How much ammonia to add? Fishless cycle.

[Orbus]

Hi all. I'm in the process of setting up a new 20L aquarium, and I need some help with this fishless cycle thing. Tank's all set up, and ready for cycling. I bought some janitorial strength, pure ammonia over at Ace Hardware yesterday, but I have no idea how much I should be adding. I know I need to dose it up to 5 ppm to start with, but what I don't know is how much ammonia that actually comes out to for a 20 gallon tank. A few drops? A capful? A cup?

Anyone have any advice on this? I don't want to just start dumping ammonia in and totally overdo it.

 

[TomK2]

The ace stuff I had was a 10 percent solution. I calculated that 0.34 ml made 1 ppm in a ten gal tank. I put in 0.34 ml using an insulin syringe, and got 1 ppm in a 10 gal tank.

Edit: and welcome to AA!

 

[Orbus]

Cool. That gave me a rough idea of what to go for. .34 mL * 2 = .7 mL. .7 * 5 = 3.5 mL to get to 5ppm.

I previously had my betta in here - thought he'd be able to tough out a fishy cycle. But then nitrite started spiking, and he was getting kind of lethargic. Wasn't looking so hot, so I put him back in his old tank. He's much better now.

I got some substrate out of his little tank and put it in a cup on the bottom of the 20 gallon and then dumped the ammonia in. Did a water test and ammonia's right on target. Now to see what happens. I already had nitrite spikes while he was in there, so that shows some activity already.

 

[7Enigma]

Your doing great with the cycle. It was a good idea to get the betta back in his original tank. You can fully cycle a tank without fish MUCH faster than with fish, and you can make enough bacteria for a fully stocked tank if done properly.

You are already progressing in your cycle due to the nitrIte present, so now we have to speed up the slower part of the cycle (nitrIte to nitrAte). I would stir up the substrate in the cup a bit to get some of the bacteria free floating in the tank. This will help seed the rest of the tank (tank walls, substrate, decorations). I used a piece of pantyhose to put my seed material in and would squish it every day or 2 to release a cloud of bacteria.

I would also recommend turning up the heat in the tank to 85-90F. This will speed up bacteria. Also keep the lights off to prevent algae. You WILL get diatoms (brown dust-like patches that will develop on the tank walls, decorations) but these are normal and NOT algae. Just leave them be and they will dissapear on their own in a couple of weeks. Scraping them off will just slow the cycle of these buggers. The only time to wipe these off is if you have live plants, all other decorations/etc. should be left alone.

Goodluck, and in a short amount of time you'll be ready to stock!

 

[Orbus]

I've actually already got nitrate production. It's slow, and nitrite production is still outpacing it, but things are moving. I haven't added any more ammonia yet because it was still up around 3.5 to 4 ppm. Might ought to top it off I guess, but I don't want to overdo it either. Hopefully in another week, or two at the outside I should be done.