Confused

[scotty]

i have the juwel rio 125,and i am just about to start my fishless cycle,it says my tanks holds approx 125 litres.when i put the measurements of my tank in the calculator on this site,it says it holds 146 litres,so i'm confused on how much ammonia to put in,and don't want to start it before i know the right amount.
my tank is 81cm x 36cm x 50 cm.
any help would be most appreciated
thanks
scott.

p.s putting sand in my tank.what would be the ideal depth of sand,i am hoping to put real plants in eventually

 

[OldMan47]

Measure the inside dimensions of your tank and only measure from the bottom glass to the water line, not to the top.
In metric units, it is almost too easy, length times width times water depth in cm gives ml so divide the result by 1000 and you have litres. If you start measuring the glass as part of the volume, you will get an answer that is larger and if you measure from the bottom of the trim instead of from the inside bottom of the glass it can easily throw the numbers off by 10%.
For plants, I would recommend at least 3 cm of substrate on the whole tank bottom and thicker toward the back than at the front to give a nice deep planting bed along the back. It should take less than 20 Kg of substrate to fill the tank as full as you really need.

 

[scotty]

thanks for that,works out about 6.5ml of ammonia

 

[scotty]

is it lights on or off during a cycle?

 

[OldMan47]

Unless you have plants in the tank, it is lights off for sure. It helps keep the algae growth down.