can you use...?

[kcalbat]

i read somewhere that stress zyme contains the non toxic form of ammonia..

if so can it be used to do a fishless cycle?

im trying to do a fishless cycle but i dont know where and how to find ammonia to put in it?

and if i did,...i dont know how much, how many times, or how often i should put the ammonia in the water?

any advice?

 

[paulthegreat]

If you can find Tetra Bactozym it will put in all the benificial bacteria you need and you can put in fish in a day. I have never done a fishless cycle and mine did fine. I have also heard of a product called pearls or the such that do the same. You can also ask your LFS to squeeze out some filter medium in a bag and pour it in to the tank and then put in a few fish like neons the next day. The benificial bacts will need some poo to keep them going. The tank may look like hell when you dump filter media in it but will settle down in a few hours. Just keep an eye on the nitrites and nitrates. When there are no nitrites and some nitrate then it should be fine with a few fish. Add the rest of your intended fish a few at a time.

 

[Torrean]

I believe stress zyme advertises that it contains bacteria not ammonia. But hey if it really does have bacteria (which I doubt because it is not refrigerated) then maybe it'll have ammo in it too. BTW I used stress ZYme and it did NOT work as directed. I had a normal fishy cycle.

 

[FishLuvr]

You can find "pure" ammonia at any good hardware store, a good test to see if its just ammonia with no addatives is to shake the bottle if it FOAMS then its nout 100% pure ammonia.

Strees zyme, is bacteria and not AMMONIA. you would need some ammonia to keep the bacteria colony alive. I have read many articles that it works but like Torrean said, its not refrigerated so i don't see it working as well either.

Bio-Spira is refrigerated and has very good reviews though i personally havent used either,

 

[dwarfgourami]

Try the hardware stores for ammonia, should say pure household ammonia on the bottle. The standard advice for ammonia is add (with a pipette) as much as it takes to bring the reading up to 5ppm. What I did was add just over a drop/gallon; you could start with that and see if you need to add more. (It doesn't matter if you add too much; as there are no fish to suffer). I then added the same amount every day until the ammonia dropped and nitrites spiked; then half the amount every day until nitrites dropped and then did 50% water change (to lower nitrates) before I added fish.

This worked for me and I had no ammonia spike when I added fish.

 

[kcalbat]

thanks dwarfgourami...

i did find ammonia at a walmart store after searching many different stores.

ive never done a fishless cycle so any tips are great!