Using Pure Ammonia in New Tank Cycling

cyberloach72

I have been a fish hobbiest for over two years now and during this time I have done some reading on fishless cycling of new tanks. I started with a 55gal tank which I used fish to help cycle it. Through many water changes and several fish losses it took over a month to finally reach its cycle. Needless to say, I didn't want to take this approach the next time I start a tank.

Well, it's next time and I'm going at it again having bought a 29gal tank. My kids are chomping at the bit for me to add fish daddy yada yada...but I know better. Anyway, I'll get to the point. I called a private retailer of just aquatic pets and supplies to ask about using pure ammonia to speed up the cycle. He said absolutely don't put any chemicals in the tank (except chlorine remover), it will cycle itself in 4 days. He claims there is already bacteria in some of the water,gravel and filter media I stole from my 55gal that would be enough. 4 days...I just don't get it. Also, I ran a test today after 48hrs set up and found no trace of ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate in the tank. Water is soft, alkanitity and pH on lower end of the scale.

Regardless of his suggestion I had my wife pick up some ammonia (active ingreadents state ammonium hydroxide) and I'm still like someone who is contemplating jumping into the deep end of a pool for the first time. Why all the worries? To many different methods of doing this I guess or I am brain fried from all the reading. I've even read that too much ammonia will kill any living bacteria which feeds my concern. What about using fish food in place of ammonia? Is that more ecologically safe? Please note that I'm not tring to be impatient with this process just tring to settle on a good plan that works. Nice thing is I'm glad I found this forum since there seems to be plenty of well versed hobbiests that are very kind and eager to help. Sorry for the rammbling and thanks in advance to any takers.

Cyberloach72 or Bill for short

Loman

Bill,
I have not used pure ammonia although I have read about many people that have with a positive outcome. I tend to use some form of decaying material like a shrimp or something. I agree with your friend at the store that the seed from the established tank should get things started but I am not convinced about the 4 day time frame. Based on your test results it could be fresh tap water with no bacteria and no ammonia. It is hard to call but I would like to see some level of ammonia or nitrites during the cycle.I would at least expect some level of nitrates. Somehow either with fish, decaying material or directly you have to know that ammonia is introduced in the system and transformed to nitrite then nitrate.

branfrog

I used a 10% ammonia solution to achieve a fishless cycle of my tank, in conjunction with Cycle by Hagen, it worked really well! Actually "to the book" as outlined by BJP's 'race to cycle' post:

http://www.fishtankforums.com/5-fres...-new-race.html (A new race)

Thanks BJP! this rocked! 30 days to a full cycle!

Just be sure that there are no "surfactants" present in your ammonia's ingredients as this is toxic to fish.

Tommy Gun

Hey Bill for short! (couldn't resist)

Your LFS person there is only have right about that and is definitely leading you down the wrong path. I agree that taking some established substrate and filter media from your established tank is probably carrying the bacteria you are after, but probably not enough to handle you stocking too quickly or anything. As far as the water goes, it does not contain the bacteria you are after and you may have done nothing more than transport some nitrates over to the new tank because ammonia and nitrite aren't going to hang out very long in a cycled tank. That being said....

...it is important to not get confused about this - the adding the ammonia is not going to speed up the cycle per say, but only replaces the ammonia that would otherwise be produced by fish and other decaying organic matter (which is why Loman uses cooked/frozen shrimp for fishless cycling).

Why is that important to know? Basically because if you do not add an ammonia source, the bacteria you transferred from your other tank will not survive or starve to death. So, in that way, your LFS person was way off base.

As already mentioned, this is a very dubious trick your LFS person is pulling on you or is otherwise lacks a lot of common sense.......if there is nothing producing ammonia in your tank, then it will not be there, and hence, there will be no nitrite production or nitrate production. You simply cannot have a cycled tank without a contant source of ammonia.

This is true....otherwise it would be impossible to keep ammonia in a bottle, or at least keep it after the bottle is open because nitrifying bacteria can be found everywhere.

IMHO, it is best to make a strong attempt at reaching and maintaining a level of 5 ppm ammonia. However, you will want to keep track and measure how much ammonia it takes to reach that level the first time you add it. From then on, keep checking the ammonia and adding it as needed. For example, if on the second day you have 3 ppm, you would want to add enough to get back to 5 ppm. Eventually you will start to see a nitrite spike and it will become next to impossible to maintain that ammonia level anymore. Once you are at this point, just keep adding as much ammonia as you did the very first time and continue to do so daily until you see the nitrite spike and fall to 0 ppm. Of course, once you have no ammonia and no nitrite, your tank is cycled.

So, like I said, using ammonia may not be faster than using fish....assuming you can keep all of the fish alive and producing the same amount of ammonia all of the time...but the fishless method gives you a lot of advantages you can use to speed things up; which would otherwise harm a fish:

• Skip water changes - without any fish present, there is no reason to perform water changes; hence, all of the ammonia you add stays in the tank until it is nitrate (***just be sure to do a big water change before adding fish to lower nitrate levels)
• Turn the heat up - you can turn your water temp up into the 90 degree range which will create a more ideal environment for the bacteria....which should reproduce faster this way

cyberloach72

Thanks everyone for their replies! It seems there really is no exact science to this method. However, I am willing to give it a try. I put some flake food in the tank last night and tested this morning and found a very very faint coloration of nitrate on my test strip. I agree that ammonia will need to be introduced to this tank since I don't think it will accept my bioload of fish. I plan on moving my clown loach, blue goraumi, common pleco, (3) guppies and swordtail to the 29gal tank. Using the flake food method may work according to what I read but it may take longer and will introduce increased phosphates to the tank which I don't think is a good thing.

