How Much Ammonia?

[sjolliff]

Finally after over 40 days my ammonia is down 0.50/0.25 from 5ppm
so at my next 24hr test i will need topping up,

from reading other post people seem to do around 2-3ppm, i thought it was 5ppm

is this just a personal choice or is 5ppm just for the intial dose?

many thanks in advance

 

[jmkgreen]

Keep it at 2-3 while the nitrites build and get processed, then up it to 5ppm when you're seeing quick processing of the 3ppm.

 

[sjolliff]

Cheers
The nitrites were off the chart last night went to 5ppm fast and tonight looked slighlty lighter, nitrates and around 60ppm

do i still need to add 2-3ppm even though the nitrites are sky high?
forgot to mention i did add some mature media last monday after a 90% change, coz i had probs with tap conditioner!
since that things have been flying

 

[jmkgreen]

You basically need to keep the "A-bac" bacteria alive with some ammonia, even if it is a little. Aim for no more than 2ppm until your nitrites are under control then slowly ramp things up.

Glad to hear about the mature media - I've just added some to my cycle. Ammonia drops from 5ppm to nil in six hours, but nitrites remain off the chart, hope this clears up this coming week.

 

[Rediahs]

Yes, you need a small amount of ammonia every once in awhile to keep the bacteria alive. Once you have hit zero on nitrites, or are about to, THEN you can top up to 5 ppm. I'd just do 2 or 3 for now.

 

[sjolliff]

so once it can process 2-3ppm in 24 hours, do i switch to testing at 12hrs at 2-3ppm or
then add 5ppm and still test at 24hrs

if its they way above i test 5ppm at 24 hr then change to 12hrs once it can process in 24hrs

but i need to wait till the nitrites get near zero before topping up to 5ppm

 

[jmkgreen]

Don't worry about adding further ammonia until you reach nil ammonia.

Then add 2 ppm ammonia and keep testing every 24 hours until you've reached nil again. Then repeat adding 2 ppm ammonia every time it hits nil. You don't need to do this more than every 24 hours.

Parallel, your nitrites will go through the roof. Once they come down to nil, ramp up the ammonia additions to 3 ppm. Eventually you'll ramp up to 5 ppm every 24 hours and see nil ammonia and nitrites. At some point you may increase to 5 ppm every twelve hours.

 

[OldMan47]

You dose up based on the ammonia, not the nitrites. If your ammonia is gone after 24 hours, add a dose of ammonia. Once you are into the nitrite spike and the ammonia is processing well, you only need to dose to 2 ppm of ammonia. When the nitrites start dropping is soon enough to bring the ammonia back up to the full 5 ppm.

 

[sjolliff]

I added 3ppm this morn just done a test at 12 hours and its down to 0.25ppm so in a few hours it will be 0
when i test the nitrites the drops go purple instantly so i must of hit the spike,

because its proccesing 3ppm in like 15-16 hours, should i put it up to 5ppm or leave it at 3ppm till the nitrites drop?

 

[jmkgreen]

Read what we said: Keep top-ups to 2ppm until the nitrites come under control.

Remember, for every 1x ppm of ammonia there will be more than 1x ppm of nitrites. So more ammonia than absolutely necessary will elongate your cycling.

 

[sjolliff]

Sorry jmkgreen i want meaning to come across as ignoring your comments etc, i just dont want mees it up iv been waiting so long for this point,

ok ill top-up 2ppm till the nitrites are under control, what level would you say there under control. 0?

cheers steve

 

[jmkgreen]

Nil is good

Ask yourself the following questions: Can I add 2 ppm of ammonia and see both ammonia and nitrites rise and come back down to nil inside of 12 hours?

When you start answering yes, rise it to 3 ppm, then to 4, etc. To be honest you can probably go straight from 2 to 4 ppm then six, but YMMV as they say...

 

[Tropical_Fish]

I hadn't heard of putting less in at that point.

I was actually accidentally overdoing the ammonia as I was adding it every 12 hours when the ammonia got to zero. I was adding about 6.5ppm per day in total - but there was never more than 4ppm in the tank.

I then dropped back to only adding 4ppm once a day but have stuck with that since, and my nitrite is processing 4ppm down to zero in 13 hours. So I don't think a higher dose of ammonia will harm anything.

I've actually now gone back to dosing twice a day to try and speed up the nitrite bacteria growth - after a discussion with oldman47.

I put enough ammonia to dose to above 4ppm, then I dose the same ammount again when both nitrite and ammonia are at zero (currently 13.5 hours)

From the rate that it seems to be dropping I think it will be able to process both in 12 hours in about a day or 2 - I started my cycle on the 13th July.

So in a long round about way - what I'm trying to say is I don't think it will slow things down if you keep up the dosage - mine was off the scale for nitrite but only for a week or so, then it came down very quickly

 

[OldMan47]

The 2 ppm is becoming the accepted dose until the nitrites come back low enough to measure. You never want to intentionally dose more than 5 ppm because the wrong bacteria start to dominate the colony at higher levels. By the time you get to 8 ppm, the wrong bacterial species will be the dominant one in the bacterial colony. Dose to only about 4 or 5 ppm even when the nitrites are back below 5 ppm. At that point we are just waiting for the bacterial colony to grow enough to process the ammonia and nitrites in 12 hours instead of 24 hours.

 

[sjolliff]

Thanks for your help