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  1. #21
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion Frimley Koi keeper's Avatar
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    I know you you are using matured or maturing media here but could something similar be done with brand new media and also is it possible to to keep spare media live so it could be used in a quarantine tank when you swap fish over and have to PP the media etc?

  2. #22
    yes thats fishless cycling, to mature new media before its needed for a new pond.

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  4. #23
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion Frimley Koi keeper's Avatar
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    Thanks I thought it was something like that.

    Just wasn't sure if it would work long term for keeping my spare K1 alive if that makes sense?

    I've got most of the bits required just need some PP and the correct starting doses for the Ammonia. I know the water to K1 ratio is 50:50 it works quicker if heated slightly add aeration and keep it in the dark right?

    Just out of interest does Ammonia have a use by date or similar? I bought some 4 or 5 years ago and was going to use it for this if it is still OK?

  5. #24
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Today is day 7 of the bucket experiments.

    I was shocked at the early results but as time has progressed the results are becoming more confusing. The water is now getting a bit stale which might not be helping.

    Nonetheless I'm still running 3 buckets and as things stand all 3 have ammonia and nitrite readings so I need another day or 2 before being ready with any results.

    All I can say with any certainty is that the 2 week old alfagrog is outperforming the 4 Month old K1 and micro K1. The bucket with EA filter start gel has been the worst performing so far!

    A full table of results will be ready soon!

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  7. #25
    well i knew ceramic media matured faster than plastic but thats just amazing.

    few years back I always had a bit of nitrite that I couldn't shift, I made a diy shower out of a plastic barrel, filled it with grog and ran a pumped return through it, into the pond, it took about 3 weeks to mature enough to shift the nitrite completely, and ive never seen nitrite on a test since. I have since swapped the barrel out for a proper shower.

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  9. #26
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Results so far still confusing the hell out of me.

    Some of them make very little sense and things seem to be stalling a bit over the last few days with background readings that just wont shift - Rather like the pond itself.

    I will post a full table of results once the experiment is complete, but the latest surprise is that the K1 suddenly picked up and overtook the alfagrog.

    The Alfa was amazing for the first few days, but parameters have frozen for the last 4 days. I think the bacteria might have died off.

  10. #27
    Moderator Rank = Supreme Champion Feline's Avatar
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    Sorry I haven't started my bucket experiment yet- I've just been too busy. Will get round to it this week!

  11. #28
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    This experiment is giving me the same problem as the pond itself.

    Buckets have been running for about 16 days now and nitrites initially dropped but have since stayed constant for quite a few days. I wanted to complete the experiment before posting the results table, but the nitrites just wont clear.

    I have 3 brand new test kits, Colombo, NT Labs and API, all of them are full except I've run out of the nitrite reagents on 2 of them and getting low on the API one now.

  12. #29
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion Davej's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RS2OOO View Post
    This experiment is giving me the same problem as the pond itself.

    Buckets have been running for about 16 days now and nitrites initially dropped but have since stayed constant for quite a few days. I wanted to complete the experiment before posting the results table, but the nitrites just wont clear.

    I have 3 brand new test kits, Colombo, NT Labs and API, all of them are full except I've run out of the nitrite reagents on 2 of them and getting low on the API one now.
    Worth checking the pH and probably more importantly the KH to make sure you still have some?

    I was surprised when it took mine a week, second off with fresh water it was 6 days - so that is the range I seem to have got. With hindsight a lower dose of ammonia would probably have been more typical of loadings as hitting the bacteria with 10mg/l of ammonia in one shot could skew things.. The logic behind my thinking here is that experience with fishless recycling is that it is important to change the water over when you go from stage 1 (Ammonia cycling) to stage 2 (Nitrite cycling), don't know the science behind this (only that if you don't it doesn't work so well!) but would guess that when the levels get too high (as the Nitrite levels will in stage one) that there is a negative impact on the Nitrobacter..

    Dave

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  14. #30
    That's correct Dave. Read this, it explains how to do fishless cycling and the final paragraphs explain about changing water:
    Fishless cycling

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  16. #31
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Your post matches my thinking Davej,

    Nitrite was being consumed quite quickly in the Alfagrog bucket for the first day, then slowed almost to a complete stop. Meanwhile the ammonia level took quite some time to come down. I think the nitrite bacteria was killed off due to the excessive ammonia levels.

    Further to that the water in the Alfagrog and Micro K1 buckets has become very stale with a thick film over the surface. The Alfagrog had many 1000's of black fly larvae within it which all died in the bottom of the bucket and clouded the water. The K1 Mirco also had dirt and living organisms amongst it.

