Fishless Cycle Double Dose?

[PEneoark]

So, my 55 gallon cichlid tank is fully stocked right now. But, just had a question for the masses....

My tank could knock 4-5 ppm of ammonia to nitrate in 12 hours after 2 weeks. I was home from work for the qualifying week. I actually dosed up to 4-5 ppm of ammonia twice a day. I figured that if it could handle it, why not? Regardless, I was just curious if anyone else did this.

Its a 55 gallon malawi tank, and houses 20 fish. It has been stocked for 1.5 weeks, and I have not seen ammonia yet.

 

[lnrak]

My tank could knock 4-5 ppm of ammonia to nitrate in 12 hours after 2 weeks.

Is that from starting as a new tank, just using ammonia?

 

[PEneoark]

I would add ammonia. Yes, it was a new tank, but I took one of the filter carts from my already cycled tank and put it in the new one's filter. Jump start lol


That tank was cycled, and fully stocked at three weeks.

 

[OldMan47]

It has been done quite often in the past PEneoark.
The largest load we ever expect to see on a tank is less than what would produce 5 ppm of ammonia per day. That is why we never recommend a larger or more frequent dose. As long as the tank water never saw more than 5 ppm of ammonia, it really wouldn't matter if you dosed 10 times each day. The higher processing rates needed would give you no benefit at all but also would not harm your cycle. If you dose to levels above 5 ppm, a different phenomenon would kick in. The bacteria that dominate at over 8 ppm are not the ones we need to process our ammonia. Instead you would be developing bacteria that did not do well at low concentrations. When you stock your fish and the levels return to well under 1 ppm, those bacteria would need to be replaced by the right bacteria. The process of replacing the bacteria with the right bacteria would be a lot like starting from scratch without ammonia processing bacteria. That is why we never recommend a higher concentration.