Amount of ammonia in fishless cycle?

[goldfish freak]

Hello folks, I have readquite a bit of information on fishless cycling and deceided to give it a try. I understand that diffrent brands of ammonia contain different concentrations. The brand that I am using here in Canada is Amex clear ammonia. It is made by the Colgate-Palmolive company. I added a couple of teaspoons of this ammonia to my 40 gallon to start, then after about 40 minutes tested to see what reading I got. My water tested at 0.5ppm, so I proceeded to add more ammonia and kept testing until I got a reading of 5ppm, it took 75ml of ammonia to produce 5ppm. This seems like alot of ammonia compared to what I have read of others using. I have been adding this amount for four days so far and have found that the water has a very noticeable ammonia smell to it, and the water feels a bit slimy. Could my ammonia test kit be giving me a false reading? Have I been adding far too much? I am thinking yes. Any opinions? Thanks.

[wetmanNY]

Once each day, you are adding sufficient ammonia to bring test levels back to ~5ppm, right?

Your ammonia test may not be registering.

[goldfish freak]

I have been adding the same amount of ammonia each day that orginally brought me to 5ppm(75ml). The test kit read progressively higher amounts of ammonia each time I tested it that first day, to get the 5ppm. This leads me to believe that the kit is working. It just seems to be alot of ammonia, especially because there is that smell.

[carpguy]

75 ml (about 2.5oz, for the metrically challenged) seems like a lot. I was using some fraction of a teaspoon (can't quite remember). That seemed like a lot since some folks were talking about the number of drops they used. Concentrations vary, aging, etc. There isn't a fixed amount… but that seems like a lot.

You don't want to add that initial quantity each day, you only want to return to 5ppm. Yeah, its not what the article says but its come up before and the consensus seemed to be for this modified approach: don't exceed 5 ppm at the beginning, after a little bit you'll be adding the initial dose each day unless you make it to 20 ppm by the end of day 4. Excessively high ammonia levels can be bad for the bacteria.

Back to the concenttration: when I had the bottle out and I splashed that half-teaspoon-or-whatever-it-was into the tank I'd get a whiff of ammonia. This faded quickly and there was usually no ammonia smell, the water wasn't slippery. I'd guess you are massively overdosed and should change out all the water. But that's just a guess, I'd ask the LFS to confirm the test or try using a different test on a 5 gallon bucket or some such thing. 40 gallons in the bathtub. Even if the bacteria can eventually get some traction, overdosing seems to lead to a longer and more drawn out cycle.

HTH

[JSchmidt]

I don't think 2.5 oz. necessarily sounds unreasonable. An ammonia test (with LFS testing for backup) is the best measure to figure out dosing.

If you used any dechlorinator when you first filled the tank, you should know that some kinds (e.g., Amquel, Prime) will affect the readings of the more common ammonia tests. Which dechlor, if any, did you use?

Finally, it sounds like you've been increasing your ammonia concentration by 5 ppm each day, which means your current concentration will be way to high to cultivate a biofilter. You should do a sufficient water change to get the level back to 4-5 ppm. (Easiest would be to do a 100% change and re-dose.)

This shouldn't set you back much, but it's better to find this out several days into the cycle, rather than several weeks.

Good luck,
Jim

[goldfish freak]

Thanks for the replies. The dechlorinator I have been using is Hagen's Aqua Plus. I bought this brand specifically to use for the fishless cycle. I decieded that I would do a 60% water change to reduce the ammonia concentration and buy another test kit to confirm the level of ammonia in my water. I tested the water using the new test kit I bought, a couple of days after I did the water change and the reading I got was off the chart. The color showed up alot darker than the limits of the test. So I proceeded to do two more 60% water changes to lower the ammonia further. I will test again in a few minutes to see where I am at. I just hope I did not kill the bacteria in the established internal filter that I transfered from one of my tanks to seed this one. It looks like I do have a faulty test kit after all :mad: .

[goldfish freak]

I tested again after the two water changes and it resulted in a reading of 5ppm or more. My new test kit only reads up to 5ppm, the color appeared to be darker than what it showed on the color card. I did another water change of about 55% and retested after about an hour, this time I got a reading between 3ppm and 5ppm, the color appeared to be in between. I calculated that the amount of ammonia left in the water after the water changes was about 9 ml or nearly two teaspoons.

PS: I did not do a 100% water change because I did not want to break the syphon on the canister filter I am using in the tank. It is a pain to reprime.