Fishless Cycling

[jaywings19]

I'm getting my 72G tank soon.

I am going to be venturing into the world of fishless cycling this time.

I've read that you need to add 4-5 drops of pure ammonia per gallon to get things started. Then, cut it to 2-3 drops per gallon once nitrite appears. Once ammonia and nitrite drop to zero, then check nitrate level and add fish. (I know this is just a rough summary)

What would 4-5 drops per gallon equate to for a 72G tank? Is that like 2 tablespoons?

 

[dunc_man_fishy]

Well if you want to do it precisely, you will need to take into account the strength of the ammonia you have. The "recipe" used professional chemical grade ammonia 23% solution i believe. But the average household stuff is 9.5/10 % so when i did it I doubled the drops per gallon. But to make this easy to "drop", the first time i added ammonia I dropped it into a teaspoon. I found a teaspoon that held 10 drops, thus easier to measure out. You could also use one of those mesuring caps that you get with fish meds.

Hope this helps

 

[Moe]

It is really hard to tell how much ammonia to use because it varies greatly from brand to brand. I'd start out using teaspoons and check after each one - you want to get up to 5ppm so do it slowly. If you add too much and your ammonia goes over 7ppm the bacteria cannot live and it will take a lot longer to cycle the tank. It is always better to go up slowly. Once you have the ammonia at 5ppm then add half whatever the amount that got you there every day until the cycle is finished. You are trying to get the ammonia to be between 3 - 5 ppm every time you add the ammonia. If you mess up somehow and get more than 7ppm do a water change to try to reduce the ammonia level and do not add more ammonia that day. If you test the ammonia one day and it is still 5ppm do not add more that day either. I found that for the first 2 or three days the ammonia level didn't change much - it just stayed at 5ppm. I didn't add any ammonia and just waited until the bacteria started to build up. Once the level began to drop I started to add the ammonia. Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[jaywings19]

It is really hard to tell how much ammonia to use because it varies greatly from brand to brand. I'd start out using teaspoons and check after each one - you want to get up to 5ppm so do it slowly. If you add too much and your ammonia goes over 7ppm the bacteria cannot live and it will take a lot longer to cycle the tank. It is always better to go up slowly. Once you have the ammonia at 5ppm then add half whatever the amount that got you there every day until the cycle is finished. You are trying to get the ammonia to be between 3 - 5 ppm every time you add the ammonia. If you mess up somehow and get more than 7ppm do a water change to try to reduce the ammonia level and do not add more ammonia that day. If you test the ammonia one day and it is still 5ppm do not add more that day either. I found that for the first 2 or three days the ammonia level didn't change much - it just stayed at 5ppm. I didn't add any ammonia and just waited until the bacteria started to build up. Once the level began to drop I started to add the ammonia. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. This helps a lot. I'll make sure to print this out for when my tank arrives.

 

[mtdewlover]

I'm doing fishless cycle right now in my 55 gallon tank. I added one mL of amonia and that was plenty. I was told to add enough amonia to get the amonia level up to about 5 ppm's. Then add the same amount of amonia every day untill the amonia level reached zero.