signs of a cycled tank?
- Thread starter syddakyd
- Start date
Help Support Reef Aquarium & Tank Building Forum:
I don't know Mike. I was just in a typing mood. Usually when you do all that talking someone disagrees. It makes it interesting. After all I am an electrician not a scientist.
By the way, how is your bridge coming along?
By the way, how is your bridge coming along?
Bridge is nearly done....we pour the deck itself on thursday night, I'll be glad to have it over with...oh and I didn't forget about the asphalt...it's still in the back lab, once we get the bridge done I'll have more time to play with it...
I would, however (since you asked:lol: ) question the statement about total bacteria populations never dropping in a stable, healthy tank. I don't see a tank always maintaining max populations based on surface area, I would say available nutrients are always going to be the primary limiter here. I think that the bacteria try to maintain max populations, and if they did in fact acheive this, every time you did anything to affect nutrient levels in the tank, you'd have the cloudy water you spoke of. Personally, I think there are way too many other factors involved here for bacteria to ever maintain max populations, I think their populations flux pretty significantly due to available nutrients. Just a thought...
MikeS
I would, however (since you asked:lol: ) question the statement about total bacteria populations never dropping in a stable, healthy tank. I don't see a tank always maintaining max populations based on surface area, I would say available nutrients are always going to be the primary limiter here. I think that the bacteria try to maintain max populations, and if they did in fact acheive this, every time you did anything to affect nutrient levels in the tank, you'd have the cloudy water you spoke of. Personally, I think there are way too many other factors involved here for bacteria to ever maintain max populations, I think their populations flux pretty significantly due to available nutrients. Just a thought...
MikeS
Krish
RF STAFF
Wish I had the time to read through the whole thread to see what all was said, but you guys know my situation right now Just going on the title alone, when I think of a cycled tank, I think of it as an on going process of maturity that a tank goes through. When a newbie asks how long does it take for a tank to cycle, I say when all traces of ammonia and nitrite have dropped off. It is cycled IMO to the point where fish, inverts...whatever can start to be introduced into the tank (in small quanities at a time) and then the "cycling" process basically starts all over again (or continues from where it left off) until all the necessary bacteria is established to handle the new bio-load and then, I consider it "cycled" again. So IMO, it's an on-going process that will be affected by new additions, deaths in the tank etc, but I think the initial point where people can start building on adding their tank's inhabitants is the point after the introduction of live rock and water at start up to where all traces of ammonia and nitrite have dropped off and at that point we tend to refer to things as being cycled
Just going on the title alone, when I think of a cycled tank, I think of it as an on going process of maturity that a tank goes through. When a newbie asks how long does it take for a tank to cycle, I say when all traces of ammonia and nitrite have dropped off. It is cycled IMO to the point where fish, inverts...whatever can start to be introduced into the tank (in small quanities at a time) and then the "cycling" process basically starts all over again (or continues from where it left off) until all the necessary bacteria is established to handle the new bio-load and then, I consider it "cycled" again. So IMO, it's an on-going process that will be affected by new additions, deaths in the tank etc, but I think the initial point where people can start building on adding their tank's inhabitants is the point after the introduction of live rock and water at start up to where all traces of ammonia and nitrite have dropped off and at that point we tend to refer to things as being cycled
Last edited:
Mike I agree with you on that too. A few hours after I wrote it I disagreed with myself. (I hate when I do that) I just wanted to say that all surfaces in a tank are covered with some type of bacteria and not all of them are beneficial to us. I wonder how much bacteria inhabit asphalt?
Paul
Paul
