Good Day All.....

[Bigman]

Hi everyone,
 
I'm a retired mechanic/facilities manager who received a Marina Style 60 aquarium for 60th birthday last week

 . I've decided to have a go at keeping a planted tank with tropical fish this time round, having kept 'fancy goldfish' some 25 years ago. So off  I went to the local aquaria to buy substrate, sand, rock, bog wood and numerous plants.... 
 
I've set the tank up to how I want it, (pretending I'm a fish of course) and I must say it's looking rather good, just waiting on a couple of mosses that I've ordered to finish it off. Dechlorinated tap water added, heater on, pump on and CO2 on (that's a new thing to me, but I can understand the reason for it, having just paid out over £100 for plants etc.).
 
Now for the cycling...
 
I've decided to do the 'fish-less'  add and wait method, following the step by step instructions on the forum. Ammonia arrived this morning - pooh does it stink!
Used the forum calculator to get the right dosage which by my reckoning is 0.5 ml. (tank size 60 litre, temperature 25oC, ammonia at 35%, to achieve 4ppm)  Would someone kindly check that for me before I go ahead and take the plunge as it were?
 
Finally, have I missed anything?  (yes I know I have no fish at the moment)....

 
Well here's to you all 

 
Best Regards
Tony (Bigman)
 
 
 

 

[Sophie]

Happy Birthday and a big welcome to TFF!
Fantastic news on your fish-less cycling and use of CO2.
I went out and spent about £450 on my CO2 kit and chickened out using it so it's sat in the cupboard waiting for the day I take "the plunge"
 
I'll leave it to some more experienced forum member to help with the Ammonia dosage as I can recall some conflicting information brought to light a little while back about not using 5ppm as a measurement but rather 3ppm or something, which you have to manually change on the calculator. We currently have another forum member re-writing a more up to date cycling article so watch this space!

 

[the_lock_man]

Yes, that's right, 3ppm is a better bet.

 

[Sophie]

So just have to adjust the calculator to that value and away you go

 

[Bigman]

Thanks for that..... 
 
Best Regards
Tony