Fishless cycling

I was reading an article of fishless cycling from the site but I got confused bout how to use the ammonia calculator from the site.
Can anybody please tell me how much liquid ammonia should I add into the tank to start the cycling ?

Thank you in advance

It depends.

Do you have ammonia solution or ammonium chloride?
If it's ammonia solution, does it give the % on the bottle? The amount to add depends on the concentration in the bottle.
If it's Dr Tim's ammonium chloride, follow the dose rate on the bottle.

If you already have an established aquarium, don't waste your time cycling another one. Just take half the filter media from the established filter and put it in the new tank. Instant cycled tank.

Essjay said:

It depends.

Do you have ammonia solution or ammonium chloride?
If it's ammonia solution, does it give the % on the bottle? The amount to add depends on the concentration in the bottle.
If it's Dr Tim's ammonium chloride, follow the dose rate on the bottle.

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I have neither but I know I can buy a bottle at the store. I just wanna know how much should I pour in the tank

Colin_T said:

If you already have an established aquarium, don't waste your time cycling another one. Just take half the filter media from the established filter and put it in the new tank. Instant cycled tank.

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You mean take the media from the HOB filter ? N put it in the new tank ?

Tyler777 said:

I have neither but I know I can buy a bottle at the store. I just wanna know how much should I pour in the tank

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We cannot say how much to add until we know what you have. Ammonia comes in different concentrations so what might be not enough with one bottle could be too much with another.

Once you've bought the ammonia or ammonium chloride and you know the strength then we can work out how much you need to add.

Ammonia solution must be nothing but ammonia or ammonium hydroxide and water. There must be no perfume or detergent or surfactant in the list of ingredients.

Tyler777 said:

You mean take the media from the HOB filter ? N put it in the new tank ?

Click to expand...

The media in your current filter has enough bacteria to support the fish in that tank. If you take half the media from that filter there will be enough bacteria in it to support half the number of fish in the current tank. The old tank will soon make up the numbers, but the new tank should be stocked slowly starting with half the number of fish in the old tank.

Essjay said:

We cannot say how much to add until we know what you have. Ammonia comes in different concentrations so what might be not enough with one bottle could be too much with another.

Once you've bought the ammonia or ammonium chloride and you know the strength then we can work out how much you need to add.

Ammonia solution must be nothing but ammonia or ammonium hydroxide and water. There must be no perfume or detergent or surfactant in the list of ingredients.




The media in your current filter has enough bacteria to support the fish in that tank. If you take half the media from that filter there will be enough bacteria in it to support half the number of fish in the current tank. The old tank will soon make up the numbers, but the new tank should be stocked slowly starting with half the number of fish in the old tank.

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What you call the media ? Sorry for being so ignorant

Whatever is inside the filter. This could be sponges, ceramic media, carbon cartridges etc.

Essjay said:

Whatever is inside the filter. This could be sponges, ceramic media, carbon cartridges etc.

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Oh ok that's what I thought. I could try that but the new tank doesn't have a filter to put it in yet. They come on the mail next week

In that case you can't start to cycle the tank till the filter arrives and is in the tank since the bacteria grow inside the filter at the beginning.
Once you have the tank set up and made sure the new filter is running fine, you can transfer some media. The half of the old media won't fill the new filter so use some new media that comes with the new filter to fill the gaps.

Once the media is transferred fish should be put in the tank straight away or the numbers of bacteria will start to decline.


If you could tell us what kind of media is in the old filter and what will be in the new filter we can suggest which media to use to swap to the new tank.

Tyler777 said:

Oh ok that's what I thought. I could try that but the new tank doesn't have a filter to put it in yet. They come on the mail next week

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Ok guys I just got this bottle of ammonia to start the fishless cycling. Is this one ok ? If it's OK how much should I add to the tank to start the cycling?

First - is it pure ammonia, no perfume, surfactants or detergent in the ingredients? Pure ammonia should have just ammonia or ammonium hydroxide and water listed.

Second - does it give a strength on the bottle, usually a %? This is what you need to calculate the amount. If it doesn't you have to go by trial and error. Once you tell us if there is a % or not we can take it from there.

Essjay said:

First - is it pure ammonia, no perfume, surfactants or detergent in the ingredients? Pure ammonia should have just ammonia or ammonium hydroxide and water listed.

Second - does it give a strength on the bottle, usually a %? This is what you need to calculate the amount. If it doesn't you have to go by trial and error. Once you tell us if there is a % or not we can take it from there.

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Ok I will check the bottle

Essjay said:

First - is it pure ammonia, no perfume, surfactants or detergent in the ingredients? Pure ammonia should have just ammonia or ammonium hydroxide and water listed.

Second - does it give a strength on the bottle, usually a %? This is what you need to calculate the amount. If it doesn't you have to go by trial and error. Once you tell us if there is a % or not we can take it from there.

Click to expand...

I couldn't find anything bout the strenght. Did I purchased the wrong kind ?

Tyler777 said:

Ok guys I just got this bottle of ammonia to start the fishless cycling. Is this one ok ? If it's OK how much should I add to the tank to start the cycling?

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I would be very careful in what you buy for your aquarium. I would buy Dr Tims ammonia for fish cycling to be safe.

It's Water and Ammonium hydroxide without phosphorus, It's the good thing alright. If it is colorless and non perfumed I would use it.

The concentration can be from 5% to 10% in general household ammonia is 10%. But since the concentration is not stated you will have to calculate the number of drops you need to add.

The simplest way for me is to take 1 gallon of water and count the number of drops it takes to get the concentration up to 1 ppm. 20 drops = 1 milliliter.

From there it is very easy to calculate the quantity needed for tanks of any size.

There's a calculator on here to work out how much.

First, the volume of water in the tank. This is not the same as the manufacturer's quoted volume - that includes the thickness of the glass and the air space you need to leave between the surface of the water and the rim of the tank. So the amount of water the tank can hold is less than the quoted volume. Then you need to reduce that volume even more as substrate and any decor in the tank will replace some water.

In general, take off 15% of what the manufacturer says. Tell us what the manufacturer says the volume is.




It is better to assume the bottle of ammonia is 10%, that way you can't add too much. If it's less than 10% you can add more, but if too much is added you would need to do a water change to remove some ammonia.

Using the ammonia calculator and giving the % as 10%, you need to add 1.14 ml for every 10 gallons of water in the tank




A syringe is the easiest way to dose small amounts, I buy babies' medicine dosing syringes form my local pharmacy (the babies dosing bit is important, when I asked for just 'a syringe' I got the third degree about why I wanted one)
Add the ammonia, wait half an hour for it to mix in then test for ammonia. If it's less than 3 ppm, add some more. Make a note of how much you add each time so you know how much of the ammonia solution you need altogether to get 3 ppm.


Then follow TwoTankAmin's fishless cycling method.