I just took down a planted tank after 7 years. Yesterday it had some live plants, fluorite gravel. and one lonely platy. The fish, plants and gravel were removed (some of the gravel and all remaining plants and fish went into a smaller tank). I have an eheim 2028 cannister filter running. I refilled the tank with water and am running the filter. I won't be able to get new fish for the better part of a week. I'm not going with plants anymore and removed the fluorite as I'm switching to conventional gravel to prevent clouding from digging from future cichlids. I'm worried about losing my bio filter. I've heard ammonia can be added to keep the helpful bacteria alive until fish come. Does anyone know exactly how to add ammonia (what kind how much etc) Thanks
Adding Ammonia To Maintain Bio Filter
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Smoothy
Fish Crazy
There's a calculator at the top of the page for the amount of Ammonia to add for the size tank you have ... Has to be pure Ammonia though ... I got mine from Homebase (white and blue bottle) I suck mine out with a Syringe 
Do you have a test kit?
Do you have a test kit?
Ac mentioned, there is a calculator (Aquarium Calculator) at the top of the page. General rule of thumb though is 1ml will raise 5 gallon of water to 5 ppm. Not certain if you need to keep it that high but it certainly wouldn't hurt. The only problem is that if there was only one fish in the tank, you definitely wouldn't have enough bacteria to process 5 ppm of ammonia that quickly. You could probably get my just raising it up to around 1 ppm to keep the filter cycled. I guess it really depends on how quickly you want to get the tank back to for full stock.
Thanks - I had a lot of plants - I thought they helped with ammonia production. I just need to find some ammonia I can trust to be pure - I went to several stores and found either no ingredient or strength information or stuff that had other ingredients Can anyone suggest a chain store (walmart home depot etc) or brand. Also, how long does it take for the bacteria to die once ammonia supply is stopped? Thanks
Walmart should have it. I think the brand they used to carry was called Sea Mist. That's been a couple years ago though so it may have changed. You are right about plants. If your tank was pretty heavily planted and you were down to the one fish, it's quite possible that the plants would have consumed what little waste he/she produced and that your filter wasn't doing much.
Sorry to beat a dead horse here - but I've been to my 6th store now - Walmart the last - and the ingredients on the ammonia listed ammonium hydroxide (no % stated) and surfactant. The surfactant made me choose not to get it. I wish they sold this in fish stores. Anyway, if I can't find anything safe, I'll cycle the old fashion way with water changes and maybe get some bacteriallly cultured material from where I buy the fish. Thanks for anyone's help.
One thing that recent came to my attention and something that you might check on is ammonium chloride. I think it said you could get it at the drug store. I also read that some fish stores were starting to carry it. Here is the best article I found on it. Not certain the mixture you would use so you would have to experiment in a bucket but that might be another option.
fatheadminnow
Fish Aficionado
If you keep the filter running in the tank, with no ammonia, the beneficial bacteria will die at a rate of about 7-13% a day.
-FHM
fatheadminnow
Fish Aficionado
That's a good question...I am pretty sure that applies to all the bacteria in the filter media.
-FHM
Yes. Nitrifying bacteria are some of the slowest to reproduce, doubling about every 12 to 24 hours, but also some of the slowest to die off too.
fatheadminnow
Fish Aficionado
Oops...sorry...it's between 3-12% a day, not 7-13%...I was close...lol.... 
-FHM
-FHM
I went through the same issue of finding pure ammonia. Searched every possible store and could not get pure ammonia. I started out with fish flakes, these decomposed and made the plastic pouch in which I had placed the flakes stink. Then Eureka (this may gross you out..) I used my own urine. This is free. This produces enough ammonia to keep the bacteria happy or setup the bacteria.
Keep adding enough to keep the cycle going.
See how I setup my aquarium:
http
/aquarium-setup.blogspot.com/waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Not sure where you are in the US (you can put your location in your profile, which helps with these things) but somebody more recently reported that Walmart had some sort of "Gold" (gold this or that, two words in the name or something) brand that worked fine. I found pure ammonia at the Harris-Teeter grocery store chain in the southeast USA. It was sitting right there with the mops and floor cleaners and did not foam when shaken, made bubbles just like water.
In the US the correct ammonia percentage is often not marked and so it is best to do some tests by adding drops to a couple gallons like RDD writes up in the pinned fishless cycling article. You're aiming for 5ppm and you don't want to get up around 8ppm or you'll encourage the wrong species of bacteria. In your case of building up from small and just maintaining I'm sure 2ppm, then 3ppm would be fine.
The articles I've seen have put the bacterial die-off at more like 1-2% per day but I think its hard to put numbers on it as I believe it starts out small in the first days and then probably gets worse, moving to 5% etc. I don't think its linear.
The subject of using urine to fishless cycle comes up frequently and for the most part it would probably go ok but the definately not been the method of choice for a long time due to concerns about other organic molecules and drugs being introduced to the tank.
As soon as you move away from pure ammonia the ammonia levels get less controlled and your testing frequency should go up. You should always use a good liquid-reagent based test kit.
~~waterdrop~~
In the US the correct ammonia percentage is often not marked and so it is best to do some tests by adding drops to a couple gallons like RDD writes up in the pinned fishless cycling article. You're aiming for 5ppm and you don't want to get up around 8ppm or you'll encourage the wrong species of bacteria. In your case of building up from small and just maintaining I'm sure 2ppm, then 3ppm would be fine.
The articles I've seen have put the bacterial die-off at more like 1-2% per day but I think its hard to put numbers on it as I believe it starts out small in the first days and then probably gets worse, moving to 5% etc. I don't think its linear.
The subject of using urine to fishless cycle comes up frequently and for the most part it would probably go ok but the definately not been the method of choice for a long time due to concerns about other organic molecules and drugs being introduced to the tank.
As soon as you move away from pure ammonia the ammonia levels get less controlled and your testing frequency should go up. You should always use a good liquid-reagent based test kit.
~~waterdrop~~
The most consistent place for finding the right ammonia in the US is at an Ace Hardware store. It will be with the cleaning products and costs about $3 for a lifetime supply. Plants do not supply ammonia unless they are dead and rotting. Plants in general will absorb ammonia and help the filter process it. They will also absorb nitrates quite well. I live out in the country and see anhydrous ammonia tanks and nitrate fertilizers in the fields every spring, they are fertilizers. In my heavily planted tanks, I add nitrates, not the kind you get from the bacteria, to help keep my nitrate levels high enough for my plants to grow. In the less heavily planted tanks, I get enough nitrates from the fish wastes.
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