A few questions...

[mlee0332]

To be safe, do a 100% water change...

Good luck, and your welcome!!!

 

[fishwatcher]

Will do! Thanks, again, and have a good night! I'm turning in now... it's 12 am!

edit: Oh yeah, you're from my neck of the woods! Ttyl!

 

[mlee0332]

same here! ttyl!

 

[Karah's_Mommy]

I've just done the exact same thing, a fishless cycle on a tank I've divided for bettas. I'll tell you exactly what I did. Firstly you need Clear or Pure Ammonia. It should be colorless and not froth up if you shake the container.

Since the ammonia most likely won't have a concentrate on it, you have to play around a bit to get the right ppm. The ammonia used when I see a lot of fishless cycling articles on line is usually a lot more concentrated than what you get at Walmart or whatever store you get it at. You want to add ammonia until you get a reading of approximately 3 ppm. For the 10 gallon tank I did, I needed almost a teaspoon full of ammonia to get 3 ppm. But it will differ depending on the concentration of ammonia you have. I started with 10 drops, let it sit for a couple hours and measured the ammonia. Then added more, and waited and checked again until I got to 3 ppm. Remember how much ammonia it took you to get your tank to 3 ppm because that's going to be what you add every day.

I think I read that you used media from another tank for this. That will help out tremendously. I took readings just about every day. Once your nitrates start to read, you cut the amount of ammonia you add every day in half. When the nitrites/nitrates have spiked after this, you do a good water change. I've done up to a 90% water change at this point. Then I add the ammonia and let the tank sit over night. Keep up with checking your nitrates/nitrites and ammonia, and once they've settled down to 0, you're cycled and ready to add your fish. I usually do a water change every day while the readings are coming down.

Make sure you skip a day after the last day you've added ammonia before you add the fish to the tank. So if you added ammonia on Monday, don't put fish in the tank until Wednesday. I've done this for 4 tanks in the last year and had tremendous success with it. All 4 tanks were cycled in 8-10 days.

If you want to see a log of my daily readings as a guide, send me a PM and I'll get them to you.

 

[Torrean]

mlee your tank may be overstocked I don't know what you keep I'm just guessing. that's really the only reason I can think that you'd still have an ammonia reading. try a small whisper 5-15 internal filter or really any extra filtration. Give the bacteria a bit more room and they should get rid of the rest of the ammonia.

 

[fishwatcher]

Do you need an actual filter for the "extra room" or could you just hang a chunk of media in the tank?

 

[Torrean]

i believe anything will work. I don't see why filter media in the tank would not work. Just make sure it's in the flow from the filter so it gets a lot of oxygen.

 

[mlee0332]

you add ammonia every day? I thought you added ammonia to 5.0ppm and then didn't add anything until it was gone. then start adding it back. I read that on a diff. site than the 2 in the links I posted above.

 

[fishwatcher]

What I was thinking is to basically stick an airstone into the media (they are not envelopes), and hang that on the inside of tank wall. That would use the airstone I have for oxygen and give the bacteria room. Does that sound like it would work?

 

[mlee0332]

someone told me to do it in a bucket b/c my fish had to stay there over night...

Dont know how effective it was...

 

[fishwatcher]

Hey mlee, I think we're sick... weren't we on here just a few hours ago!?! Since I've gotten back into keeping fish, my husband is wondering where I went!