Cycling With Fish Food

[mwood2]

Ok so I went to 2-3 places today to look for ammonia. Turns out none of them had any i could use. It all had dyes or perfume in it which i guess makes it un usable for my tank. So in the mean time I plan to try and use fish food. I just added a few pinches to get something started but how should I go about it. I plan to keep a look out for ammonia to use.

Im testing using stress zyme, I had some extra money so I figured why not. Im keeping the tank around 75-85 degrees and have 2 amazon sword plants and a few beta bulbs (thought it would be interesting to try).

I'll post the tank stats in just abit.

So far:

5 Gallon
PH:
Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:


Oh and lastly. I have a almlost cycled 5 Gallon tank. I boght a filter sponge and put it ontop of the filter to gather some bacteria to bring over to my new tank, How long am I looking at before It has enough to bring over. Im testing both tanks to make sure everything is fine since my almost cycled tank has 2 dwarf frogs and a Molly inside.

 

[minxfishy]

Whereabouts are you? UK/US?

 

[mwood2]

im on the US.

Im located between WA and OR. To be Specific Vancouver WA. I checked at Walmart, Wall Greens, True Value. I plan to try Lowes or Home Depo soon maybe.

Will the fish food work till then?

 

[Corleone]

It'll be better than nothing. It's harder to gauge than ammonia, but any progress is good progress.

Are there any Aco hardware stores near you? That's where I found mine. Any hardware store's worth a try, for that matter. Try dollar stores, too. They often carry bargain brand cleaning products that aren't fancied up like supermarket brands often are. Dollar Tree and Family Dollar in my area both carry suitable ammonia, but Wal Mart and other supermarkets don't.

 

[mwood2]

thanks, I just tested my tank right now and the reults show:

PH: 7.4-7.6
Ammonia: .25-.50
Nitrite: .25
Nitrate: (haven't tested, working on it)


I started with the food around 2:30-3PM and its now 12:45AM. I used Stress Zyme when I firsted added everything today as well.

 

[minxfishy]

Well its definately worked as the results show, its just difficult to know how much to use, keep going the way you are and test regularly.

 

[mwood2]

ok I just tested again tonight.

It is 10:10PM when I tested and this is only the second day that my tank has had any source of ammonia (fish food). All I tested was ammonia and nitrite and got these:

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 1-2ppm

All I put into the tank was stress zyme, 2 amazon sword plants and no media from my other tank yet. Is something odd gong on or am I just cycling fast?

 

[Corleone]

It is progressing reasonably fast, sometimes that first bit of nitrite takes forever to show up in any kind of fishless cycle. Hard to say just how quickly, though, since it's hard to tell how quickly ammonia is entering the water when using fish food. If I remember right, 1 ppm of ammonia becomes 2.something ppm of nitrite, so you've probably only produced in the neighborhood of .5-1ppm of ammonia.

 

[mwood2]

well im adding a good bit more of fish food into the tank. Its the cheap stuff and i plan to water water change it out if the water gets to murky. Still looking for ammonia when I get some time off work.