# Test Bottle Trouble



## silas k. (Apr 24, 2007)

hello,

in preparation for the real thing i started a test bottle about a week ago.
there's 1.5" of soil and 1.5" of 2-4mm gravel with some water in my tester.

today i noticed there was a large amount of suspended junk in the water.
it's from very small to 4mm across and translucent. it reminds me of the gunky protein film that sometimes forms on various surfaces in the aquarium.

has anyone had experience with this?


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

do you have a microscope? take a sample..
You can get a cheap microscope @ toys r us for $20.
my guess is it's a bacteria colony.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

That is one of the reasons that I soak soil substrate for 2 weeks before I use it, changing the water several times. It gets rid of that stuff and other things that one can't see.

Bill


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## silas k. (Apr 24, 2007)

no, i don't have a microscope. interesting idea.

2 weeks? 

how much water are you soaking it in? i have a 30 gallon tank. would you fill it up half way while soaking it? how often do you change the water during that time and do you use a dechlorinator?


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

I soak it in large plastic pails, but you could do it in an aquarium.

The purpose of soaking to to allow the organics in the soil to be oxidized and reduced. It also helps in the removal of wood pieces, worms, and other unwanted stuff.

If I were doing it in an aquarium I would fill it about half way with water and then do a water change every few days for 2 weeks. In the last one I would remove as much of that water as I could, then add the 2mm - 3mm gravel cap and start planting.

I think soaking it in pails would be easier.

Good luck!

Bill


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## silas k. (Apr 24, 2007)

sorry to keep bugging you but i do have a few 5 gallon plastic buckets i use for the aquarium.

how deep of a soil layer do you use when soaking and how much water?
and does it affect how much soil you end up using in the aquarium since the 1.5" layer is supposed to be dry?


thanks again!


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

The layer of soil is not supposed to be dry; it can be either dry or wet.

I end up with a smaller volume of soil after soaking than before I started.

I usually start with about an inch of wet soil in the first substrate layer, maybe a bit less.

Bill


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

silas k. said:


> hello,
> 
> in preparation for the real thing i started a test bottle about a week ago.
> there's 1.5" of soil and 1.5" of 2-4mm gravel with some water in my tester.
> ...


I haven't. I hope you added the water carefully so as not to disturb the soil layer. In my bottle tests, I use a 1"X1" piece of wadded up Al foil. For tanks, I use my hand or a saucer to break the water's force.

Remove this junky water and add clean water carefully to the bottle. It may be that your only problem is that you are blasting the gravel/soil with water. I haven't (so far) seen any need to soak soil beforehand.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

dwalstad said:


> I haven't. I hope you added the water carefully so as not to disturb the soil layer. In my bottle tests, I use a 1"X1" piece of wadded up Al foil. For tanks, I use my hand or a saucer to break the water's force.
> 
> Remove this junky water and add clean water carefully to the bottle. It may be that your only problem is that you are blasting the gravel/soil with water. I haven't (so far) seen any need to soak soil beforehand.


OK, but there are a few posts here from people who have had ammonia problems, who didn't treat their soil beforehand. <g>


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## Endler Guy (Aug 19, 2007)

aquabillpers said:


> OK, but there are a few posts here from people who have had ammonia problems, who didn't treat their soil beforehand. <g>


Airing the soil out will off gas the ammonia. If there's a lot of organic matter in the soil, it will take more than soaking or airing. In that case, it will still breakdown into ammonia and give people problems. That's what I gathered anyway.


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## silas k. (Apr 24, 2007)

the water was added slowly so i don't think disturbing the soil layer was the problem.
also the soil was aired for at least a day to release ammonia.

i just found a post by Diana that states not using a water conditioner to treat for chloramines (which i know my water has) may kill the bacteria and cause anaerobic conditions. well when i dumped the water out of the jar i was using there was a strong sulfur smell. i'm guessing that it did just that. i didn't test for Ammonia before i dumped the water but a test afterwards showed .5-1 ppm. i'll start a new test with treated water soon.

on the gravel i've chosen i've noticed that it has split into layers. the top layer is 2-4mm in size but the bottom 1/3 to 1/2 is fine like play sand. would this be a problem for the plants?


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## Endler Guy (Aug 19, 2007)

It shouldn't be a problem for the plants' roots to get to. Gravel will mix over time anyway and the smaller particles will fall. Plants should also be able to take up that amount of ammonia with no problem. How long had you had that test bottle? It probably was anaerobic.

Keep in mind that if you do treat for chloramines, your test kit may show a false positive for ammonia. It's also possible that the ammonia you saw was part of the chloramines in your water and not from the soil at all. Try testing your water straight out of the tap just for a reference.


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## silas k. (Apr 24, 2007)

Endler Guy said:


> How long had you had that test bottle? It probably was anaerobic.


i think it had been about a week. i'm sure it was anaerobic. i don't know if it's because it had been sitting for a week or that the bacteria had died off due to chloramines.



Endler Guy said:


> Keep in mind that if you do treat for chloramines, your test kit may show a false positive for ammonia. It's also possible that the ammonia you saw was part of the chloramines in your water and not from the soil at all. Try testing your water straight out of the tap just for a reference.


this test kit doesn't usually show a false positive with Prime. i've used it before on another established tank and it always shows 0 ppm. you're right on the second part though. i tested straight from tap and it showed the same amount as the test bottle did. .5-1 ppm. thanks for the tip!

i've started a new test with treated water this time.


