Nitrogen cycle after lying fallow?

[thirdchild]

So I left my tank fallow for 3 months after my last fish died possibly of itch or something. It's been running with coral, a fire shrimp and snails. The shrimp gets fed each day with pellets and I do weekly 30% water changes. Should I do anything to bump the bioload before I add a new fish?

 

Params are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5 nitrate and ph 8.26.

 

Thanks!

[Benny314]

Yeah start slow like you would with a new tank. If you chuck a dozen fish in any tank you'll get a ammonia spike that the bio filter will have to catch up too.

So pick your stock carefully, and start with your most passive choice first so you don't have aggression problems down the line when adding the rest of your stock.

[VW_TDI_02]

Since you have been feeding it regularly, I wouldn't worry too much about adding a fish.

[brandon429]

very good post

 

 

it will work fine with no ramp up

 

even if you had never fed the tank in the interim, it can still support -more- bioload than what you originally took out of it, fallow even for 9 months, to the opposite of what we'd assume going off the notion that reef keepers control whether or not filter bacteria live in their tanks

 

there was so much organic stores/feed in the rock that the bacteria stayed pretty much the same on the colonized vital spaces whether or not you add fish yesteryear or next year.

 

another inversion of the same rule for microbiology:

 

my own reefbowl has never had a fish inside it for the decade its been alive, if I add a fish, will it crash with an ammonia spike? nope. it is however ok to redundantly add all kinds of bacteria dosers, or recycle your rock again in mistrust, its all variable and totally ok, our bacteria adapt. if you wanted to just reacclimate the fish though, that'd work too. don't use API test kits to infer if this works on not lol./

 

no period of fallow running will make a tank need special treatment when reintroducing fish unless we are not talking about live rock as the primary active surface area. you can go fallow for nine years and then go nonfallow, and your bacteria in the tank are enough to eat up the hungry demand for ammonia. its true colony levels will rise and fall relative to fish bioload and that's what most are hinging on when they have concern over ending a fallow run...but the fallback was never enough to sterilize the surfaces and what was left in the interim on 6 football fields of flat surface area was still enough to oxidize the waste from the fish, which is why varying populations of nitrifiers don't impact us much at all.

[VW_TDI_02]

very good post

 

 

it will work fine with no ramp up

 

even if you had never fed the tank in the interim, it can still support -more- bioload than what you originally took out of it, fallow even for 9 months, to the opposite of what we'd assume going off the notion that reef keepers control whether or not filter bacteria live in their tanks

 

there was so much organic stores/feed in the rock that the bacteria stayed pretty much the same on the colonized vital spaces whether or not you add fish yesteryear or next year.

 

another inversion of the same rule for microbiology:

 

my own reefbowl has never had a fish inside it for the decade its been alive, if I add a fish, will it crash with an ammonia spike? nope. it is however ok to redundantly add all kinds of bacteria dosers, or recycle your rock again in mistrust, its all variable and totally ok, our bacteria adapt. if you wanted to just reacclimate the fish though, that'd work too. don't use API test kits to infer if this works on not lol./

I have to disagree. Yes, there are food stores in the rock and other detritus that are constantly being released into the water column. That was occurring when the fish was originally in there. Since the fish was removed, the rock and detritus are still releasing ammonia into the water column but the fish itself is not (unless you never fed your fish ever) so the amount of ammonia being released into the water column has been reduced. This directly impacts your bacteria colony which now shrinks due to lack of food. Adding a ton of fish will cause an ammonia spike if there is not a proportionate bacteria population. Since OP has been feeding his shrimp, there is still a source of ammonia constantly being added into the tank but again, that doesn't account for the additional ammonia that will be added with the addition of a new fish (have to feed them both). In the end all this means is that it is safe to add a fish into your tank and your bacteria colony will need to adapt and grow in order to accommodate the added ammonia. Adding one fish is obviously not the same as adding 10 fish to your tank. The colony can grow and handle the additional ammonia from one fish without compromising the rest of the tank.

