I didn't spike it up to 5ppm ever. I feel that to be unnecessary with the goal of my bio-load. I set it to 1ppm let the bacteria adjust then doubled the second dose. It takes over twice as much now two get it to 1ppm, i'm assuming it eats it up instantaneously. I am shooting to rid 1ppm ammonia in 3-4 hours. It took about eight hours after 3 doses, it all depends on the bio goal of your particular tank. I have small fish and a large body of water in which any ammonia will be dispersed. Introduced a bacteria colony, cranked the temp. to 83, and put my fx5 and koralia 4 blowing straight up for all that oxygen. I also leave the light on 24 hours a day, I also feel this is helping. I use pure ammonia from a chemical company so there's none of that garbage in it. I'm also not done with my cycle, the fish won't be in for another week I would think. I assure you I'm being safe, I loves my fish.
Fishless cycling, Help!
- Thread starter Samlamanna
- Start date
I wish you good luck on your endeavor, however ,"Fishless cycling" is a well defined process.
What you are doing is not "Fishless Cycling ".
It's kind of like baking bread. If you follow the recipie the end product can be predicted with some certainty.
If you wing it with the ingredients it is difficult to predict the end results much less ask another chef if what you have done will achieve the same product.
The only reason I make this point strongly is so if a "newbie" happens to read this thread he/she will understand the difference. This is not to say what you are doing won't work, in fact I suppose it will in time, it's just not "Fishless Cycling" by definition.
What you are doing is not "Fishless Cycling ".
It's kind of like baking bread. If you follow the recipie the end product can be predicted with some certainty.
If you wing it with the ingredients it is difficult to predict the end results much less ask another chef if what you have done will achieve the same product.
The only reason I make this point strongly is so if a "newbie" happens to read this thread he/she will understand the difference. This is not to say what you are doing won't work, in fact I suppose it will in time, it's just not "Fishless Cycling" by definition.
If the fish going in the new tank are all in one tank now, just move the filters from the old tank to the new tank, do a water change to lower the nitrates, move your fish over and call it good.
While we fishless cycled our 300 gallon tank (took 30+ days), we have no intention of fishless cycling the new 1800 gallon tank when it is set up. We'll hook up one of the new filters to the 300 gallon tank a month or two in advance, then move all filters and fish over to the new tank....instant cycling of the new tank.
While we fishless cycled our 300 gallon tank (took 30+ days), we have no intention of fishless cycling the new 1800 gallon tank when it is set up. We'll hook up one of the new filters to the 300 gallon tank a month or two in advance, then move all filters and fish over to the new tank....instant cycling of the new tank.
A few notes
　
- The bacteria we are cultivating prefer darkness over light so leaving the light on 24/7 isnt helping the tank to cycle faster. I would recommend using typical light cycles when cycling a tank though. This allows bacteria to cultivate where it will be happy once a typical schedule is begun
　
- We should all be using pure ammonia, which is actually a blend of water + ammonia. The Ace Hardware version is 10% ammonia. The highest you can buy without a license is around 17% ammonia. 100% ammonia is extremely volatile and I doubt exists outside of explosion proof buried tanks.
　
- Bacteria will not consume/convert ammonia instantly. Our bacteria is actually oxidizing the ammonia which is a biological process that just doesnt happen instantly.
　
- The oxygen saturation point of water in an aquarium with no fish in it is easily reached. The powerhead in this situation is likely keeping the water at its oxygen saturation point, but it cannot move above this point.
　
　
Dawn Marie - Great chart. It does seem the chart allows a few days for the initial ammonia spike which can easily be created instantly. So knocking the first 5 days or so off that chart makes it even better (in my opinion). I also feel 30~35 days for nitrites to drop to zero is more in line with what we should anticipate.
　
　
Samlamanna - I think the biggest reason your seeing something different than what the posted chart suggests is because you started with seeded media and are targeting lower nitrogen targets than the chart suggests.
　
Ive instantly cycled many tanks by adding sufficient mature media to process the bioload of the tank.
　
It seems to me like Samlamannas experience is something like this. The seeded media was enough to process the initial ammonia dose. In that thriving environment it continued to expand and right in line with that expansion Samlamannas daily dosage increased.
　
Samlamanna, just out of curiosity, what percent is your ammonia? Also how much of your ammonia did you originally add to achieve 1 ppm?
I don't think the results you are getting sound all that surprising, but like previously mentioned, since you are doing your own modified version of a "fishless cycle" I think others could have drawn some innaccurate conclusions here.
　
- The bacteria we are cultivating prefer darkness over light so leaving the light on 24/7 isnt helping the tank to cycle faster. I would recommend using typical light cycles when cycling a tank though. This allows bacteria to cultivate where it will be happy once a typical schedule is begun
　
- We should all be using pure ammonia, which is actually a blend of water + ammonia. The Ace Hardware version is 10% ammonia. The highest you can buy without a license is around 17% ammonia. 100% ammonia is extremely volatile and I doubt exists outside of explosion proof buried tanks.
　
- Bacteria will not consume/convert ammonia instantly. Our bacteria is actually oxidizing the ammonia which is a biological process that just doesnt happen instantly.
　
- The oxygen saturation point of water in an aquarium with no fish in it is easily reached. The powerhead in this situation is likely keeping the water at its oxygen saturation point, but it cannot move above this point.
