fishless cycle question

[Gazingatstars12]

I just hooked up a small ehiem canister filter today in my new 10g tank. I dosed the ammonia to 3ppm and added Bio spira and some filter media from my other tank. I'm showing a nitrate reading of about 10 ppm after a few hours. There's no way the cycle went into hyper drive like this, is there?

 

[librarygirl]

So ammonia dropped from 3 to 0? What test kit did you use? What brand of ammonia and how much did you add? It may be possible but you'd need quite a bit of seeded media; I'd check it again and then keep dosing and testing for at least a few more days to a week to ensure ammonia or nitrite doesn't spike.

 

[Gazingatstars12]

Janitorial ammonia... I used the online calculator and added the amount it said... about 1.5cc. I waited a while and tested with the API liquid test kit and only had a reading of around. 5. I kept doing this until I reached 3.0 maybe an hour or 2 later. Its still at 3 but I just don't understand where the nitrates came from. They're up to around 20-30 now

 

[Gazingatstars12]

Just rechecked the ammonia and it dropped. Its closer to 2.0 than 3.0 now. And I just cut a small piece off my other hob filter. About 1x1/2 inches of the edge of the pad

Its not the test kits. I get accurate readings on my other tank and confirmed the results at a tropical fish store in my area

It just seems like this is happening way to fast. It took me a good long time of daily water changes to do a fish in cycle on my other tank

 

[Gazingatstars12]

Never mind.... after reading up on it I shook up my bottle of "pure" ammonia and guess what!! Suds. It had surfactant in it. so i just spent the last few hours flushing every trace of that crap out of my tank, sand, and filter.

Needless to say I'm starting over

 

[Hholly]

Aw bummer.

 

[Gazingatstars12]

Nothing anywhere on the bottle about it. The ingredients say ammonia and water

Nothing I can do about it now. At least all the cleaning is done and I can kinda sorta relax until I goto ace hardware tomorrow

Thanks everyone

 

[Hholly]

Where did you get it? Is it Ace Hardware brand? It may be fine. If you shake it does it foam? Or just some bubbles?

 

[Rare]

Hholly is right. Both ammonia I have and the one from ace that i didnt use for the cycle; I shake the hell out of it and get plenty of bubbles not foam/suds

 

[GulfShrimplet]

I got Dr. Tim's ammonia intended specifically for cycling aquariums. At $3 or so for a small bottle it's not cheap but I know what I have. It's the only ammonia they guarantee with their bacteria additive. Check out their website.

 

[Gazingatstars12]

It foams. I had it in the house. I checked the ingredients and it said "pure" ammonia so I just went for it.

Live and learn. I'm gonna check out that Dr tims now. Thanks for mentioning it.... I wouldn't have ever thought of looking for something like that

 

[Gazingatstars12]

I placed my order. Just out of curiosity I clicked to see how much 1 day shipping was. My total went from 17 to 85 dollars. I think I can hold out a few days, lol

 

[GulfShrimplet]

Yikes!

I tried to buy the bigger bag of shrimp stratum this week. The bag costs only $10 dollars more but the bill went up $30 due to shipping. I got the smaller bag and saved the $20. I can wait until next time to buy more.

Glad I could be helpful. Here's hoping your tank turns out great!