[brandon429]

it surely doesn't hurt to go slow on a ramp up, but regarding bacteria its fun to discuss their limitations or abilities imo.

 

are you implying they had no other feed if he didn't place some feed in the tank? I might counter offer a few alt feed places, to test your idea of reversing sterility

 

1. other bacteria. the single reason going fallow doesn't neutralize your filter bacteria is because nitrifiers are not found alone in reef tanks but in large groups of other competing, and dying bacteria. when they die, they leak ___________ and the nitrifiers are fed in close proximity. regarding microbiology, do open containers tend to go sterile or get dirtier with scums and slimes as time goes by? how does reversing sterility work independently for nitrifiers, and not other microbes, as they are bound?

 

alt bacteria are so persistent in getting in, and dying, that its amazing they are only 1 of several alt feed sources to the side of fish and feed that keep our tanks going. I wanted to just touch base on this first one above.

 

this is reflecting off actual web threads where this fallow/fish action was tested and its good to know how to attain that repeatedly. something has to explain the actual threads that are out there that show the fallow/fish no ramp up working just fine.

 

regarding the ten fish, adding ten fish to many established nanos could cause a spike having nothing to do with fallow...so we may agree somewhat that adding a normal bioload considering these alt feed sources wouldn't cause a spike. when I mentioned adding more bioload I was thinking along the lines of an extra fish not ten heh

 

I don't think any of this is particularly a big deal to reefing, but the reason I like to xchange ideas about it is because not long ago we couldn't even drain our tank for big water changes without killing bacteria, the air would kill them. by undoing that notion of the day, giant water changes became avail to those needing rock access for various reasons, or to reset chem issues... to me these little facets about tank bacteria do matter collectively. its fun either way to dissect and discuss.

[thirdchild]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Yeah, considering the size of my tank, I'd rather be overly cautious and ask. Dunno how much ammonia some pellets might be. I only plan to stock 1-2 fish total, so definitely beginning slow.

 

I think since we can't really measure the bioload or bacteria population directly, it's a guessing game :-(

[VW_TDI_02]

I am not implying that there are no other ammonia sources. I'm saying that those processes are going on constantly and were also going on while the OP had a fish in there. The difference is that OP is no longer adding food in order to feed the fish and therefore the bacteria colony no longer has as much food and therefore will shrink due to lack of food and will readjust in order to be proportionate to the amount of food being added into the tank (less when he wasn't feeding a fish). Now that OP wants to add fish a fish, he can add another fish because that is a slow addition to the tank and the amount of ammonia in the water will only slightly rise and but it will the bacteria will still be able to accommodate it since it is a small rise. I was saying ten simply does exaggerate the point and obviously ten fish in a pico would not work very well. haha.

[neuf]

How big is your tank and what fish are you planning on adding?

[thirdchild]

17 gallons. It'll either be a clown or a small wrasse.

[neuf]

I left my 10G fallow for longer than you did (1 year) with no coral and only a brittle sea star. I maintained RO top offs and very light feeding during that time. I added a small ocellaris clown at the end of that period and only issue I experienced was a small algae bloom.

 

If I were in your position, I would have no hesitation about adding a clownfish, although I would be watching parameters very closely and feeding lightly for the first couple of weeks.

 

I have no experience with wrasses so I can't weigh in on that.

[brandon429]

We can test before introduction and neat feedback above

 

ammonia digestion test

 

spike current system 2ppm using cleaning ammonia no suds

 

if zero in 24 its actual proof

 

don't use Api test kit for ammonia

[thirdchild]

I got hit with a power outage last week for about a day, so I wanted to give it a little time to recover. :-(

 

I tried 2 runs of the ammonia digestion test using Dr Tim's ammonia solution.

Looks like 1ppm is digested within a day, but 2ppm is about 2.5 days.

 

Still safe to add a clown? LFS has had one on hold for me, so I'd like to go get it tomorrow...

[brandon429]

Yes I strongly feel that a clown isn't that much direct waste each day should be good