    Difference between the experiment and fishless cycling is you can't change the water in the experiment!

    Not checked KH for a few days but it was high at 11 drops (195 ppm)
    PH has come down from 8.2 to 7.5

    Even though Ammonia is zero in the experiments, the Nitrites have been stuck at around 2 mg/l for 12 days now. I have a feeling they are stuck there. The most frustrating thing is, that's the exact problem I was hoping to find a solution for as the pond has been stuck at between .75mg/l and 2mg/l for 3 Months now. Even if I stop feeding for a Week it only comes down marginally, and whilst a 50% water change will halve it, it then doubles up back to where it was within 24 hours.
    Last edited by RS2OOO; 24-08-2018 at 06:30 PM.

  17. #32
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion Davej's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RS2OOO View Post
    Your post matches my thinking Davej,

    Nitrite was being consumed quite quickly in the Alfagrog bucket for the first day, then slowed almost to a complete stop. Meanwhile the ammonia level took quite some time to come down. I think the nitrite bacteria was killed off due to the excessive ammonia levels.

    Further to that the water in the Alfagrog and Micro K1 buckets has become very stale with a thick film over the surface. The Alfagrog had many 1000's of black fly larvae within it which all died in the bottom of the bucket and clouded the water. The K1 Mirco also had dirt and living organisms amongst it.

    Difference between the experiment and fishless cycling is you can't change the water in the experiment!

    Not checked KH for a few days but it was high at 11 drops (195 ppm)
    PH has come down from 8.2 to 7.5

    Even though Ammonia is zero in the experiments, the Nitrites have been stuck at around 2 mg/l for 12 days now. I have a feeling they are stuck there. The most frustrating thing is, that's the exact problem I was hoping to find a solution for as the pond has been stuck at between .75mg/l and 2mg/l for 3 Months now. Even if I stop feeding for a Week it only comes down marginally, and whilst a 50% water change will halve it, it then doubles up back to where it was within 24 hours.
    Hi, would be interesting to see if it is possible to see whether it is the sudden exposure to high ammonia levels that knocks back the Nitrobacter or the subsequent super elevated Nitrite levels.. Should be easy to pin down so I may have a play..

    I haven't seen any drop off in performance Nitrite wise following spawnings when you will typically see 1.5mg/l NH4.


    Your pond situation is a bit strange - although it is still early days, All I can suggest is patience, yes its not easy but you will crack it.

  18. #33
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Ok, so here are the "results" of the experiment.

    Highest temperature throughout experiment = 24C
    Lowest temperature throughout experiment = 18C
    Average temperature = 21C

    Bucket 1 = K1 taken from the outer chamber of my Nexus 220 that has been constantly running since April, i.e 4 Months.
    Bucket 2 = K1 Micro taken from the inner chamber of my Nexus 220, again, 4 Months old, but for this I added a dosage of Evolution Aqua Pure+ Filter Start Gel.
    Bucket 3 = Alfagrog that has been kept in a basket in the centre downpipe section of the Nexus 220 and was only 2 Weeks old at the start of the experiment.

    As you can see from the early results, all started off so well and the Alfagrog was initially amazing especially considering its only 2 Weeks old, but as with the pond itself, the outcome is that Ammonia gets consumed quickly but Nitrites get stuck at circa 2 mg/l and wont shift lower.

    Key:
    N/A or Blank spaces mean I didn't test that parameter on the specific day.
    > Symbol means the reading was greater than the amount stated, but less than the next level up on the test result colour scale chart.
    < Symbol means the reading was less than the amount stated, but more than the next level down on the test result colour scale chart.

    Its worth noting that the Alfagrog has many thousands of black fly larvae on it and these all died and sank to the bottom causing the water to stale quite quickly.
    Similar with the K1 micro which had various living organisms in and a fair amount of dirt as it was taken from the dirty part of the filter. Interestingly many of these organisms survived and are still swimming about in the bucket (worm type creatures).
    The K1 water remained clean throughout and actually still looks quite polished.

    I predominently used an API test kit, but on occasion I also used a NT Labs kit and a Colombo kit, partly to verify readings and partly because they all have different increments between the various levels I was testing.

