders on my tank! Turns out i had a lot of phosphates in my tank, and after using the sponge, my algae quickly ceased to exist.

 

[amadent]

lion crazz and chickadee
thanks for your help. What a great site. I look foward to the day when I can give advice

 

[chickadee]

no problemo! Hey, even now you can give advice... just tell someone that wants to do a water change during cycling that they shouldn't... see? now you're knowledgable!

 

[1journeyman]

Originally Posted by chickadee
no problemo! Hey, even now you can give advice... just tell someone that wants to do a water change during cycling that they shouldn't... see? now you're knowledgable!

LOL, but wrong, hehe..
Yes, you can do water changes during a cycle. In fact you should do a water change if your ammonia approaches 1ppm.
Water changes will not prolong a cycle. As long as there is some ammonia and nitrite present your cycle will continue.
A skimmer right now is not neccessary, but you might as well buy one and get it set up.
Diatoms are a classic sign of a new tank. Don't worry, they will go away.

 

[chickadee]

... hey, i'm all for doing water changes if ammonia gets too high, but his ammonia is at 0, so i agreed that he shouldn't.
actually, doesn't allowing your ammonia and whatnot to get so high prolong your cycle?

 

[1journeyman]

Originally Posted by chickadee
... hey, i'm all for doing water changes if ammonia gets too high, but his ammonia is at 0, so i agreed that he shouldn't.
actually, doesn't allowing your ammonia and whatnot to get so high prolong your cycle?
No worries.. just going of your other post that said to tell someone who wanted to do a water change during a cycle not to. I wanted to make sure the poster understood there is a reason to do water changes during a cycle.
Yes, ammonia at levels above 1ppm can begin to kill the beneficial bacteria you are trying to grow, as well as kill all the beneficial organisms in your live rock.

 

[chickadee]

and, having 0.5ppm ammonia will accomplish the same thing as having 1.0ppm, although it'll take your tank longer to process 1 ppm than it will to process 0.5ppm.

 

[1journeyman]

Exactly.

 

[michaeltx]

my understanding is that if you are in the cycle phase and do a water change the bacteria the goes after ammonia will be lessened beacuse there is less in there all the way down the line causeing a easier spike when adding live stock.
does that make sense.
mike

 

[chickadee]

no... :notsure: ... huh???
if you are cycling, and you do a water change, it decreases your ammonia, not your bacteria. Too much ammonia will kill the bacteria that converts the nitrites to nitrates... therefore lenghtening your cycle. Also, if you have 1/2 of the amount of ammonia, it accomplishes the same as having the full amount because it gets that bacteria to grow. Were you saying that doing a water change removes the bacteria you've produced, and that'll cause a spike when adding livestock? i couldn't quite follow what you said... if that's what you were saying, doing a water change doesn't decrease your bacteria because it grows on your rock and hard surfaces. While some of it may be floating in the water, the majority is colonized on your rock, walls, and sandbed.

 

[1journeyman]

Mike.. not sure I understood you.
Bacteria grows as long as there is ammonia present. So as long as you have some ammonia the bacteria will continue to grow. By continually feeding the tank you keep the bacteria alive even after you quit seeing ammonia on your tests... the ammonia is being produced but "fixed" as the bacteria feeds.

 

[michaeltx]

ok a different way to explain what I always understood.
let say you have 10PPm ammpnia * high I know* and it takes X amount of bacteria to turn it into nitrites causeing the second bacteria to grow in X amount to turn it into nitrates
but if you change out the water during the cycle so you keep 5PPM ammonia it will decrease the amount of food for the bacteria so the amount of bacteria turning it into nitrites would be reduces and then reduce the amount of bacteria turning that into nitates.
so in essense there isnt as much bacteria in the tank that would buffer the new bioload being introduced into the tank.
that was always my understanding on why not to do a water change during a cycle.
hope that makes a little more sense LOL

maybe LOL
Mike

 

[chickadee]

ok, i get what you were saying... let's put it into a different story, though... that's like saying you have 500 cheeseburgers, and 100 people... if you reduce the amount of cheeseburgers to 250, those 100 people are still going to be fed, but the amount of food will run out faster. So, in those terms, the bacteria in that tank will still have enough ammonia to feed on because there's still ammonia in the tank, but the cycle will finish faster... does that make sense?

 

[1journeyman]

Yep, gotcha. But that's incorrect.
The reason is because ammonia at 1ppm becomes toxic to even bacteria.
Also, by spiking bacteria like you are suggesting, unless you plan on having a huge, immediate bio=load introduced to the tank then the bacteria is just going to die off..
The die off is what people forget. Bacteria will die back as they starve.

 

[1journeyman]

Originally Posted by chickadee
ok, i get what you were saying... let's put it into a different story, though... that's like saying you have 500 cheeseburgers, and 100 people... if you reduce the amount of cheeseburgers to 250, those 100 people are still going to be fed, but the amount of food will run out faster. So, in those terms, the bacteria in that tank will still have more than enough ammonia to feed on because there's still ammonia in the tank... does that make sense?
Good analogy... to build on it based on my post...
Those 100 people are going to eat well and reproduce... but what happens when you begin to only feed them 50 burgers?

 

[michaeltx]

thats makes sense it just what i always understood as to why not do a water change.
but the numbers I was useing was just numbers easily cut in half with whole numbers I think a reading of 10PPM has a major problem going on or a lot of dead material in there.
but it does make sense just contrary to what I have read over the years and understood. but everything changes in this hobby to something understood more today than yesterday.
Mike

 

[1journeyman]

Exactly Mike..
There is an old post by me around here somewhere where I pasted an email I received from Dr. Fenner after I posted on his boards asking for an explanation... The book by he and Calfo talks about curing live rock and I wanted to clarify why to not spike ammonia.

 

[reefrobert]

man, I am so dissy, I might fall down!