Fishless Cycle Ammonia Question

[guppy grandma]

Having read Eric's excellent item on fishless cycling I want to give it a go. BUT, being fairly new to all things fish I do not know what 4ppm means when talking about the amount of ammonia to add to the tank, is this fishy talk or an Americanism! Would be grateful for an explanation....

 

[Pandy]

I believe its 4 parts Ammonia to 1,000,000 parts water? ppm meaning parts per million?

Could be completely way off the mark though

 

[ejaramillo01]

Having read Eric's excellent item on fishless cycling I want to give it a go. BUT, being fairly new to all things fish I do not know what 4ppm means when talking about the amount of ammonia to add to the tank, is this fishy talk or an Americanism! Would be grateful for an explanation....

4ppm = four parts per million of ammonia.

How many gallons is your tank? What ammonia will you be using? 10% concentrate?

Let me know and I will tell you how much to add to your tank to get to the 4 ppm...

 

[librarygirl]

Here's a calculator that will help (at the bottom).

When you get the API Master Liquid Test kit, one of the levels for ammonia is 4 ppm. You'll test your water after adding ammonia (wait about 30 mins for it to circulate) and then match the color to the test card; it should match the 4 PPM mark. Hope this helps. Good luck with your cycle!

 

[guppy grandma]

Thank you for response. The tank is 24 US gallons and I've got 100% ammonia

 

[Nubster]

Thank you for response. The tank is 24 US gallons and I've got 100% ammonia

Your 100% ammonia probably just means it has no other ingredients such as surfactant but it is more likely only 10% ammonia in 90% water. To get to 4ppm you will need about 1.5 teaspoon of ammonia if it is in fact 10%.

 

[guppy grandma]

Thank you, very misleading some of these things, it says it contains just ammonia, learn something new every day. Hopefully cycle wont take too long, so glad of this site, its so helpful for the ones who are learning.

 

[Chino1130]

Having just started my first cycle, I'd start with just a little bit of ammonia then test. If you are below 4ppm, add a little more. You don't want to add too much then have to do a pwc

 

[mfdrookie516]

It should say 10% ammonium hydroxide. 100% ammonia is only available for laboratories, and things of that sort. PPM is a scientific measurement, nothing just for fish. It literally means what it says. For every 1 million parts, one of those is ammonia. So, if you think of it that way, if your tank held 1 million gallons, 999,999 gallons would be water, 1 gallon would be ammonia to get 1PPM.