fishless cycling using amonnia

[lionheart]

hi
i have 3 freshwater tanks the smaller one which is 10 gallon was recently setup i used some substrate out of a established aquariums and a filter media sponge out of one of the filters from the same tank.and placed it in the new filter
i was unable to get my hands on any ammonia so i used some brime shrimp and flake
its been a week now i took a water reading using api master test kit today
the readings was as follows ammonia 4.0ppm nitrite 0.50 ppm nitrate 0ppm
anyway ive managed to aquire some ammonia from the pharmacy today but i am unsure what amount to add
ive read the fishless cycling thread but because i started to cycle before i got the ammonia and with todays water readings i am unsure as to what amount of ammonia to add to the water
any help would be really appreciated

 

[mfdrookie516]

dont add any ammonia until your ammonia readings drop some. 4ppm is a great number to keep it at. Once it starts dropping daily to 0 and you have no nitrites and some nitrates, you'll be good to go. expect a few more weeks and crank up the temp if you can to speed it up some. Make sure the ammonia does not have surfactants in it. The bottle should say, but shake it up and make sure there are no bubbles just to be sure

 

[lionheart]

yes thanks for that info i already did the shake test for bubbles with the ammonia never got none so i am pretty positive there is no surfactants,the label on bottle did not state there was,
thats first thing i checked when i aquired it
i shall just keep do water tests
thanks again

 

[lionheart]

advice please
do i do a water change now or should i wait for all ammonia levels to reach 0ppm
current water parimeters today were 8.ppm ammonia 0.ppm nitrite 5.0ppm nitrate, i did add some ammonia last night just to keep the nitrite bacteria alive only added 5mil amonia,i have been adding 5mil ammonia daily for last 6 days ,today after water test colour cards were dark green ammonia 8.0 ppm or more nitrite light blue 0.ppm nitrate light tangerine 5.ppm using api master test kit reason i added more ammonia as ammonia reading was 0.50 ppm last night before i dosed my tank temp 82
advice please water change or not

 

[mfdrookie516]

yeah, you need to do a water change and get the ammonia down. that high, it will stall the cycle. do a 50% pwc and get it back down to 4ppm

 

[lionheart]

thanks for the info
yeah i did a 50percent water change reading on ammonia was still between 6 and 8ppm so i did another 50percent water change now ive got it down to around 4ppm do i wait for reading to drop to 0ppm now or should i add more ammonia when when it drops to about 0.25 or should i not add anymore and once pppm reaches 0 then do a water change as at the minute nitrite is 0ppm nitrate5ppm just abit confused as to what my next action should be when this ammonia is exausted and reading are 0ppm 0ppm nitrite 5.0ppm nitrate i guess the cycle is complete

 

[mfdrookie516]

if ammonia drops to 0 from 4ppm within 12 hours, you should be cycled

 

[lionheart]

mrdrookie516
thanks very much for your help most appreciated
i will test again in early hours of the morning

 

[lionheart]

at 2am i took water reading hard to tell if cycled although it looked yellow on colour card i would say a hint of green to it which i guess makes it 0.25ppm ammonia 0ppm nitrite 5ppm nitrate, i shall do another reading first thing in morning

 

[lionheart]

just did another water test
to my astonishment
ammonia was 0ppm
nitrites was 1.0ppm
nitrate 10ppm
whats going on ?

 

[mfdrookie516]

its still cycling, but sounds like its near the end. keep it up and it'll be over before long, probably within the next week