Fishless cycling

There's a calculator on here to work out how much.

First, the volume of water in the tank. This is not the same as the manufacturer's quoted volume - that includes the thickness of the glass and the air space you need to leave between the surface of the water and the rim of the tank. So the amount of water the tank can hold is less than the quoted volume. Then you need to reduce that volume even more as substrate and any decor in the tank will replace some water.

In general, take off 15% of what the manufacturer says. Tell us what the manufacturer says the volume is.




It is better to assume the bottle of ammonia is 10%, that way you can't add too much. If it's less than 10% you can add more, but if too much is added you would need to do a water change to remove some ammonia.

Using the ammonia calculator and giving the % as 10%, you need to add 1.14 ml for every 10 gallons of water in the tank

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A syringe is the easiest way to dose small amounts, I buy babies' medicine dosing syringes form my local pharmacy (the babies dosing bit is important, when I asked for just 'a syringe' I got the third degree about why I wanted one)
Add the ammonia, wait half an hour for it to mix in then test for ammonia. If it's less than 3 ppm, add some more. Make a note of how much you add each time so you know how much of the ammonia solution you need altogether to get 3 ppm.


Then follow TwoTankAmin's fishless cycling method.
Ok O f8nally gotvthe ammonia one of you guys recomended. It has the instrucrtions but someone here also told me not to adf as instruccions labelsays n do less. Anyone used this bfore ? N if the guy who recomended m this is reading my post please tell me how much should I add . Thanks in advance to all of you
 

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The bottle says to add 4 drops per gallon. That's the amount of water actually in the tank, not what the tank manufacturer says it is. The bottle suggests taking a fifth off the manufacturer's volume. If this is the 125 gallon tank assume it's 100 gallons.

That 4 drops per gallon will give you an ammonia level of around 2.4 ppm which is OK for cycling. The bottle does say that 100 drops = 5ml, so using a syringe will be easier than counting drops. If it is the 125 gallon tank you would need to add 400 drops and it is very easy to lose count with that many. Using a syringe you'd need 4 x 5ml = 20 ml.
 
That 4 drops per gallon will give you an ammonia level of around 2.4 ppm which is OK for cycling. The bottle does say that 100 drops = 5ml, so using a syringe will be easier than counting drops. If it is the 125 gallon tank you would need to add 400 drops and it is very easy to lose count with that many. Using a syringe you'd need 4 x 5ml = 20 ml.
Conversion to teaspoons might be easier.
80 drops = 1 teaspoon, so 400 drops would be 5 teaspoons
 
The bottle says to add 4 drops per gallon. That's the amount of water actually in the tank, not what the tank manufacturer says it is. The bottle suggests taking a fifth off the manufacturer's volume. If this is the 125 gallon tank assume it's 100 gallons.

That 4 drops per gallon will give you an ammonia level of around 2.4 ppm which is OK for cycling. The bottle does say that 100 drops = 5ml, so using a syringe will be easier than counting drops. If it is the 125 gallon tank you would need to add 400 drops and it is very easy to lose count with that many. Using a syringe you'd need 4 x 5ml = 20 ml.
Ok, thank you brother.
 
I prefer to use more accurate measuring equipment than a spoon, hence the suggestion for a syringe :)
 
400 drops is a lot, but 4 X 5ml syringes is easy, like 4 x 5 ml spoons. It's probably just me, I've never been happy with cooking recipes which use cups for measuring ingredients; weighing ounces/grams is my preferred way :)
 
400 drops is a lot, but 4 X 5ml syringes is easy, like 4 x 5 ml spoons. It's probably just me, I've never been happy with cooking recipes which use cups for measuring ingredients; weighing ounces/grams is my preferred way :)
I was just trying to be helpful since most people dont have a syringe lying around.✌🏻 The last time I needed a syringe for precise measurements, I had to go down to the drug store or supermarket to buy one. 💉 Since then, I keep it around, and hopefully I dont lose it. I dont use it that often.🕊☮
 
I have a collection of syringes from 10 ml down to 3 - a mixed pack from Amazon. And 1 ml babies' medicine dosing syringes from the local pharmacy.




(I even use a 1 ml pipette to make up orchid fertiliser, I never use the cap to do that. As I said, that's just me)
 
A bit of misinformation in this thread.

It is important to understand some things here that were either misstated or omitted.

There are two brands of ammonium chloride for hobbyists of which I am aware that allow one to dose properly. One is Dr. Tim's One and Only and the other is Fritz's Fishless fuel. If you use either one of these, follow the directions for using it. But, there is another factor to consider when doing so.

I use the dry form of ammonium chloride sold by Fritz and I mix my own solution. That said, we need to understand that there are two scales used to measure the 3 nitrogen compounds of which we need to be aware. One scale is favored by science and it the Nitrogen scale. Using that scale all that gets measure is the Nitrogen and the other components are ignored. The other scale is the one most common in our hobby test kits. This is the Total Ion Scale and it measures all the parts of of each of those 3 things. But just like one can convert miles to kilometers, gallons to litres, inches to centimeters etc., there are conversions for the 3 nitrogen compounds.

A full explanation and the conversion factors can be found here: https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/NitrogenIonConversion.php

I have never used the Fritz liquid product but I know that both their dry version and the Dr. Tim's both use the Nitrogen scale. Based on the fact that both Dr. Tim's and the Fishless fuel both use 4 drops/gallon, I assume that the Fritz Fishless Fuel is also likely using the Nitrogen scale.

