Fishless Cycle By Adding What?!

[SilverHatchet]

I'm new here and a few minutes ago just read fishless cycle by adding pure ammonia....? Never heard this before until now and it makes sense; I'm an old school guy- the way I always did fishless was by feeding the empty tank everyday. Is there any advantage to adding pure ammonia?


Bottom line is any foreign chemical is bad for fish tank, even if it is empty. Even in the States it's hard to find chemical grade ammonia/water, most of it is bathroom cleaner with crap added that can go unlisted.

Enlighten me.

 

[Rediahs]

Many advantages to using ammonia!!!

1) Doesn't rot or smell (much, just smells like chemical, and once you add it to the tank the smell disappears, can't say the same for fish food)
2) Predictability - you know how much you're adding so you know how much is being consumed by bacteria
3) Cheaper, the bottle of household ammonia cost me 2 dollars canadian, I can only imagine how cheap it is elsewhere, fish food is more expensive if you have to feed an empty tank every day for 2 months...
4) Cleaner, it doesn't get all gunky and gook up the filter and etc.... no mess to clean up!

Now, as to your concerns about it...

It's not adding a "foreign chemical". It's just ammonia. It's the same stuff your fish is producing as waste. It's the same stuff that's coming out of the rotting fish food. It's just cleaner and easier.

Also, you can find ammonia with no dyes, colours, soaps, etc. Sold often as "pure household ammonia". Don't know about elsewhere but in Canada I bought mine at Canadian Tire and the brand is Goldex, I heard you can get the same in the US in Wal-Mart... never checked the wal-marts here, the Canadian Tire was the second place I looked.

You don't need chemical grade. Just a household ammonia is fine. Just make sure it's free of any extras. It does exist!

 

[Honeythorn]

Cloning from a mature filter is a quick and easy way to get a filter going. If you can fill your new filter completely with used media then you will have an instant cycle.

I agree very much with fishless cycling but it's always seemed such a pain in the backside to me . Cloning's much easier!

 

[Inchworm]

Oh thank you, Honeythorn. I agree with you 100%.

I would never do a fishless cycle because I just can't imagine pouring a noxious cleaning product in a tank I plan to house fish in. I strip wax off my kitchen floor with the stuff, for goodness sake! Fortunately, I have about 30 tanks running and never have to. Truly, (and I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again) I would rather stand outside a lfs and beg used filter media from passersby than to do that. All my tanks are descendants of the original beneficial bacteria I cultivated by fish-in cycling some years before fishless cycling was ever talked about.

The main advantage of doing a fishless cycle is to be able to stock your tank all at one time. Clone a tank and, depending on how much beneficial bacteria you can get your hands on, you might have to start small and add your fish a few at a time to give it time to multiply. This is not such a bad thing, all in all, because it's often hard to purchase all the specific species you want in any given season.

 

[Platygirl11]

I like cloning. The LFS near me is willing to spare some filter media from one of there many filters (They must have around 50!) and then I take some from a different tank, aaaannnnd.... fast cycle! Much faster then staring at an empty fish flake tank for 2 months.

 

[Rediahs]

I don't understand what's wrong with adding ammonia since your fish are gonna make some anyway!

It may be more concentrated but that's why you only add a tiny bit...

 

[m00se]

Exactly. You're only adding as much as a full fish load would produce anyway (to 5ppm) which will be present with a full load's worth of fishpoo. Which is sort of the idea in the first place

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I think Fishless Cycling, as a procedure, is quite an odd phenomenon because among our beginners here on TFF its quite common but among experienced aquarists its rarely needed since for them, mature media is in abundance. Indeed, for just about anybody that stays in the hobby, cloning takes over after possibly one fishless cycle.

But for the many beginners scattered out there who want to get started and don't happen to have an LFS who will give out MM or other hobbyists to supply the MM, its become a great way to do a first-time preparation of a correctly working biofilter, with no risk of subtle damage to the initial stock. Perhaps more significantly it provides an opportunity for the beginner to focus a bit on the subject of biofilters and filtration in general and to get a hands-on feel for worrying about it a bit before they have the responsibility of their fish. Often this helps them have a better understanding of what's going on with mini-cycles and other problems later on.

~~waterdrop~~