Several of the steps in this process that continues to vex me is once the tank has cycled you need to remove up to 90% of the water. That seems like a lot. Will that not disturb the cycle and cause the water to go cloudy again like most do when they are first started. The other varing step is the temperature. I have had it set at 80 degrees going on the 3rd day now. Some have said this range is good and others have said raise it to 85-90 degrees. I keep all my tanks at 80 degrees since I lost some of my loaches to ick several months ago and i've been told ick can't survive in these conditions.

I am planning to go out of town next week for 5 days and was wondering if I should put some raw shrimp in the tank until I get back since I will not be able to put any pure ammonia. Will that provide enough food for the bacteria until I return? How many pieces of shrimp should I add for those who have done this?

Thanks again everyone for your help!

Loman

cyberloach72,

A few things.

I neglected to mention this in the initial post but there is really no bacteria in the water. It is on the gravel, filter, plants, glass, etc. but not on the actual water. So in terms of large water changes the impact is more toward disturbance of the gravel etc. and once the bacteria is established there should little to no impact. I have one tank that has a piece of wood in it which leaches a bit and the water will become discolored and often do large percentage of water changes with no ill effect on the cycle.

One implied point that I definitely agree with your friend at the LFS is that people dump a lot of stuff into tanks without really understanding what impact they will have. I prefer to dose medicines etc. outside of the main display tank and think people should think through the chemicals they use very carefully. It is clear you are doing this but it is a point worth highlighting.

I have not been out of town when I have cycled a tank so I was able to test a little as it went along. I would probably use 1 shrimp and cut or break it into two or three pieces. I have little to no scientific reasoning there. If you are in town I would start small and keep adding until I saw it on the water tests.

I run most of my tanks in the range of 80 degrees. I think ick is a more complicated issue and will survive in many conditions. That is probably a new thread unto itself. I think there is a good sticky on ick too that describes the life cycle etc. IMO temp is only a small part of the variables effecting ick.

cyberloach72

Thanks for the update Loman! What I am considered doing starting tonight is to add 5 drops of ammonia to the tank. Only question is how often do I need to test the water after it's added? 1hr, 8hrs, 12hrs, or 24hrs after the addition of ammonia in order to be assured of an accurate reading? I will also crank the heat up to 85 degrees (split the difference) from 80 to 90 degrees so there will not be too much evaporation. I leave in 6 days so I will continue to feed the tank pure ammonia during this time and depending on test results of course I will need to reduce or maintain the amount I'm adding. During the time I'm away I will do as you suggest and cut up a piece of shrimp and leave it in the tank until I return. Hopefully this plan works.

P.S. do you or anyone else know if putting pure ammonia in a tank will cause the fumes to evaporate out causing problems to us humans????

Tommy Gun

It will not cause any problems. For example, if your water source contains chloramines, both the ammonia and chlorine will gas out of the water when it is boiled and no one dies from that.
The intention of this big water change is to remove the nitrates and probable phosphates that build up over weeks of cycling without doing a water change (only during fishless cycling obviously, otherwise water changes would be needed). As already stated, you are not removing any bacteria via the water change so it is absolutely fine to do so. Additionally, becuase you do this before adding fish, there is no fear of causing osmotic shock...you just acclimate the fish after the water change is performed.

The whole advantage here is that no fish are present and so you can take actions that would otherwise put fish in jeopardy.

This is actually completely wrong....the goal of raising the water temperature during an ich treatment is to create a more ideal environment for the protozoa so that it falls off the fish sooner rather than later - when it is in its white spot stage of life, it is terribly difficult, if not impossible to treat it without harming the fish itself. Otherwise water temp isn't going to be a huge factor in whether or not your fish get ich or not.

The only problem with adding flake food or the shrimp like Loman suggests is the fact that the food/shrimp needs to decay before it becomes a viable source of ammonia. This is not to imply that it isn't going to work, but it is hard to predict how much ammonia will be created or in the water at any given time. So, I might add a couple of shrimp a day or two before you leave....or add the shrimp and some of Hagen's Cycle to the tank before you leave since that would increase the amount of heterotrophic bacteria available to make ammonia.

Cloudy water has very little to do with cycling an aquarium and could happen at any time. Large water changes will actually help prevent cloudy water because heterotrophic bacteria (which causes the cloudiness) is free swimming, unlike nitrifying bacteria.

There is a lot to consider when cycling your tank and I agree with you, Loman, and your LFS person....it is not good to go adding a bunch of chemicals to your tank all willy-nilly like - but as long as you aren't crazy with it, ammonia is safe. In fact, you are doing the same thing by adding fish to the tank anyways.

You might find a lot of help in FTF's Articles section since each article builds upon the rest and you should be able to get a better idea of how water chemistry works, what it means to us and our fish, and how each aspect affects different concerns like Ich and cycling.

cyberloach72

Thanks Tommy Gun for the excellent outline to my questions! You are correct that when it comes down to it there are no fish in the tank so it's time for me to concentrate on the chemistry and everything else should fall into place.

cyberloach72

Does anyone have an opinion on how long after the addition of ammonia to the tank should a test be performed to ensure an accurate reading? Should I wait 1hr, 8hrs, 12hrs, or 24hrs?