To do a fishless cycle you add pure household ammonia, until you get a reading of 5 ppm. So use a pipette, add a number of drops, then test. If your reading is then say 2.5 ppm, you will need to add double number. (at a guess you may need to add somewhere in the region of 40-50 drops- actually with such a big tank, probably easiest to do it in millilitres). Then you need to add the same quantity either every day or whenever the ammonia reading goes down to 0 ppm (you test daily)- there are two methods here, check up the pinned topics+ there is a topic labelled "two methods". Eventually (after a week or so) you will see that your ammonia readings go down very quickly after adding ammonia, and that your readings of nitrites start shooting up. Then you can add half the amount of ammonia, until the nitrites too are gone when you test the next day, and the nitrates have shot up instead. At this stage you do a big water change (c. 70%)- and there's your tank cycled!
But read the pinned topics for details! And don't do any water changes until the fishless cycle is finished.
I did a little changing to kind of dumb it down for me to make sure I understood completely. Please let me know if this is correct? Thanks for your help!
Two questions. Say, during the adding ammonia and I test the next day and it is at 1 or 2 or so, do I go ahead and add more ammonia till it gets to 5 ppm or do I wait till it gets to 0 to add more until 5 ppm
#2- I can use my normal filters with this, correct?
To do a fishless cycle you:
*Add pure household ammonia (no additives or perfumes) until you get a reading of 5 ppm.
So use a pipette, add a number of drops, then test. If your reading is then say 2.5 ppm, you will need to add double number
*Then you need to add the same quantity either every day or whenever the ammonia reading goes down to 0 ppm (you test daily)
*Eventually (after a week or so) you will see that your ammonia readings go down very quickly after adding ammonia and that your readings of nitrITes start shooting up.
*Then you can add half the amount of ammonia until the nitrites are also at zero. At this point Ammonia and NitrITes should both be at zero
*The next day, nitrATes have shot up instead. Ammonia and NitrITes should still be both at zero
*At this stage you do a big water change (approx. 70%)
and your tank is cycled!
