proper dosage for fishless cycling?

[James_in_MN]

I just recently decided to take back the Marineland 5 gallon hex I purchased; I didn't like that I had to completely disassemble the hood in order to do anything in the tank. I used the opportunity to upgrade, and grabbed a 10 gallon Aqueon kit.

I had another problem when I was going to start fishless cycling the 5 gallon hex of determining the proper dosage of ammonia. I have the janitor strength Ace hardware bottle, at suggestion from this board. The problem is, I didn't know how much to put in the tank, so I put in less than a cap full in. Needless to say, I ended up recreating the surface of Venus in my tank.

I would like to avoid doing the same thing this time around in my 10 gallon. Is there a general rule of thumb when dosing your tank with ammonia? Is two drops too little, or 5 ml too much? Would it be one drop per gallon, or one drop per five gallons?

I have to believe by now that someone who has used the Ace ammonia to dose enough tanks has a general idea of how much is enough.

 

[ejaramillo01]

First let us know the concentration of the ammonia from ACE?, normally comes at 10% concentration.

1 gallon (US) = 3.79 liters. So if your tank is 10G then your tank equals to 37.9 liters.

To have 1 ppm of ammonia in 1 liter (1,000 ml) of water you should add 0.001 milliliters, in other words 0.001 ml of ammonia / 1,000 ml o water = 1 ppm

But because the ACE ammonia is 10% concentration, you will need to add 0.01ml of ACE to 1 liter of water to equal 1 ppm of pure ammonia.

Now if you want 1 ppm of pure ammonia in your tank (37.9 litters) then you need to add 0.01 ACE * 37.9 liters = 0.379 milliliters, this will give you 1 ppm of pure ammonia.

Now you are shooting for 4 ppm in the tank, so 0.379 ml* 4 = 1.51 ml of ACE to get 4 ppm of pure ammonia in your 10G tank.

Cool no?

All depends of the concentration of your ACE ammonia.

Hope I was clear and helps.

Good luck!

 

[hal.lc]

It doesn't take much. Just add a couple of drops and test your water. If you get any reading at all it is enough. If it doesn't show up on your test add a couple more and test again.