first time doin' it fishless...

[lauraswan26]

I have never yet done a fishless cycling. Of course, I only started keeping fish at all this past year! Anyway... I picked up some "clear ammonia" at the store yesterday. The ingredients are as follows: "softened water, ammonia, chelating agent." Also, it specifically says it contains no phosphorus. I can't really figure out what a chelating agent is, or if it's harmful to fish or not... Is this okay to use to cycle my tank, or should I be looking for something else?

Thanks...

 

[dunc_man_fishy]

A chelating agent generally bonds to free metal atoms. So the only reason I can think they have added this is there is some other ingredient, metalic based, that they wish to stablise. Without knowing what that this I would be very wary of using it. The fact that it says softened water would suggest artificial water softners which might be toxic to fish. This would be why the chelating agent is added to stablise the softened water..

 

[jappy]

Is "cloudy ammonia" ok for cycling?

Down here in sydney, that's basically all I could find.. except for this huge 2L bottle of "ammonia". It didn't have any 'ingredients' on it, so I'm afraid to use that.

Seems like clear ammonia is a US/UK thing

I might have to cycle with rotting food.

 

[Lithril]

Jappy try shaking the bottle, if its bubbles or foams then its defiantely the wrong stuff.

 

[jappy]

no bubbles whatsoever - not even air bubbles?

(i definitely won't use it if it has soap bubbles though )

 

[Lithril]

Some ammonia has detergent and perfumes in so make sure that you don't get any foam or soap bubbles forming. Make sure it doesn't have the perfume - ammonia smells really bad so you'll know anythings been added.

 

[Magnar]

I got my ammonia from Rayco (a U.K. company, with a web site). They are a photographic chemicals suppliers so it doesn't contain any "cleaning" type chemicals, just ammonia and distilled water.

For those in other countries I'd suggest photo chemical stores.

 

[jappy]

The big bottle I was looking at said it had 40g of ammonia per litre of 'whatever else that's in there' (I hope it's water)

Does that concentration sound right for clear ammonia?

 

[commanderdoom21]

How does one cycle a tank anyway? I don't know how to.