Started Fishless Cycle With Ammonia With Surfactant...

[BrookeLea]

I started a fishless cycle on my 55 gallon aquarium yesterday. I started adding ammonia yesterday afternoon and continued to add it every hour trying to get it up to 5ppm. By the end of the night I had added 6 tablespoons of ammonia, but still couldn't get a reading of any ammonia at all. This morning I added 1/4 cup of the ammonia (on top of the 6 tablespoons from yesterday), waited an hour before testing and still couldn't get an ammonia reading at all.

Upon inspecting the label to try to find the concentration of the ammonia, I noticed that even though the front of the bottle says "clear ammonia," the ingredients list surfactant! I guess I should have checked the ingredients before...

SO, I drained the aquarium, scrubbed the sides and rocks down, refilled, drained and scrubbed and refilled again. That was my attempt at "flushing" the surfactant out. My husband is out right now looking for pure ammonia, and I will start adding that when he gets back (if he is able to find some). Once the tank has cycled, I plan to do a complete water change to get rid of the nitrates and hopefully flush out any remaining surfactants.

A couple questions... Will the 100% water change get rid of my beneficial bacteria? (I'm assuming the bacteria would stay in the filter, in the sand, on the plants, rocks etc. if I drained the tank?) After the three big water changes and the scrubbing, should the tank be free of the surfactant and be safe for the fish?

 

[rotex5510]

Do you have Ace hardware near you?
They have janitorial strength ammonia, doesn't like ingredients, but no bubbles when shaken. It was the only one we found after trying 6 stores.

 

[BrookeLea]

No Ace Hardware, unfortunately. My husband just returned home with no ammonia. He checked a grocery store and a Family Dollar. Does anyone know if Lowe's sells it? I'm going to a Bi-Lo grocery store tomorrow and I'll check there. There is a CVS near that store that I plan to check too. We couldn't find any at Wal Mart.

 

[rotex5510]

What about True Value hardware - aren't they the same? I checked Target, Fry's, Walmart, Walgreens, Safeway, home depot...

 

[Bobtastic]

A couple questions... Will the 100% water change get rid of my beneficial bacteria? (I'm assuming the bacteria would stay in the filter, in the sand, on the plants, rocks etc. if I drained the tank?) After the three big water changes and the scrubbing, should the tank be free of the surfactant and be safe for the fish?

The majority of bacteria is held in your filter, so the cleaning and scrubbing shouldn't have affected them. Whether they have survived what ever was in the bottle you were using is a different matter... I guess only time will tell.

I'm not sure how much cleaing it takes to remove surfactant so couldn't comment, sorry.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, its an interesting question, how much should be done to clear out and restart. Not sure how "clingy" the particular soap or surfactant would be and don't know how much they vary in practice. On the one hand, the water changes might be more than enough. On the other, perhaps it would take tossing the media and starting over with fresh media. I'd probably be inclined to hope the water changes did it and just warily restart using the same media the hopefully might have some bacteria in it.

Some people have found good ammonia by some sort of "Goldex" name (?) at Walmart. Remember, you can't trust asking, you have to "search the shelves!" I don't know if the Harris-Teeter grocery change reaches over there to LA but they have a good product that works. You just have to be persistent on and on, trying all sorts of stores and asking all sorts of people for leads or ideas, it can be quite a long tough experience finding the right ammonia in some places. In some countries, people have had help from educational chemistry suppliers or druggists/pharmacies in finding some source. (Com'on over for a surfing weekend on the Carolina coast and stop by a Harris-Teeter! )

~~waterdrop~~