I'm Using Purified Water, Do I Need To Cycle?

[Ruthy]

Some people also put prawns in to make the ammonia if there's none available

 

[ICEAL]

LOL, the 99c 2 blocks away from my house has it.

 

[Ruthy]

Make sure it is pure ammonia. Shake it up and if it foams don't use it

 

[ICEAL]

why? i've already added about half a cup.

 

[Ruthy]

If it foams then it could have cleaning products in it, which will kill fish when you put them in and probably any bacteria you want to grow

 

[OldMan47]

If you have added a half cup, do as near as possible a 100% water change and then measure the result. The 4 to 5 ppm of ammonia you want will be a few drops, not a half cup.

 

[KittyKat]

i also have this http/www.petco.com/product/102599/Aqueon-Water-Conditioner.aspx?CoreCat=MM_FishSupplies_ConditionersAdditives

This product is the one that we call dechlorinator, although it is sometimes also called "water conditioner" by some people.

If you're doing a fishless cycle, there is no need for water changes apart from a big one to dillute high nitrates before adding the fish. Fishless cycling can take around a month to many months. One I did took 5 months. All you need to add is ammonia to spike it and test the water daily to see how it's going. Can't quite remember but I think spiking to about 2ppm was good.

They are doing a fish-less cycle on a tank while they have fish in a bowl. To be honest, it would be considerably safer to do a fish-in cycle as the fish are currently being exposed to very high concentrations of ammonia in the bowl (over 1 ppm, going by what the other person said).

i'm doing a fishless cycle i just do 100% water change in the 1gal, it's less work than the fish-in cycle and more faster to cycle or so i read.

i think i'm at .5-1 ppm of ammonia. i'm using water from the 1gal before i change it, ican't find any ammonia near me.

You should probably be changing quite a bit more than 100% once per day. It is quite important that the fish are never exposed to ammonia of 0.25 ppm or over, and it would be ideal if the reading was as close to 0 ppm as possible. Given that this is the case, it is likely to be easier to control the ammonia in a fish tank (of a larger volume) than in a (1 gallon) bowl, so a fish-in cycle would likely beat a fish-less + uncycled.

why? i've already added about half a cup.

This sounds like too much, you should have an ammonia reading between 3 and 5 ppm for a fish-less cycle (which is around 5-20 ml for most common aquaria sizes, while a British half cup is around 100 ml, with US cups being larger).