FunkSolid Posted June 26, 2015 Report Share Posted June 26, 2015 (edited) I'm attempting my first fishless cycle in my 120 gallon tank. I have a Fluval 205 + 406 hooked up with about... 30lbs of expanded clay media in my attached aquaponics system. Dont know if that was even relevant information. The Question: Do you know if in the aquarium, the Nitrogen in the NH4+ (my pH is 8.3 so its probably more NH3) molecules get converted 1:1 into NO3- in the end? I added my first dose of (5ppm) NH4OH last night and i'm curious to know if i'm gonna get 5ppm of NO3- when the NH4 is zero. Thanks P.S. Water is from the tap in South Calgary, treated with Prime. Edited June 26, 2015 by FunkSolid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted June 26, 2015 Report Share Posted June 26, 2015 If it was strait chemistry, it'd be a matter of adding up all of the N, H & O's in NH4 and H2O; however, because it's a biological process, it's not that easy. That being said, do you really need to know? Once NH4 and NO2 reach zero, while giving positive readings for NO3, you know your system is cycled. If you have any seedlings - or even houseplant cuttings - to throw into your aquaponics system while you wait, it'll help the cycle along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkSolid Posted July 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 A colleague of mine (who happens to have his masters degree in Chemistry and is very astute) pointed something out to me that I completely missed. PPM is MASS / Volume! So in a fishless cycle if your adding 1 ppm of ammonia your gonna get 3.65 ppm of Nitrate. Were not dealing with molar ratios so the Stoich numbers are irrelevant, were dealing with molar masses :-) So that takes care of my confusion, and it helps me out a lot because i discovered I had a lot of decaying material in my aquaponics system that were causing a ridiculous amount of Nitrates in tank. I did a good clean out of my grow beds, did some water changes, and now my cycle is progressing beautifully, and i no longer have 80 ppm of Nitrates :cry: in my system. When I pulled some plants out I neglected to remove all the fine filamentous roots, and these guys started decaying and causing trouble. Lesson learned! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 I am dreading my growbeds for the same reason. I was hoping I could pump up the O2 enough with a small concentrator to help the bacteria break ALL of the solids down, but it's not working that way. Gonna try planting a lot more fruiting plants to try to suck up all the nitrates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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