The fishless cycling article here recommends using 3 ppm on the Total Ion scale for cycling. 2 ppm of ammonia on the nitrogen scale is equal to 2.56 ppm on the Total Ion scale. So, each single drop of the products should produce about .64 ppm on the Total Ion scale. If one increases the dose to 5 drops/gal., the result would be 3.2 ppm on the TI Scale

If one is a real accuracy nut you can calculate things for yourself to produce 3.0 on the Total Ion scale unless you have a small tank. If one is using ammonia rather than the ammonium chloride, you can get things more exact. But, you can work with either form- ammonia or ammonium. However, if you use the ammonium chloride products to dose 4 drops you will be reaching fewer than 3 ppm and if you use 5 you will get a bit over 3 ppm. For the cycling method here this would mean you will hit the numbers for the next additions of ammonia a bit more quickly or slowly than if you had dosed exactly 3 ppm. However, you can still use the guide here and it will work OK with either 4 or 5 drops/gallon.

Finally, if you read the directions for Dr. Tim's product you will note that it states one can use ml to dose in larger tanks. 1 ml of the product will produce the 2 ppm-N of ammonia, or the 2.56 ppm on the T. I. scale, in 20 gallons (75.7 l) of water . That makes it lot easier than having to add 20 x 4 = 80 drops. I buy disposable 1 and 3 ml pipettes for a few pennies in boxes of 200. Smaller numbers might cost as much as 10 cents apiece. Dosing in those 1 ml increments makes it much easier to treat larger tanks. I make up packets which hold 5 x 1 ml and 5 x 3 ml of the pitpets along with a small candy cane which I pass out at the December Xmas meeting of my fish club.

Next, the bacteria do not need to be fed every day. They do just fine missing a day or two. But, if the ammonia is no longer available, they do not die. What happens is that they go into a state of dormancy. Here is how Dr. Hovanec explains it:

How can bacteria live in a bottle and not die for 6 months or a year?

A common misconception about bacteria in general is that they die if they are not fed. From a human being point of view this sounds perfectly reasonable: if you don’t eat, you die. However, bacteria are not human beings. Bacteria operate much differently than people and have a variety of ways to deal with those times when resources are not available for them to grow and reproduce. Some bacteria when stressed (from say lack of nutrients) form spores and go into a resting stage, waiting for conditions to improve. Nitrifiers do not form spores but have other mechanisms to deal with nutrient deficient periods. For nitrifiers, one way to deal with stressful conditions is to form a protective “shield” called EPS. EPS stands for extracellular polymeric substances and is, in simplistic terms, an organic protective shield that research shows inhibits various organisms from attacking and breaking open the cell wall of nitrifiers. Nitrifiers belong to a very old line of bacteria (millions of years) and they have developed ways to cope with very long periods of “drought.” Because the nitrifiers in DrTim’s One & Only are grown on a substrate, they can form EPS when needed and last 6 to 12 months in a bottle.

More specifically, the bacteria can sense when ammonia is gone and in response they basically greatly slow down. They are not dead but are more more like being in suspended animation. They can survive in this state for some time. But when ammonia is again available, they "wake up" and get back to work. Different strains of the the ammonia bacteria can stay more or less viable such that the time to resuming full activity can vary. What also matters is the condition of the bacteria when they go dormant. If they have been well fed the time to recovery will be faster and more efficient. Also, the difference in the level of ammonia any strain needs to thrive matters. Those strains which need low levels of ammonia tend to last longer and revive sooner.

But, there is more to the survival strategies of the bacteria than just going dormant. Some small percent of the bacteria are normally motile. How much bacteria may be so depends on the availability of nitrogen. When the conditions which will cause most of the bacteria to go dormant is present, the percent of the bacteria that becomes motile can be up to 10%. The job of these bacteria is to swim to other locations where the needed nutrients are available and where they can then form new colonies.

So, the way the nitrifiers have managed to survive for many millions of years is a combination of most of them being able to go dormant and for some of them being able to move to other locations where what they need is present. This is why they can survive extended bad times without being able to form spores as strategy for doing so.

So, in our tanks if there is no ammonia (or nitrite) available for the bacteria, they do not die. The difference between what happens in a tank v.s. in the wild is that there is no place for the motile ones to go to find better conditions. They are stuck inside the tank. But the rest of the established colonies spread around a tank and in the filter can go dormant and they will when they need to do so.
 
Ok, I just tested the ammonia in the tank and its 1.0 ppm . What should I do now ?
 
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Did you wait 30 minutes after adding the ammonia before testing? That 30 minutes is to allow the filter to move everything round so the ammonia is thoroughly mixed in. Testing too soon after adding ammonia could mean you hit a pocket of ammonia and get a reading that's too high, or testing a bit of water which doesn't have ammonia properly mixed in yet and the reading is too low.

If you did not wait 30 minutes before testing, test again.
If you did wait at least 30 minutes, add the same amount again. Make a note of the total amount you add as you need to know how much ammonia you add at the start.

Once you have added enough ammonia to get 3 ppm, follow the method on here. It is in post #20, but here it is again

Follow this method to the letter. Adding too much ammonia stalls the cycle so only add more when the method says to.
 
Did you wait 30 minutes after adding the ammonia before testing? That 30 minutes is to allow the filter to move everything round so the ammonia is thoroughly mixed in. Testing too soon after adding ammonia could mean you hit a pocket of ammonia and get a reading that's too high, or testing a bit of water which doesn't have ammonia properly mixed in yet and the reading is too low.

If you did not wait 30 minutes before testing, test again.
If you did wait at least 30 minutes, add the same amount again. Make a note of the total amount you add as you need to know how much ammonia you add at the start.

Once you have added enough ammonia to get 3 ppm, follow the method on here. It is in post #20, but here it is again

Follow this method to the letter. Adding too much ammonia stalls the cycle so only add more when the method says to.
well cause i didnt know how to do it. I added the ammonia only once on saturday n didnt test it until yesterday.
So now im totally lost. Dont know if to add more ammonia or what else to do
 

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