Dr. Tim's Ammonia Chloride Dosing Instructions are Wrong.

[fuelman]

back in the day when DR Tim's ammonia was 1 drop per gallon on the instructions the test reading matched the dosed amount spot on. it wasn't till they changed the concentration & instructed 4 drops that it became a issue. the first time i used the new version i was 8ppm the next day by following the instructions. so now i do around 2.5 drops per gallon if I'm setting up a new system. maybe they just need to go back to the old concentration & 1 drop dose, i used it quite a few times back then & never had a high reading on a new set up.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I think he means add 5 bottles of bacteria. Instead of 1. At least that's how I took it.

All I’m saying is bacteria plus salt water plus sugar. Will give you a lot of bacteria

 

[Dan_P]

Would probably work. Be a little more pricey though.

The idea needs works

 

[Dan_P]

I think he means add 5 bottles of bacteria. Instead of 1. At least that's how I took it.

Yeah, initial idea is to add a boat load of nitrifying bacteria. As @Coxey81 points out the cost might make the approach unpoular.

 

[Coxey81]

All I’m saying is bacteria plus salt water plus sugar. Will give you a lot of bacteria

I feel like I'm almost on a homebrew page... almost

 

[MnFish1]

I am working on an alternative approach.

If all we are doing is increasing the number of bacteria with all these ammonia additions, then the new instant cycle approach is to add a few times more the recommended amount of nitrifying bacteria. For example, if one bottle is recommended for 100 gallons, add 2-5 bottles and then add fish.

This does not make any sense to me. Why? Because bacteria grow - at a far greater rate than adding 2-5 bottles. 1. The instructions on 1 bottle say - add fish - with 1 bottle on day 1 (no need to add 2-5 bottles). 2. To feed the additional bottles of bacteria - you still need ammonia to be produced. So - lets say there are 1,000,000 bacteria in a bottle (totally made up number - and you add 5 bottles - thats 5,000,000 bacteria - right?

well - if you add 1,000,000 at time 0 - in 15 hours or so there Will be 2,000,000. In 30 hours or so there will be 4,000,000, in 45 hours there will be 8,000,000. In 60 hours there will be 8,000,000. So there is no reason to add more bacteria - only 'food'. However - if you're going to add 'food' - via fish - just follow the instructions on the bottle. Don't add 5x as much?

 

[MnFish1]

All I’m saying is bacteria plus salt water plus sugar. Will give you a lot of bacteria

You must not have a microbiology degree. Some bacteria yes - nitrifying autotrophs - no.

 

[sixty_reefer]

You must not have a microbiology degree. Some bacteria yes - nitrifying autotrophs - no.

There’s more than just nitrifying bacteria in a bottle? What I’ve used was allegedly a bottle of nitrifying bacteria only and glucose did caused a bloom in the vessel And no microbiology degree, if I had one, we wouldn’t be discussion what we have been discussing for the past few days.

edit: This is related to the post we’re Dan mentioned using 2-3 times the recommended dose of bacteria, I’m asking if we adde sugar to the culture to bloom the bacteria responsible to break down carbon would that be a viable option. As am guessing that is a important part of a cycle. We normally don’t see spikes in ammonia on the cycle with bottled bacteria but do see a issue in breaking down C

 

[Dan_P]

This does not make any sense to me. Why? Because bacteria grow - at a far greater rate than adding 2-5 bottles. 1. The instructions on 1 bottle say - add fish - with 1 bottle on day 1 (no need to add 2-5 bottles). 2. To feed the additional bottles of bacteria - you still need ammonia to be produced. So - lets say there are 1,000,000 bacteria in a bottle (totally made up number - and you add 5 bottles - thats 5,000,000 bacteria - right?

well - if you add 1,000,000 at time 0 - in 15 hours or so there Will be 2,000,000. In 30 hours or so there will be 4,000,000, in 45 hours there will be 8,000,000. In 60 hours there will be 8,000,000. So there is no reason to add more bacteria - only 'food'. However - if you're going to add 'food' - via fish - just follow the instructions on the bottle. Don't add 5x as much?

Correct. Exponential growth always beats linear growth.

 

[jonny4ever]

Just thought I would let everyone know that during the effects of tap water on nitrfying bacteria experiment it was confirmed by myself and @sixty_reefer that Dr. Tim's claimed drop size and solution percentage is wrong.

