Ammonia question (cycling)

[Egyptdragon]

Well, 2 ammonia, cycling related questions:

1. I recently found a 10 gallon tank in my backyard and I want to do a fishless cycle with it. I went to the local drug and grocery stores and I can't tell if they carry the appropriate kind of ammonia for feeding the bacteria and not harming the future fish population.

- 1/2 gallon Albertson's "Clear Ammonia" with no ingredient list any where that I could find.
- 1/2 gallon of Safeway "sudsy cleaning ammonia" with "surfectant" and "clarifying agent" and something else...

Are these ok? If not, where should I be looking?

2. Since my reading on the fishless cycle tells me that products like AmQuel, which removes ammonia as well as acting as a dechlorinator, are a poor idea for a cycling tank... what about using these products on an already established tank?

If I understand what I have been reading, the ammonia as the bacteria's food source is bonded to the agents in the AmQuel and starves the colony in a cycling tank, but wouldn't the same happen with the established tank? I had always religiously used AmQuel as a water conditioner in the past and now I wonder if I should use something else.

 

[Copper]

I second the question on where to find. I've poked around town, and so far all I have been able to find is ammonia with surfectants, lemon scented, or what looked like a 10% ammonia dillution, but I couldn't tell what it was dilluted with.

 

[RTR]

Surfactant is a two-bit word for detergents and soaps, and are deadly to tanks. Pass on that formulation.

Amquel's bound ammonia is available to bacteria, but no one knows for sure if it slows the rate of oxidation by bacteria or not. Does you water have chloramine? if so a simple dechlorinator that breaks the chlorine-ammonia bond but does not bind the ammonia (you will be adding ammonia anyway) would be preferred. But the Amquel is itself safe to use. Whether or not it affects the timing we just do not know.

 

[OrionGirl]

Amquel binds ammonia into ammonium, which is non-toxic, bio-available (the bacteria can use it), but not stable. This means that if you have a high pH, ammonium is quickly converted back into ammonia. At lower pH values, ammonia and ammonium both exist--the extra molecule that differs between them is easily lost and gained. So, amquel is okay to use for treating the water in your tank when you are dealing with chloramines.

I always confuse surfacants and chelating agents! Chelating agents are okay, right?

 

[Egyptdragon]

I'm glad I thought to ask before I bought SOAP for the tank! The "sudsy" in the title made me suspicious. I guess a trip to a home improvement type store is in order. They've got to have plain ammonia without additives... I hope.

 

[carpguy]

Amquel doesn't convert ammonia (NH3) to ammonium (NH4). It converts it to aminomethanesulfonate (H2NCH2SO3) and water (H20). The easier to prononce version of that is that it shouldn't convert back to ammonia, at least not according to Kordon's website.

It remains bioavailable to the bacteria, although I'll take RTR's word for it on the oxidization bit (and on most other aquaria matters). There isn't really a reason to be Amqueling the water during a fishless cycle. It won't interfere, at worst maybe slow you down a little bit.

Surfactants = bad. Shake the bottle. Suds = bad. You should see a little bubbling, like if you shook up a water bottle there'd still be some bubbles. Just not suds. No dyes, no scents, no nothing but ammonia, water, and chelating agents.

Edit: Chelating agents are something they add to bind with iron in the water in order to prevent rust stains when using the ammonia as a cleaner.

You aren't going to find pure ammonia in the cleaning aisle. It's a labratory supply kind of item. Its also why no one will ever give you a dosage: it varies according to the age and diluteness of the ammonia. What you want is the plainest most generic type you can find. I got the store brand at the local market after unsuccessfully scouring (again) the Home Depot.

Albertson's Clear Ammonia sounds like the right sauce. I'd give it a shake.

 

[JSchmidt]

Usually, if it says 'clear ammonia' it's OK to use for fishless cycling.

Chelating agents are OK, surfactants, perfumes, etc. are not.

HTH,
Jim

 

[MissMeow]

The Wal Mart brand is supposed to work, so I'd look there. It only has ammonia, water, and chealting stuff. Everybody has a Wal Mart reasonably neraby, right?

 

[OrionGirl]

Thanks for the correction Kordon--that's good to know!

 

[Toro Driver]

Somewhere in this vast world of AC I read that if you shake it and it foams, its wrong. The Wal-Mart brand worked great for me, ready for fish in three to four weeks on my forty-five.