Help For A Newbi

[rabbut]

That ammonia will be fine. The 9.5 tells you it is 9.5% ammonia and 90.5% water, hence the latter part of the calculation to tell you the actual amount you need

For the Add And Wait method, you dose ammonia whenever the tests come back to show zero ammonia when you test. For the add daily method, you add it daily . The latter is slower, so I use the add and wait

All the best
Rabbut

 

[weejen]

i havnt managed to get a test kit yet as all the shops i have looked at are are shut today. can i add ammonia today then get test kit tommz. or should i wait to have the test kit first?

 

[rabbut]

Add the first dose of ammonia, it will probibly take it a week to hit zero anyway, and get your test kit tomorrow That's what I'd do at least

EDIT to add, don't forget you want a liquid based kit, not strips. Strips are as accurate as asking your neibour to make up some random numbers for the test results... Liquids are considerably cheaper to run long-term also

 

[weejen]

thank you very much u have been a great help . i will add my ammonia today and get a test kit tomoz.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with rabbut. Since the Homebase ammonia tells you its 9.5%, you can go ahead and dose per rabbuts calcs without even testing and the amount should be a close enough to be fine. There will be some tiny number of the correct species of "ammonia oxidizing bacteria" in the tank (where there's water there's bacteria!) and you will be giving them some ammonia to eat and the Fluval 2+ will be pumping water with fresh oxygen over the filter media where these few bacteria will prefer to attach, start eating and start building their "biofilm" structures.

Get your test kit as soon as possible so you'll be able to know when these "ammonia oxidizing bacteria" (we sometimes call them "A-Bacs" for short) have multiplied enough to noticably reduce the amount of ammonia in the tank. There are two things necessary before you re-dose the next 5ppm of ammonia: First, the tested amount of ammonia has to have dropped to zero ppm. Second, the rough time-of-day has to have come back around do that period of the day when you will always add ammonia. Most people establish either the morning or evening as their "add time" and the reason for doing this at all is because later you will want to note the time and then be able to check again 12 hours later (so doing in the evening lets you do your 12-hour check in the morning or vice-versa, make sense?)

Once you've got your test kit you should post up both your tap water results and your tank water results. Many find that re-reading the "rdd1952" pinned article on fishless cycling add and wait method several times is very helpful. They can then formulate questions to post here in their thread.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[weejen]

Agree with rabbut. Since the Homebase ammonia tells you its 9.5%, you can go ahead and dose per rabbuts calcs without even testing and the amount should be a close enough to be fine. There will be some tiny number of the correct species of "ammonia oxidizing bacteria" in the tank (where there's water there's bacteria!) and you will be giving them some ammonia to eat and the Fluval 2+ will be pumping water with fresh oxygen over the filter media where these few bacteria will prefer to attach, start eating and start building their "biofilm" structures.

Get your test kit as soon as possible so you'll be able to know when these "ammonia oxidizing bacteria" (we sometimes call them "A-Bacs" for short) have multiplied enough to noticably reduce the amount of ammonia in the tank. There are two things necessary before you re-dose the next 5ppm of ammonia: First, the tested amount of ammonia has to have dropped to zero ppm. Second, the rough time-of-day has to have come back around do that period of the day when you will always add ammonia. Most people establish either the morning or evening as their "add time" and the reason for doing this at all is because later you will want to note the time and then be able to check again 12 hours later (so doing in the evening lets you do your 12-hour check in the morning or vice-versa, make sense?)

Once you've got your test kit you should post up both your tap water results and your tank water results. Many find that re-reading the "rdd1952" pinned article on fishless cycling add and wait method several times is very helpful. They can then formulate questions to post here in their thread.

~~waterdrop~~

thanx i never thought bout doin it at sertin times of the day.. as soon as i get my test kit i will test both my tap water and my tank water and post the results.