Ammonia livestock question

[kevsqn]

so i was thinking if during my cycle i let my ammonia rise very high say ~8.
Then after the cycle...
Would this mean that the livestock that my tank can handle would be significantly higher because there are much more bacteria that consumed the high ammonia?

 

[brandon429]

That's a nearly lethal amnt of ammonia even for filtration bac if sustained
it's approaching cleaning/sterilization levels at 8
1ppm is plenty

Bacteria are surface area limited and self- regulate populations using many factors, it's not the amount of ammonia present it's the surface area they can cling to that sets the final population limit.

In two example tanks, one has a tiny chunk of live rock the size of a ping pong ball

The other has a hundred pounds of live rock

Ping pong ball gets 4ppm ammonia verified accurate and bottle bac for thirty days

Hundred pounds gets .5 ppm ammonia verified for 30 days and bottle bac

The hundred pounds holds orders more fish than the ping pong ball one can support even though only trace ammonia was given. the surface area of the hundred pound tank decided

 

[brandon429]

On any given submerged surface, bacteria won't stack past certain biological and physical thresholds given feed beyond a normal state

Floating bacteria from other species will begin uptake and mass addition in the water, eventually clouding.


Only a thin biolayer is selected for on the rock I was shown in a bac post here once, makes space the most valuable asset for filtration bacteria above feed.

consider the power of vital space in this arrangement: we can take any tank running years in fine balance and hook up nine canister filters to the system changing nothing about feed.
In a month, all those canisters filters took on orders more bacteria onto the floss, new bacterial mass not in the system prior. only because new surfaces were provided, not that more feed was offered.



Controlling surface area is a way to regulate bacterial colony mass in a reef aquarium and we use too much. I bet that ping pong system can run ten times more bioload than people would guess