100% Pure amonia!

[Jae1525]

I'm not a beginner with fish at all but I am with fishless cycles.

Anyway, I went on a mission to find amonia in macclesfield where I work and got no joy from boots and a couple of other places.
A lady in boots did point me in the direction of a traditional chemists though so I thought its worth a try, what the hell!!

I got in there and asked for amonia and he said he had it but ony 100% pure!!
The dude said be careful cos this stuff will blow your head off!!
I got me 100ml of it and am now going downstairs (into a well aired room) to dilute it and put it into my 40gal tank.

I was expectin 10% amonia but not 100%!!!

So tempted to smell it cos the guy said not to!!!

Edit) It only cost me £1.50!!! Thats loads cheaper than a few hardy fish!!! (My Black widow tetra will be pleased to know they have cycled their last tank!!!

 

[FreeZe]

If you have a tank all ready established ??
Why didn't you just get some gravel and or Deco.. or float the filter (foam- from the new tanks filter) in your established tank for a few days to get good bacteria on it. filter/gravel/deco = IC
Then use it in the new tank.
WOW (IC) instant cycle for a small load of fish.

Buy ammonia ?

 

[Jae1525]

I think you should wise up and read this...


Fishless Cycle

Then come back to me when your educated.

 

[Neptune350]

Can't help ya with the 100% but I can tell you NOT to smell it. Chemistry major pranked me with some in college and it gave me a hell of a nose bleed almost immediately.

 

[xXMrBonesXx]

So tempted to smell it cos the guy said not to!!!

i would highly recommend listening to him lol, we had an ammonia leak come from a local factory which we live by and they had to tell everyone to stay inside and keep their windows shut

 

[clutterydrawer]

Argh

Seriously though, don't smell it. We were using some in a chemistry lesson that was nowhere near 100%, teacher told us not to smell it, I did anyway. It felt like a huge block of ice had been smashed into my head. I didn't know what was going on.

(Edited for flocks of typos)

 

[Jae1525]

Put it in my tank and caught a whiff whilst I was diluting it to 5ppm.

Smells like death.

Nothing like ether! There is no way your gonna get high of amonia! Ahh well.

 

[clutterydrawer]

Smells like death.

couldn't have put it better myself

 

[SirMinion]

Smells like the contents of a million cat-boxes wrapped in wet nappies (diapers) kept in the trouser pocket of a dead hobo.

 

[LoveMyOscar]

...

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I think you should wise up and read this...


Fishless Cycle

Then come back to me when your educated.

Ummmm, they are right to a point.

I have never cycled a tank in my life. I got one already done because the tank and filter was second hand. I just swap media around from one filter to another. I have loads of filter material in each filter and so I can take a bit out for a new filter.

Taaaaa Daaaaaaa.

Easily done, always works (don't put too many fish in straight away, obviously).

 

[ger87410]

There's no reason why pure ammonia won't work for cycling. It's just undiluted ammonia. I've never fishless cycled in my life. I always use guppies and a product called cycle.

 

[Jae1525]

If you read the link it makes so much more sense to fishless cycle.

Even though your fish survive they can be dammaged much in the same way we are dammaged by passive smoking. Has no real short term effects but in the long run it could harm your health and decrese your lifespan.

Plus for 1.50 I got 100ml, 100% pure amonia and use 6ml or so to get my amonia up to 5ppm! It normaly takes about 10 days to get that spike!
Thats an instant amonia spike and must have cost me less than a few pence and saved me 10 days!!!
I'm putting no fish at risk and saving money?
How can that be bad?
Plus it will only take my tank 2 weeks to cycle and when its done the ammount of stock I can put in it will be significantly more than the ammount I would be able to add if I cycled with fish. This is because the ammount of bacteria developed by the increased ammount of amonia is also vastly increased!

Read the link. It's all there.
(edit)
Fishless cycle in detail

 

[Phantom Thief]

If you actually run your second tank's filter on the first tank, your second filter will have the same bacteria, and is able to handle a pretty large fishload.

P.T.

 

[WheelmanCA19]

I think the point others were making is if you already have a mature tank, you can move bacteria from one tank to the other. The purpose of cycling is to get the good bacteria to grow in your tank, but if you can just move it over from you older tank, then you don't have to cycle it for two weeks.

Also, "pure" ammonia won't make a spike any quicker than the stuff I got at the grocery store. You just won't have to use as much. I got about a gallon of the stuff for 98 cents poured some in, and was WAY off the chart!

Fishless cycling is the way to go if its your first tank, but if you already have a mature tank, you don't really need to "cycle" it because you can do the filter swap thing and be "instantly cycled"