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Part 1: Water Changes During the Cycle


seabass

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Several members of Nano-Reef.com and I have developed the following experiment to help determine how water changes affect a new tank's nitrogen cycle. Design discussions can be found on this thread. We welcome you to follow along, and even duplicate the experiment to verify the results. Psychosis plans to run another trial in the near future.

 

 

Objective:

Determine how partial water changes affect the time that it takes to establish the nitrogen cycle.

 

Design Variables:

• Distilled water

• Synthetic saltwater, mixed to 1.024-1.025 specific gravity

• Evaporated water from both containers will be replaced daily with distilled water

• One (1) forty (40) lb bag of live sand

• Container A will undergo one (1) gallon water changes every other day (25% of the total water volume)

• Container B will receive no water changes for the duration of the test

• Forty (40) Ocean Nutrition Formula One food pellets (initial ammonia source)

• Ten (10) Ocean Nutrition Formula One food pellets added daily (ongoing ammonia source)

 

Outcome Variables:

The rise and fall in levels of the listed contaminants:

• Total ammonia (NH3/NH4+)

• Nitrite (NO2-)

• Nitrate (NO3-)

 

Measurement method:

Test performed daily on water from each container for the duration of the test, using API Ammonia and Seachem MultiTest: Marine Basic (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate) test kits.

 

Test duration:

Four (4) weeks

 

Equipment:

• Two (2) five (5) gallon buckets for distilled water/saltwater

• Two (2) Maxi-Jet 400 powerheads

• Container to mix saltwater

• Powerhead to mix saltwater

• ½" ID flexible tubing

• Distilled water from Walmart

• Instant Ocean synthetic salt mix

• One (1) forty (40) lb bag of CaribSea live sand

• API Ammonia test kit

• Seachem MultiTest: Marine Basic test kit

• Refractometer/hydrometer

• Log book

 

Procedure:

• Add twenty (20) lbs, of the forty (40) lb bag of CaribSea live sand to each container

• Fill each container with four (4) gallons of synthetic saltwater mixed to a specific gravity of 1.024

• Add a Maxi-Jet 400 powerhead to each container (operating for the duration of the test)

• Add twenty (20) Formula One food pellets to each container (to support initial ammonification)

• Test and chart ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels in the water of each container daily

• Top off each container with distilled water everyday

• Add five (5) Formula One pellets to each container daily (for ongoing ammonification)

• Perform one (1) gallon water changes on container A every other day

 

Results:

ammonia.jpg

nitrite.jpg

nitrate.jpg

© TheReefFarm.com 2009. All rights reserved.

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For those of you that like visuals.

 

Test containers with sand (approximately 4.5" deep):

bucketofsand.jpg

 

Filling empty one gallon jug with saltwater:

saltwater.jpg

 

Containers with sand, saltwater, and powerheads:

containers.jpg

 

Containers Day 4 (notice pieces of food pellets on the sand):

test_buckets.jpg

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Some pics of tests in progress.

 

Seachem test kits (nitrite, nitrate, and ammonia):

seachem_test.jpg

 

I got a second API Ammonia test kit so that I can simultaneously run and compare tests:

2xAPI.jpg

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I'm sort of surprised that the ammonia level seems unaffected by the first two water changes. If anything, the test container that receives water changes appears to have a slightly higher level of ammonia (but not enough to assign it a higher numerical value).

 

Today is another water change day. Note that tests are run prior to the water change.

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Project7Studios
Cool. Science at work rather than uninformed heresay.

 

Nice work :D

 

But, uninformed heresay IS a science! I read it on the internet so it MUST be true!

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Definitely gonna follow along B) it'd be nice to know given how much ####flinging is going on on both sides of the fence these days.

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I will update with pictures once I'm able to set up my own buckets. I have to start my experiment later than Seabass due to problems with my tank and time constraints. Expect to see my own buckets running next week or the week after.

 

Oh yea, excellent work with your own buckets bass my man. Preety much exactly as we discussed.

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I think that it's too early to tell if nitrite levels are on the way down (as inaccurate color matching is a common mistake), but total ammonia seems to have leveled off. After three (3) ;) water changes, I'm a little puzzled by the similar ammonia readings between the test and control containers. I'm interested to see how it progresses during the second week.

 

Seachem ammonia test tip: Adding the reagent to the sample and stirring before placing the sensor into the sample seems to give me more even results.

 

Oh yea, excellent work with your own buckets bass my man.
Thanks!
:D

 

I paid him to say that.

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LOL^

 

Also, your getting some weird* results lol. I wonder if Psychosis will get the same ammonia level info...

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I don't WANT nice coral.

 

I f*cking need it.

 

Haha. Like I said, expect to see my buckets soon folks. I wonder if my Ammonia levels will be as similar between the two buckets as you're reading, bass.

 

edit: Damn it Jacob, why do you have to steal my thunder?

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You and I think too alike lol.

 

and I am a beast, and I wanna see the results, mostly because my cycles usually take a week at the most lol.

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I'm sort of surprised that the ammonia level seems unaffected by the first two water changes. If anything, the test container that receives water changes appears to have a slightly higher level of ammonia (but not enough to assign it a higher numerical value).

 

Today is another water change day. Note that tests are run prior to the water change.

 

I'm not, I'm betting you still have ammonia in the test bucket long after the control. Just for the sake of testing..can you check what the ammonia level is after the water change to see if there is any reduction?

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...can you check what the ammonia level is after the water change to see if there is any reduction?
I was thinking the same thing yesterday and almost did another test after that water change, but I ran out of time. It should be 25% less than the value prior to the water change (which might not even be enough to lower the numerical results). However, I'll do it tomorrow and post the results.
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Nice Nitrite drop.

 

The ammonia thing still has me baffled. Is that the max number the test reads, or are they really at the same level?

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Is that the max number the test reads, or are they really at the same level?
No, they are basically the same level. As you can see in the pictures, both of the test kits can read higher levels.
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Gotcha. I didn't look close enough to see what picture was what test. That's very interesting then. Can't wait to see the second experiment confirm the ammonia.

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Testing 07/16/09 (day 9):

testing.jpg

 

Close up of API ammonia tests:

api.jpg

The shadow makes the comparison deceiving, but they are still the same.

 

API ammonia test after the water change (as promised):

api_after.jpg

It is lighter then prior to the change. We'll see if they are still the same tomorrow.

 

For those that wondered what is sitting behind the test containers (frags from my 40B):

tank.jpg

Notice some food on the sand of the test buckets (this is before the daily addition of pellets).

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Speculation:

The ammonia levels might be driven by the addition of new food pellets (a constant source of ammonia). Since there are measurable amounts of nitrite and nitrate, we know that ammonia is being processed (the data also suggests that it's not continually built up).
Food is added after testing and water changes.

 

Based on the data, I'm guessing that if daily food additions were stopped, the ammonia level would begin to zero out fairly quickly. At this point, I expect that this pattern will continue until the systems can process more ammonia. When this happens, ammonia should zero out, followed by nitrite.

 

Nitrate will continue to be built up in both systems, although 25% of the total remaining nitrate will be exported from the test container every other day. In addition, (with 4½" fine grain sand beds in each bucket) we might begin to see the effects of natural nitrate reduction on the two systems.
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I'd definitely agree that your speculation is correct. I forgot about the food addition. For some reason I was thinking the food was just used to start the cycle.

 

So did you wake up early or are you still awake from thursday?

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