Plants and liquid ammonia?

rainbowcharmer

rainbowcharmer

AC Members
Jul 30, 2007
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East Coast, USA
I start cycling my tank tomorrow (my eheim is arriving!), and though I do have an already cycled filter that I'll be using to help get this moving, I am positive that I will still be needing to add ammonia for at least a little while. I am working on bringing in plants for the tank already, and I'm wondering if the ammonia will be a problem for them? If so, I'll hold them temporarily in another tank until I'm finished cycling.

I got the janitorial ammonia from Ace Hardware - no surfactants, etc. But I just want to be sure that if I spend the $$ on plants, I don't destroy them during the cycle. :)

Thanks much!
 
Yup, plants actually prefer ammonia over nitrate. So adding ammonia to a planted tank to start a cycle might take a bit longer to finish, depending on plant load and light levels.
 
Huh - and here I thought it might burn them or something. :) Well, we'll see how it goes I guess. :) The plants will be a few days behind the cycle start, so hopefully those first few days will help jump-start, and with the seeded filter, I am hoping for a quick finish.

Thanks for the info! :)
 
Will do. Any idea how much that might be in a 75 gal setup? I'm just going to be experimenting I think, but if someone has a general idea of how much ammonia will bring me up to 2ppm, that would be great. :)
 
rainbow if you have a cycled filter why bother with the ammonia just put some fish in it.. example i have a 10 gallon tank fully setup and cycled. i can take that filter and put it on a 55 with the fish from the 10 and be perfectly fine. your not cycling the water all you do is cycle the filter.
 
Right but the amount of fish that that teeny aquaclear filter can handle is not much. My first fish in this tank are going to be a couple of severums, which I would imagine will produce more waste than that filter will be able to handle right off the bat. Or at least I would assume that is the case. I would at least like to jump-start the process prior to the fish arriving to minimize any stress on them. :)
 
Here's a hint on the math, there are 1000 ml/ liter, 3.8 liters/gallon, 1000ml x 1000L=ppm, 1 teaspoon = 5ml. Go find your own calculator, lol, I have to go root for the Phillies!
 
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