Doing a Fishless Cycle...

[cerhob]

Hey all
I'm staring a fishless cycle but the only Ammonia I could find is Western Family Ammonia (Crystal Clear)and that has surfactant in it. It doesn't foam when I shake it so I thought it was good until I got it home. :swear:

I have read that you could still use it though. Any truth to that?

If not, well I have a shrimp rotting in there since yesterday. It has some "Filmy" stuff on it now. I also threw in some fish food. Anyway the Ammonia is still really low. like .25ppm. Anything I could do to speed up the process any?

Also I have some stuff called "Cycle". I've never used it before. My girlfriend bought it thinking it would help us. Would that help during the cycle?

Thanks all for the help

[Nolapete]

1) Don't use anything with surfactant in it.

2) with the shrimp in there, you don't need to add ammonia

3) Cycle is complete garbage and a waste of money. You might as well light your money on fire and pee in your tank instead.

[cerhob]

1) Thank you!

2) Should I also add fish food? How long does it take for the ammonia to peek then?

3) Same thing I told my girlfriend :-D

Thanks for the help.

[OldMan47]

The shrimp will decay fast enough to complete a proper cycle. The 0.25 ppm is plenty to get your ammonia processing bacteria to start growing. It is less than the load that we usually try to achieve but the bacteria don't know that and they will still grow just as fast. The first time that your initial ammonia level will have any effect is when you reach the point where the bacteria can process whatever ammonia is present. From that point on, the ammonia levels would need to be higher to get more bacteria to develop. If you feed the empty tank the amount you would feed your fish, the bacteria level will get to be as much as that fish load will need.

[Nolapete]

No need to add fish food. The only reason to do anything is if you notice fungus growing on the shrimp. Remove and replace.

[cerhob]

No need to add fish food. The only reason to do anything is if you notice fungus growing on the shrimp. Remove and replace.

Fungus? What sort of fungus? There is some film stuff on it at the moment. Also on the food at the bottom of the tank.

[bushwhacker]

your ammonia would have been fine surfactants are not soap, it is various chemicals added to the ammonia to break the surface tension of water to enable it to clean better.

[dirtydawg10]

your ammonia would have been fine surfactants are not soap, it is various chemicals added to the ammonia to break the surface tension of water to enable it to clean better.

Don't use ammonia with surfactants...It will kill your fish when you go to put them in the tank.

this is all it should say on the ingredients...
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/8378/dscn29677477884hg6.jpg

[cerhob]

I keep hearing that using the surfactants might be ok. But I haven't anyway.

So far my ammonia in the tank is at .5ppm and nitrates are at somewhere around 0 ...