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## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

aquabillpers said:


> OK, but there are a few posts here from people who have had ammonia problems, who didn't treat their soil beforehand. <g>


I too have never pre-soaked or treated the soil - I used them right out of the bag. However, right after filling a new tank with water, I always added a bunch of floating plants like duck weed and water lettuce. For the first several months they grew extremely fast. That probably took care of the ammonia problem.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

bartoli said:


> I too have never pre-soaked or treated the soil - I used them right out of the bag. However, right after filling a new tank with water, I always added a bunch of floating plants like duck weed and water lettuce. For the first several months they grew extremely fast. That probably took care of the ammonia problem.


Sure! You are doing in your aquarium what some others do in buckets.

One difference is that you can't add any fish (and maybe fully aquascape?) until the ammonia is gone.

Bill


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## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

aquabillpers said:


> One difference is that you can't add any fish (and maybe fully aquascape?) until the ammonia is gone.


I typically added fish within the same day that I set up a tank. I tried to have the tank set up early in the morning with plants, by late afternoon I added fish. When I had to set up a tank late in the day, I added fish the next morning.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

silas k. said:


> when i dumped the water out of the jar i was using there was a strong sulfur smell.


Folks, I hate to say it, but the bottle test can be misleading. There's no water circulation, so you're going to get anaerobic conditions that may result in problems like H2S and ammonia.

Therefore, a soil may flunk the bottle test but work fine in the tank. If you really want a more accurate bottle test, you're going to need to aerate the bottle's water in some manner (for my experiments, I bubbled it in).

Remember that the soil will be removing oxygen from the stagnant water creating a severely anaerobic environment. Anaerobic conditions in the bottle will lead to H2S and ammonia. If the water is kept aerobic, you won't get these problems.

I generally don't bother with a bottle test. But it can be useful in spotting major problems (renegade soils that leach clay into the water, major ammonia spikes, etc).


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## Squawkbert (Jan 3, 2007)

PS - Prime tends to artificially lower NO3 readings, probably doesn't allow NH3 test to work at all (Nessler's reagent based) - old threads on the subject:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...ions/36940-no3-test-showed-0-right-after.html (gets good at ~#20)
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105296&highlight=Prime
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103027&highlight=Prime


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## Carissa1 (Aug 25, 2007)

When I set up my tank (without pre-treating the soil in any way) I got loads of ammonia readings. It's cycling on it's own before I'm going to add any fish. It's been a month or so and it's almost done.


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## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

Was the tank filled with fast growing plants from the very beginning?


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## Carissa1 (Aug 25, 2007)

Not really. I've gradually adding more plants as they have grown out from other tanks. I got ammonia and nitrite readings from the second day onward.


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## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

I suspect that had the tank been filled with fast growing plants on day one, you would not have those readings.


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## Mr Fishies (Apr 9, 2006)

I am not a chemist or biologist, so admittedly, my amateur theories are open to dispute, but I would guess that using old soil from your yard (if available without fertilizers etc) as Diana suggests would help prevent large amounts of ammonia. I can't cite the source, but I recall reading that the major source of ammonia in soil is the *aerobic *decay of organic matter.

Since since I, like a lot of us, do not have access to old soil that is known to be chemically clean, I left my soil to air dry on a sheet of poly to speed the off-gassing of existing ammonia and stop the decay before adding soil to my tank.

Once in the tank, the decay will start again, but not under aerobic conditions. This is where rooted plants especially come into play as they will regulate the decomposition process.

I am not disputing Bill's "dirt washing" method - just proposing an alternate that has worked for me.


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## Carissa1 (Aug 25, 2007)

In anaerobic conditions, nitrate is converted back to nitrite and then ammonia. Denitrification. Maybe that's where someone got mixed up. Anyway that particular piece of information probably doesn't enter in with an el natural tank, since you are avoiding any nitrates to begin with.

It makes sense that the decay of organics to ammonia is aerobic. That is why you can do a fishless cycle by just adding fish food to the tank.


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## Carissa1 (Aug 25, 2007)

bartoli said:


> I suspect that had the tank been filled with fast growing plants on day one, you would not have those readings.


Most likely true. Now my plants have soaked up most of my nitrates and I've removed my filter...so it's all plants now! Hope they can keep up!


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## dawntwister (Sep 29, 2007)

dwalstad said:


> Folks, I hate to say it, but the bottle test can be misleading. There's no water circulation, so you're going to get anaerobic conditions that may result in problems like H2S and ammonia.
> 
> Therefore, a soil may flunk the bottle test but work fine in the tank. If you really want a more accurate bottle test, you're going to need to aerate the bottle's water in some manner (for my experiments, I bubbled it in).
> 
> ...


How about just setting up substrate in a flat plastic container with water. That is, make a trial sample of tank set up.


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## Endler Guy (Aug 19, 2007)

dawntwister said:


> How about just setting up substrate in a flat plastic container with water. That is, make a trial sample of tank set up.


But that's what a bottle test is. The shape of a container doesn't matter; the contents does. Either way, it's not of much use because it may show misleading results.


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## Endler Guy (Aug 19, 2007)

Carissa1 said:


> Most likely true. Now my plants have soaked up most of my nitrates and I've removed my filter...so it's all plants now! Hope they can keep up!


It was a big leap of faith for me to remove my bio-filter! I did it when my nitrates stopped rising after I had added plants. My bio-filter was competing with my plants for ammonia. It was a big relief once I tested for ammonia and there was none. It did take a while for the nitrates to fall but once they did, they fell rapidly!


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