Surfactants In Ammonia For Fishless Cycling

[jdstephe]

I thought I was making progress with my fishless cycle until I saw some concern raised about "surfactants" in the ammonia. I didn't see this initially and the ammonia I bought from Walmart contains only ammonium hydroxide and surfactants. It foams when you shake it - BUT - it seems to work!!

I added some of this solution up to about 5-6ppm and followed the instructions, waiting until the levels dropped back to about 1ppm before adding more back to the 3-4ppm range. My 10gal tank will now process this 3-4ppm back to 0ppm ammonia in about 6-8 hours.

I'm still in the phase with nitrites off the chart high, and I haven't bothered with nitrate yet, but I know some are present.

My question is this - I think I am still about a week away from the nitirites dropping back to zero in the less than 12 hours recommeded timing. Given this, should I be looking to change my ammonia source for one without surfactants, or is everything OK? Could the suractants be preventing the proper formation of the nitrite eating bacteria?

As a newbie, I originally didn't know about all this stuff, and had a pleco placed straight in the tank. When I started seeing ammonia problems, I pulled it out and am keeping it in a hospital tank with daily water changes until the proper tank cycles. As you can imagine, I am keen to get it back in its proper tank as soon as possible.

Any help and/or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rabbut]

It's hard to say. Manufactures generaly don't list specific sufactants, so it will be hard to tell just how toxic this brands will be. It would not appear that they are caursing any harm to the cycle, but the only way to confirm this would be to compair a sample of water tested for nitrate from your tank and the tap. If nitrates in your tank are significantly higher than from the tap, the suffactants are harmless to the cycle. My main consern at this point would be whether the suffactants are harmful to fish. To be shure, at the end of the cycle, run the tank with carbon in the filter for arround 4hours after the waterchange and re-dose, before adding fish, to ensure that all traces of the suffactants are removed. Keep the carbon in the filter replasing twice weekly, for arround a month after the cycle finishes. Remember that if any suffactants are still in the water they will quickly saturate the carbon, hence the rergular replacements.

HTH
rabbut

 

[jdstephe]

Just wanted to add an update. I managed to use this ammonia to complete my fishless cycle with no problems, so for this particular brand, the surfactants don't casue a cycling issue.

Since I have to admit to making a newbie mistake here, I did as much of a water change as possible, and made sure I had a fresh carbon source to absorb as much of any remaining surfactants as possible.

Anyway, the plec "seems" very happy and appears much happier than for a long time in his newly ammonia free water.

I will be purchasing a new 60gallon in the New Year and will cycle this with a proper ammonia source.