Adding Ammonia To Help Cycle New Tank

[slowthing]

Hi. Just wondering if someone would be kind enough to recommend how much ammonia I should add to my 53L tank to help start the cycling process. The ammonia is 9.5% and the pipette is the standard size medicine dropper. Please excuse my ignorance, I'm very new to all this. I've read the 'Fishless cycling' post and still can't quite work out how much to add.

Many thanks.

 

[rdd1952]

The only way to know is by trial and error. My ammonia concentration may not be the same and the drops from my dropper won't be the same size. Fill a 5 gallon bucket with water and add x number of drops. Swirl the water to mix it, wait a few minutes and test. You should then have a rough idea how many more drops are needed to raise it to 4 ppm. Then simple math will tell you how much you need for your tank.

 

[Birdie]

the way i worked it out is as follows.

9.5% ammonia means there is 95mg of ammonia in 1ml of the solution, which for the sake of ease of calculations, I rounded up in my head to 100mg/ml
So
100mg in 1ml
50mg in 0.5ml
5mg in 0.05ml

As luck ( or rather maths ) would have it ppm of ammonia is the same as mg per litre - eg 5ppm of ammonia in the tank (which is what we want, more or less) is the same as 5mg per 1000ml, or 5mg/litre.

So back to our calculation

For every litre of water in my tank I added 0.05ml of my ammonia solution.

I tested the theory by adding 10x 0.05ml = 0.5ml of my ammonia to a 10litre bucket of water and tested it, and sure enough got near enough 5 ppm of ammonia. The API test chart jumps from 4ppm to 8ppm. The colour I got was slightly darker than 4 but nowhere near as dark as 8, so as far as i can tell it was roughly 5 )

I used ( am still using) the same calculations to add slightly less ammonia to raise the level to 4ppm each day during the latter part of my fishless cycle.

This method does depend on knowing how many litres of water are actually in your tank - not just what the theoretical capacity is. And you need a reasonably accurate way of measuring a relatively small quantity of millilitres - I used a medicine measuring syringe from a bottle of kid's ibuprofen.

 

[slowthing]

Many thanks for the advice.

 

[scorphonic]

try 3 to 5 drops. 10 drops of the same conc. of ammonia takes my 180L from 0 to about 1-2ppm.

I would strongly suggest that you get in contact with someone, either on this forum or on another forum to see if they can give you some bacteria from their established filters. I did and my cycle looks to be nearly finished after about 2 weeks. (I only added the bacteria on Tuesday and everything has gone well since then!!)

Ask around...and your tank will be ready for fish much much quicker.

 

[rdd1952]

Here is the pinned thread with people who are willing to donate filter media. I don't know when it was last updated though.

 

[slowthing]

Thanks again. I've now contacted one of the people on the list.

 

[Bungy]

Thanks again. I've now contacted one of the people on the list.

Slowthing - what brand of Amonia are you using - and where did you buy it - how can I be sure of buying the right stuff (many of the users on this forum are States side and the product could be different) - I live in Havant, Hampshire.

Bungy

 

[ktricky]

i have enzo house hold ammonia and it has the same concentration as above 9.5% but dont know what the rest is in the solution ie detergents etc

 

[backtotropical]

Heres how to work it out exactly so you don't have to mess about estimating it.

Your tank is 53 litres = 53,000ml

You want to raise ammonia to 5ppm (parts per million) so

53,000ml / 1,000,000 x 5 = 0.265ml of ammonia

Your solution is 9.5% ammonia so

0.265ml / 9.5 x 100 = 2.79ml of your ammonia solution required to bring 53 litres of water to 5ppm.

(Make it 3ml unless you have some crazy measuring gear.)

Hope this helps. You could calibrate your test kit by it.

Birdie, your method makes it 2.65ml, you're 0.14ml out.

 

[ktricky]

so if going by that then my 227l tank needs 11.9mls so 12ml really so i wouldnt have overloaded it by adding 10mls then ?

y is it so important to get 5 ppm's then and not 4 or 6 ?

 

[backtotropical]

5 is no better than 4 or 6 really, it's just the standard on here for fishless cycling.

If you add too much ammonia, it will act as a steriliser and the bacteria will not be able to grow at all. I believe this happens around 8ppm and above.

5ppm is said to feed enough bacteria that would cope with a full tank of fish, so if you cycle using 5ppm, you can add a full tank of fish at once, when cycled. No waiting.

There is nothing wrong with using say 2ppm, but a full tank of fish may overload the filter in that case, because there are not enough bacteria to cope with it, so you would need to stock lightly.


Hope that makes sense.

 

[Bungy]

ktricky - thanks for that, I will check at lunchtime today. I believe however I need to ensure that the Amonia product does not contain certain other elements.....not sure what these are?

 

[Bungy]

Heres how to work it out exactly so you don't have to mess about estimating it.

Your tank is 53 litres = 53,000ml

You want to raise ammonia to 5ppm (parts per million) so

53,000ml / 1,000,000 x 5 = 0.265ml of ammonia

Your solution is 9.5% ammonia so

0.265ml / 9.5 x 100 = 2.79ml of your ammonia solution required to bring 53 litres of water to 5ppm.

(Make it 3ml unless you have some crazy measuring gear.)

Hope this helps. You could calibrate your test kit by it.

Birdie, your method makes it 2.65ml, you're 0.14ml out.

OK - got the formula for working the amonia out - let me throw this one at you if you please..... I have just set-up a new tank with the following dimensions -

W - 48"
D - 12"
H - 15"

I have then partitioned approx 1 third with glass so is totally independent to the rest of the tank (for hospital/quarantine purposes), the remaining 2 thirds for breeding etc. NOW, can you tell me the volume in each section and how much Amonia I need to put in each.....???

Bungy

 

[backtotropical]

Heres how to work it out exactly so you don't have to mess about estimating it.

Your tank is 53 litres = 53,000ml

You want to raise ammonia to 5ppm (parts per million) so

53,000ml / 1,000,000 x 5 = 0.265ml of ammonia

Your solution is 9.5% ammonia so

0.265ml / 9.5 x 100 = 2.79ml of your ammonia solution required to bring 53 litres of water to 5ppm.

(Make it 3ml unless you have some crazy measuring gear.)

Hope this helps. You could calibrate your test kit by it.

Birdie, your method makes it 2.65ml, you're 0.14ml out.

OK - got the formula for working the amonia out - let me throw this one at you if you please..... I have just set-up a new tank with the following dimensions -

W - 48"
D - 12"
H - 15"

I have then partitioned approx 1 third with glass so is totally independent to the rest of the tank (for hospital/quarantine purposes), the remaining 2 thirds for breeding etc. NOW, can you tell me the volume in each section and how much Amonia I need to put in each.....???

Bungy

Ok Bungy, testing me eh?

48" x 12" x 15" = 142 litres (as per TFF volume calculator)

142 Litres = 142,000ml

Raise to 5ppm, so

142,000 / 1,000,000 x 5 = 0.71ml of ammonia required

Your solution is 9.5% ammonia (i assume), so

0.71ml / 9.5 x 100 = 7.5ml of solution required to bring 142 litres to 5ppm.

Therefore

7.5ml x 1/3 = 2.5ml of solution required to bring 47 litres (142 litres x 1/3) to 5ppm.

and

7.5ml x 2/3 = 5.0ml of solution required to bring 95 litres (142 litres x 2/3) to 5ppm.

Hope that helps.