    This is the state of the 4 Month old K1 I started with, which to me looks quite mature for its age:

    Attachment 25483Attachment 25484


    Here are the test results:

    Bucket Paramater experiment.PNG


    The buckets are still in situ but I've almost used up all the nitrite reagents across the 3 kits and now only have the API one left so from now on I'll only test every 2 days until I see movement in the nitrite levels after which I'll test daily again until nitrite is zero. I don't personally think it will ever get to zero!
    Last edited by RS2OOO; 25-08-2018 at 06:47 PM.

  19. #34
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    I started this experiment on 7th August and stopped testing nitrite daily after posting the results table in the above post because it was using up all my reagents.

    It is now 7th September and Nitrites are still reading 2ppm in all 3 buckets.

    I cannot explain why nitrites went down to 2ppm and then stopped but can only assume all the nitrite eating bacteria is dead and therefore I've now ceased the experiment. There definitely was nitrobacter bacteria present because the alfagrog bucket initially went to zero nitrite before spiking back up when the ammonia got consumed.

    I was hoping this experiment would help me understand why I cannot shift nitrites below 1 mg/l in the pond, but it actually ended up exhibiting identical symptoms.


    Experiment 2:

    I've just bought 25 litres of new K1 to add to the Nexus and have held 15 Litres back for a new (huge) bucket experiment. This time I'm using 30 litres of water from a very mature fish tank and running a filter from a mature tank in the bucket. I have dosed 2ppm ammonia and will re-dose to maintain a 1ppm minimum.

    Once this new K1 is "mature", I'll gradually start adding pond water to the bucket and once all parameters match the pond (except for zero nitrite hopefully), I'll pour it into the Nexus.
    Last edited by RS2OOO; 07-09-2018 at 01:14 PM.

  20. #35
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Experiment 2 is resulting in an entirely different problem to experiment 1.

    You may recall I used 30 litres of water from a mature fish tank and a filter from a mature fish tank running through a huge bucket with 15 litres of new PPd K1.

    Day 1: Added 2 ppm ammonia.

    Day 2: Ammonia and nitrites read zero. Attributing this to the mature filter and being concerned that the filter is dealing with ammonia/nitrites too fast preventing the new K1 from maturing, I decided to wash the filter out with untreated tap water which was around 7 degrees colder than the bucket temperature.

    That should have killed off all the bacteria in the filter right? Wrong.

    I then added ammonia to 3ppm.

    Day 3: Ammonia and Nitrites reading zero! Added more ammonia taking the level up to 5ppm.

    Day 4: Ammonia = 0 mg/l, Nitrites = 0 mg/l. Now changing the (fish tank) water and replacing it with pond water. and re-dosing back to 5ppm ammonia.

  21. #36
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion Davej's Avatar
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    Those are the results that one would expect from mature media.

    My feel is that the very high dose in initial experiment knocked things back.

    Dave

  22. #37
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Just 5 hours after the above post and 5 ppm ammonia is already down to zero.
    Nitrite reading is over 2 ppm.

    I'm going to continue as is now, except to increase water volume to 40 litres and change 20 litres with fresh pond water every day. Will dose 3 ppm ammonia in the morning (calculating for the new higher water volume) and another 3 ppm at night, keeping this up for 2 or 3 weeks and then dumping the K1 into the Nexus.

    Edit: Another change I might make if I can be bothered is to empty 3/4 of the media out of the filter and re-fill it with the new K1. 3 to 4 litres should fit in there.
    Last edited by RS2OOO; 11-09-2018 at 05:06 PM.

  23. #38
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Agreed Dave, but also I think having flowing water may also be helping as it stops a film developing over the surface and keeps it oxygenated.

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  25. #39
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion Frimley Koi keeper's Avatar
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    After reading Syd's fishless cycling info on his site I think you might be missing a couple of things unless I'm miss reading his instructions.

    He mentions you should be aerating the media - is this correct in all variations of the fishless cycling processes?
    He also mentions that sodium bicarbonate should be added - is this only required to get things started or required as the PH alters throughout the process?
    Another thing he mentions is the addition of phosphate if the process stops working.

    Not sure if any of this is things you've already tried or already ruled out RS2000?

  26. #40
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Hi Frimley,

    Not using an air pump but the filter sprays jets over the water surface so there's plenty of oxygen. In the first bucket experiment I didn't use anything but it still consumed all the ammonia, just at a much slower pace.

    Not sure why he advocates bi-carb but I make you right, the pH is reducing rapidly. Im maintaining it with 50% daily water changes.

    Phosphates are getting consumed fast, but my pond has 1ppm phosphates and this is the water being used for the daily water changes, thus maintaing it at 0.5 ppm in the bucket.



    Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

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