　
　
Dawn Marie - Great chart. It does seem the chart allows a few days for the initial ammonia spike which can easily be created instantly. So knocking the first 5 days or so off that chart makes it even better (in my opinion). I also feel 30~35 days for nitrites to drop to zero is more in line with what we should anticipate.
　
　
Samlamanna - I think the biggest reason your seeing something different than what the posted chart suggests is because you started with seeded media and are targeting lower nitrogen targets than the chart suggests.
　
Ive instantly cycled many tanks by adding sufficient mature media to process the bioload of the tank.
　
It seems to me like Samlamannas experience is something like this. The seeded media was enough to process the initial ammonia dose. In that thriving environment it continued to expand and right in line with that expansion Samlamannas daily dosage increased.
　
Samlamanna, just out of curiosity, what percent is your ammonia? Also how much of your ammonia did you originally add to achieve 1 ppm?
I don't think the results you are getting sound all that surprising, but like previously mentioned, since you are doing your own modified version of a "fishless cycle" I think others could have drawn some innaccurate conclusions here.
Thanks for the points on the lighting especially, It's been hard to sleep with those bright lights on. Well the nitrites have not dropped just yet. I put in 65 drops last night to test it and I can't seem to get much past 1ppm. Tonight I put in 30 and got 1ppm, whats the explanation for this? I initially thought that my ammonia lost potency but after tonight I have to wonder. I got my ammonia through my father who sold use to sell chemicals and it does not say it's potency, just says pure ammonia. I'm sure it's not too strong seeing as how many drops it took in my tank. I continue to use filters on my thirty and getting them all nice and nasty and putting them in the fx5 I also plan on running my old filter and transfer all decorations to the new tank of course. Thanks guys for the advice I'll turn those darn light off immediately
“Pure Ammonia” just means there are no additives besides water… which is exactly what we should be using… so good job there…
　
If you knew the concentration we could do some rough calculations…
　
For example, 125 gallons is roughly half a million milliliters…
So 1 ml of 100% ammonia per 125 gal is .5 ppm…
So 1 ml of 10% ammonia per 125 gal is .05 ppm…
　
A “drop” is not very well defined as it’s volume depends on the delivery method/instrument, the temperature, the viscosity of the liquid, the surface tension and probably a few details I’m overlooking…
　
But a drop can be loosely defined as 1/12~1/20 of a ml… so let’s call it 15...
　
That means with 10% ammonia, which is what the Ace Hardware stuff is, which is what I use…
　
30 drops = 2 ml = .1 ppm in a 125 gal tank…
　
So even if yours is double that strength, which is exceptionally strong… you’re still looking at a quarter of a ppm…
　
I think the discrepancy you are seeing comes from using a vague color chart to gauge a moderately accurate test reading…
　
I do like the API test kits and that’s what I use, but I also understand that there is room for variance in the testing procedure as well as interpreting the results…
　
My best suggestion is don’t over complicate it and don’t burn brain cells trying to follow it to the exact detail. Just keep a general eye on how things are going and don’t add fish until you are consistently getting zero ammonia and zero nitrites 24 hours after dosing with ammonia…
　
Oh, and good move on turning those lights off at night
　
If you knew the concentration we could do some rough calculations…
　
For example, 125 gallons is roughly half a million milliliters…
So 1 ml of 100% ammonia per 125 gal is .5 ppm…
So 1 ml of 10% ammonia per 125 gal is .05 ppm…
　
A “drop” is not very well defined as it’s volume depends on the delivery method/instrument, the temperature, the viscosity of the liquid, the surface tension and probably a few details I’m overlooking…
　
But a drop can be loosely defined as 1/12~1/20 of a ml… so let’s call it 15...
　
That means with 10% ammonia, which is what the Ace Hardware stuff is, which is what I use…
　
30 drops = 2 ml = .1 ppm in a 125 gal tank…
　
So even if yours is double that strength, which is exceptionally strong… you’re still looking at a quarter of a ppm…
　
I think the discrepancy you are seeing comes from using a vague color chart to gauge a moderately accurate test reading…
　
I do like the API test kits and that’s what I use, but I also understand that there is room for variance in the testing procedure as well as interpreting the results…
　
My best suggestion is don’t over complicate it and don’t burn brain cells trying to follow it to the exact detail. Just keep a general eye on how things are going and don’t add fish until you are consistently getting zero ammonia and zero nitrites 24 hours after dosing with ammonia…
　
Oh, and good move on turning those lights off at night
Thanks man you sure know the skinny on things. I got my tank to 1ppm and two hours later it dropped to .5, I just can't get those nitrites down! My nitrates have been around 15, I shall test those in the morning. Ph is stable.
The following is an excerpt from the original article and outlines the method you suggest. It is also the method I used.nc_nutcase;3962161;3962161 said:
BTW My Nitrite readings crashed hard @ 21 days in my 240 although I waited till day 30 to stock just to be sure it had stabilized.
My interpretation of this was that once you have determined the amount of ammonia need to achieve the initial 5ppm, there is no need to check ammonia again.5 ppm is not the spike but the baseline starting point.The spike is much higher. Just add the recommended daily dose, test and record daily for Nitrite and watch for the spike and crash. It's really pretty foolproof and takes out the guess work.
I shamelessly lifted this quote form the following link which in my opinion is one of the easiest explanations of the cycle I have ever read.
http://malawicichlids.com/mw01017.htm
My nitrites dropped in six days but I have a shipment of 6 anostomus coming next week so I will wait to make the move. It will give it time to be extra ready.