They claim their drop size is .05ml.

I performed four tests of 16 drops measured with a syringe and received an average of 1.05ml. 1 ml twice and 1.1 ml twice.

Sixty_reefer tested this twice and received 1.1ml for 16 drops.

This comes in for an average of .066ml per drop.

Also, they claim the ammonia chloride solution is 4%. Through several stock solutions along with test results we have determined it is actually very close to 6%.

This may not sound like much, but with a couple of plugs into fishlores ammonia calculator you can see how this can lead to large over dosing.

For example, if you want produce a 2ppm solution by adding 4 drops per gallon in a 10 gallon tank per their instructions... you would add 40 drops.

You would actually be dosing 2.66ml instead of the intended 2ml at a 6% instead of 4% solution.

This would lead to 4.25 ppm NH4+NH3 level instead of the intended 2 ppm.

Over twice as high as intended.

I would start with one drop per gallon, test, and increase accordingly.

Aquarium Calculator - Fish Tank Volume, Heater Size, Chiller Size & More!

Aquarium size and volume calculator and many other common conversions. Uses tank dimensions for calculating fish tank size in gallons.

www.fishlore.com

When I cycled last year they said to only dose 1 drop instead of 4. I never knew the reason but I guess you found a reason lolol

 

[Dan_P]

There’s more than just nitrifying bacteria in a bottle? What I’ve used was allegedly a bottle of nitrifying bacteria only and glucose did caused a bloom in the vessel And no microbiology degree, if I had one, we wouldn’t be discussion what we have been discussing for the past few days.

edit: This is related to the post we’re Dan mentioned using 2-3 times the recommended dose of bacteria, I’m asking if we adde sugar to the culture to bloom the bacteria responsible to break down carbon would that be a viable option. As am guessing that is a important part of a cycle. We normally don’t see spikes in ammonia on the cycle with bottled bacteria but do see a issue in breaking down C

Good points.

Bottled bacteria that contain only autotrophic nitrifying bacteria may not benefit from an added carbon source, though I am not so sure that they are on a strict CO2 diet. Need to do some reading and experiments, like feeding my Bio-Spira biofilms glucose or amino acids and see how nitrification capacity changes. As for encouraging other bacteria growth, I definitely want to see that too.

By the way, I find the “you must not have a microbiology degree” comment stifles discussion. Better to ask for clarification. One might learn something

 

[sixty_reefer]

Good points.

Bottled bacteria that contain only autotrophic nitrifying bacteria may not benefit from an added carbon source, though I am not so sure that they are on a strict CO2 diet. Need to do some reading and experiments, like feeding my Bio-Spira biofilms glucose or amino acids and see how nitrification capacity changes. As for encouraging other bacteria growth, I definitely want to see that too.

By the way, I find the “you must not have a microbiology degree” comment stifles discussion. Better to ask for clarification. One might learn something

I could be wrong and got a contamination in the vessel from wend I was playing around with biofloc and probiotics. It could be also that the culture from the bottle I got wasn’t as pure as it should. I did observe a bloom past the 5 days although it could be related with the reasons above.
am sure the comment was just in jest

 

[Lasse]

All I’m saying is bacteria plus salt water plus sugar. Will give you a lot of bacteria

Good points.

Bottled bacteria that contain only autotrophic nitrifying bacteria may not benefit from an added carbon source, though I am not so sure that they are on a strict CO2 diet. Need to do some reading and experiments, like feeding my Bio-Spira biofilms glucose or amino acids and see how nitrification capacity changes. As for encouraging other bacteria growth, I definitely want to see that too.

By the way, I find the “you must not have a microbiology degree” comment stifles discussion. Better to ask for clarification. One might learn something

The carbon source for nitrifying autotrophs is not organic carbon (sugar) - it is solely inorganic carbon (HCO3/CO3/CO2) - in the nitrifiers case - probably CO3/HCO3 not CO2 because it is known that they works best in water with an alkalinity above 3 dKH (normal pH above 8) compared with natural water below 7 (dKH near zero) However - if the water contain a dKH over 3 and you press down the pH below 7 with adding CO2 - the nitrification still work good - but if the pH is below 7 and near zero in dKH - the nitrification stop. A natural water with pH below 7 have a higher CO2 concentration and a lower CO3/HCO3 (alkalinity) compared with a natural water with pH above 8
I know some other does not have this point of view (according to the exact carbon species) but experts of nitrification that I know have exactly the same standpoint as I and all my experiences support this.

