fishless cycle with ammonia?

[JohnMemorialHS]

Clear ammonia for FW fishless cycle.
cocktail shrimps for SW fishless cycle.
But no one ever mentioning clear ammonia for SW fishless cycle, does it not work in SW? I was just puzzled by this.

 

[DeltaUguy]

I used ammonia on my SW tank. No problems here.

 

[Dale W.]

Started using Amonia back in about 77-78. I use the pharmicuticle grade in addition to Frytz9 or something like it for a bacteria booster. The amonia is simply a food source.

 

[slipknottin]

Hmm.... if you never added any live sand, live rock, or any livestock, could you still fishless cycle your tank?

 

[WAR EAGLE]

Yeah, the bacteria would gradually accumulate in sufficient ammounts to break the NH3 down.

 

[tetraodon]

I've tried ammonia with SW, too. It worked great.

 

[slipknottin]

where does the bacteria come from?

 

[fishfreek]

There is a nice article here about fishless cycle. I had not heard of using liquid ammonia before. The method I have seen and heard of using is to use raw shrimp or some bits of raw fish.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=101

 

[tetraodon]

Liquid ammonia or peice of raw shrimp/fish, it's the same principle. I've tried both. I felt the liquid ammonia method is easier to control the ammonia level you have in the tank, and doesn't smell as bad as the raw shrimp/fish way. HTH

 

[gbundersea]

Firsthand succes story here

A few months ago, I used household ammonia to cycle a brand-new 5-gallon aquarium.

The short version is that after 14 days, the bacterial colony was fully metabolizing 3ML of household ammonia each day in about 11 hours. I was very conservative, and carefuly monitored nitrite levels over the next 8 days, while adding daily 1ML maintenance doses of ammonia.

For the full story, with pictures, click here.