Fishless cycle help

[fishandcards]

Well, I started cycling my son's tank by using the fishless cycle.  I am hoping someone can check my math.

The tank is a 75 gallon (so around 280k ml).  So to get 5 ppm ammonia, I added 1.25 ml.  I checked the tank about 0.5 hours after adding the ammonia and it read around 0.5 ppm.  Checked it again about 2 hours later and it is reading 0 ppm.

I did seed it with a couple of hunks of filter, but am having a hard time believing it is working that fast.

Can someone check my math for how much ammonia I should be adding?

Does this make any sense?

The filters have carbon in them, but my understanding is that the carbon does not absorb ammonia.....

Any comments would be appreciated.

[merritt]

I believe you may have miscalculated the ammonia amount for your tank. First i cycled all my tanks at 5.ppm not .5ppm. You need to use an eyedropper and measure spoon to add correct amount. After you bring level up to 5.ppm  keep track of drop amount that it takes to keep it there. This is the ammount you want to use until ammonia goes down and nitrite goes up. When nitrite hits 5.ppm or over do a major water change and reduce ammonia drops to half the original ammount. Nitrite takes a little longer to go down  but it'll happen. Example my 75 gallon took about 80 to 90 drops to hit 5.ppm. The next day it took about 15 drops to keep it there. When Nitrite spiked to 5.ppm i added only 8 drops and did a 50% water change for a couple days to keep nitrite level under 5. I kept adding 8 drops till zero readings. To speed it up use establised substrate and established filter media. Good Luck

[Steve]

I fishless cycle all my tanks and always have pretty good luck with it by following the info from C-F article http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/fishless_cycle.php

When I fishless cycle I aim for 2ppm, no need to go any higher than that. Following the article on CF my tanks usually cycle around 25 days without seeding. When I have seeded I have had them cycle fully in about 10-14 days.

Also just double check you are using an ammonia that does not have sulfates in it. When I first started fishless cycling I bought the wrong ammonia and didn't know any better till someone told me. Quick way to tell is to shake the bottle and if it does not foam then you are good. A good brand to use is ACE janitorial ammonia.

[Maize-N-Blue-D]

FWIW - there is a product on the market that cycles tanks in 24 hours:

STARTSMART COMPLETE

I have used this on both my 55's and a 180 tank with no issues, I added fish after 24 hours and none of them had any issues.
Another thing you could do the help the process is seed a filter on an existing tank for a couple weeks or more.

Good luck !

Here is the Link:

https://www.tlc-products.com/startsmart-complete/

[fishandcards]

I did miscalculate, it should have been 15 ml (not 1.5)......

I added the correct amount this morning and in less than 8 hours, back down to 0.5 to 1....

I seeded it with 2 chunks from existing filters.  I need to get the nitrite/nitrate testers....pet solutions had them on back order (would have been nice if they told me before they shipped them out).

Looks like things are going well, just need to have some more patience - coming down the home stretch.

Thanks to everyoen that replied.

[fishandcards]

Hmmm - been adding the ammonia for 2 days now.  Is it normal for the ammonia to be dropping and still have 0 nitrites/nitrates?  If so, where is the ammonia going?  I do not understand where the ammonia went if not to nitrite or nitrates.

First time doing a fishless cycle so I am not sure what to expect.

How long should this cycle take?  I did seed the filters with two good size chunks of filter faom from exisiting tanks.

[Steve]

When fishless cycling there's no need to test for Nitrates for awhile. During the fishless cycle you should see a Nitrite spike as the ammonia starts to fall, then a few days later Nitrates will start to show up. If you are seeing ammonia go down and still zero Nitrites then that seems odd. What Nitrite test kit are you using, have you checked the exp date on it?

[Ron]

I did seed the filters with two good size chunks of filter faom from exisiting tanks.

IMO that is the reason for what you are seeing so far. The bacteria are depleting the nitrites to nitrates before the level goes high and it may be that the nitrate level is just too low to reliably test right now.

The only time I've ever done a fishless cycle is when I previously didn't own any tanks. Otherwise I'll move a filter from an existing tank to a new tank and immediately stock. Now you might not pack the tank full right away, but within reason I wouldn't think twice about it.

[fishandcards]

Steve - I am using API master test strips.  I know these can be unreliable, but I have never been able to measure anything with the liquid style kits (the colors never match).  I just bought the strips, but I did not think to check the ecperation date (I will verify they are still good, but since the PH, GH, and KH still seem to be working, I am fairly confident the strips are still good).  What you say makes sense....did not think of it that way.

Ron - I agree with you, but I did not have a filter and substrate to switch into the new tank....needed to leave the filters (which would be too small for the 75 gallon) on the current tanks (15 gallon and 29 gallon).  I may scoop some substrate out of the 29 to kick start it a little more. 

Thanks to both of you for your comments - I appreciate it. 

P.S.  I will be stocking the tank originally with about 16 to 20 small cichlids (saulosi and another group) and about 4 to 6 small syno petricola to start.  I know the bio lode will be fairly small, but I wanted to do it right from the start.  Patience are rarely my strong suit.