Adding organic carbon in a start of a nitrification process is counterproductive because it will favour the heterotrophs that compete with the autotrophs of space and oxygen. That´s also the reason why you only should use pure nitrification bacteria bottles in a start.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Malcontent]

Adding organic carbon in a start of a nitrification process is counterproductive because it will favour the heterotrophs that compete with the autotrophs of space and oxygen. That´s also the reason why you only should use pure nitrification bacteria bottles in a start.

Lol, Seachem, you suck.

 

[MnFish1]

There’s more than just nitrifying bacteria in a bottle? What I’ve used was allegedly a bottle of nitrifying bacteria only and glucose did caused a bloom in the vessel And no microbiology degree, if I had one, we wouldn’t be discussion what we have been discussing for the past few days.

edit: This is related to the post we’re Dan mentioned using 2-3 times the recommended dose of bacteria, I’m asking if we adde sugar to the culture to bloom the bacteria responsible to break down carbon would that be a viable option. As am guessing that is a important part of a cycle. We normally don’t see spikes in ammonia on the cycle with bottled bacteria but do see a issue in breaking down C

First - we are talking in general about nitrifying bacteria. Not heterotrophic bacteria (which use glucose). In your experiment (as I Said before) - you 'bloom' was caused by heterotrophic bacteria - which double much much faster - in a matter of 10-20 minutes as compared to 13-19 hours. Thats why the bloom occurred. (and those bacteria can also process ammonia. in this case, I thought we were discussing Dr. Tims (which is supposed to be autotrophic bacteria - which require ammonia) - if you added Dr. Tims or other nitrifiers to a tank - with sugar (and no ammonia), you might have a bloom of heterotrophs (becasue they are everywhere - and grow fast) but not ammonia using bacteria (at least not right away)

 

[MnFish1]

Correct. Exponential growth always beats linear growth.

By the way - I was assuming you were talking about adding bottles that are supposedly 'specifically' nitrifying bacteria. And - if so - I would agree with you - if you added 5x the number of ammonia - in theory, you could add 5x the number of fish - at etc start up. At some point, though, you will have a diminishing return. My guess is that the reason they chose their 'dosage' - is because you can use the bacteria, add a reasonable load, and there will be no ammonia problem.

I often add more bacteria then recommended when starting up a tank and adding fish, mainly because I tend to add more than just a pair of clowns, etc.

 

[MnFish1]

Lol, Seachem, you suck.

I have used Seachem stability - on a yearly basis (in a freshwater tank) - when we move our Koi from outside to insides for the winter. These are 5 to 6 7-10 inch fish in a 72 gallon tank for a couple months. Because its a short time - I never have a filter 'going' - I merely add water, the fish, and Stability and have never had a loss. Now - of course - Koi are quite tolerant to 'bad conditions' - but there has never been a hint of stress. When I started up my tank - shown in my build thread - I used stability - with no problems (and dry rock and sand - and old sump equipment not (without rinsing - so I suppose there is some biofilm.

 

[MnFish1]

By the way, I find the “you must not have a microbiology degree” comment stifles discussion. Better to ask for clarification. One might learn something

You're correct. I did not mean to come across harshly to @sixty_reefer. I do have a microbiology degree - and I meant to further clarify that - but was riding in a car where there was more service. What I was going to convey was 'you must not have a microbiology degree - like most people on this site - which is also why there is so much misunderstanding about bacteria and nitrification - because it is extremely confusing. Especially when talking about 'bacteria in a bottle - which some brands are thought to contain 'only' nitrifying bacteria, some brands are thought to contain mostly heterotrophs.

 

[MnFish1]

New Nitrifying Bacteria Experiment.

Several people have been kind enough (@Coxey81 and @sixty_reefer) to do a couple experiments and comment (@Lasse, @Dan_P, @taricha) on the effects of freshwater and scrubbing live rock on nitrifying capacity (whether by bacteria, algae or both). These experiments are meant to repeat and extend...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Garf]

Ammonia %age directly affects uptake;