# Fishless Cycling & ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia I



## SJInverts (Apr 6, 2009)

Approximately how lond does it take for the ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia I substrate to stop leaching ammonia? I have a tank that was setup on April 20th that is fishless cycling, so that is 8 days that it is up and running. I can now get a reading when testing for nitrites, so the cycling is working.

I have only done one 100% water change for clarity purposes. I haven't had to add any outside ammonia sources since the substrate is adding enough for the fishless cycling to work. 

My concern is adding livestock to the tank prematurely, before the ADA soil has stopped leaching ammonia.

Thanks in advance.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

14 days if you do the ShrimpNow method.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

eleventy kajillion hours. approximately.


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## SJInverts (Apr 6, 2009)

Anyone have the link to the ShrimpNow method?


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## Craigthor (Sep 9, 2007)

When I did mine. I just planted the tank and left it for 3 weeks without a water chagne, no monitoring or testing. At 3 weeks I did a 75% water change and add my CRS the next day. No problems unless I tear apart the tank then its cause I stir up the AS and it gets cloudy.

Disclaimer: This method worked great for me but won't work for everyone.

Craig


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## oldpunk78 (Nov 1, 2008)

http://www.shrimpnow.com/forums/showthread.php?t=565&highlight=cycling


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## norcalnerd (Jan 23, 2009)

a long time. weeks. WC every 3 days. I finally bought the Tetra SafeStart for some some ridiculous price and had a cycled tank in 36 hours. That stuff works.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Plant the tank heavily from the start. Then do a 50% water change every 2 or 3 days for a few weeks at most. Once the plants are growing well, they will take care of a lot of the ammonia for you. The reason there is ammonia in ADA Aquasoil is because it is a good fertilizer.


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## AquaVu (Jan 11, 2008)

Great advices. Thanks to all


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

You should really focus alot on the plants and pack the tank full, add CO2 etc.
Plants can take up to about 0.8ppm of NH4 per day.........with good light/CO2.

If you taker good sponge material that's nice and mature from another filter the LFS, a friend etc, another tank etc, then add that, or you do like I do, use the Dry start method to grow the plants in first, then there is none of this cycling business.

This adds precisely what is missing from a mature tank
A chemical NH4 remover is Zeolite, you can add this also, it turns to biomedia after a couple of weeks anyway.

I wait a bit before adding shrimp, but the amano's can go in fairly soon.
CRS a bit later.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## mountaindew (Dec 10, 2008)

IMHO 
This is from the reef side of the hobby!
Take your Time!!!!! This tank cycle business is kind of silly if you ask me. Much like Tom stated above if you fully plant and allow the aquarium to mature over a 60 day period, so many problems and expenses can be avoided. Again IMHO no testing is required for ammonia, nitrites or anything else for that matter. Algae and bacteria blooms come and go with little effort. Gives the aquarist time to tweak photo periods, dosing, water changes and cleaning without the added question of fish or other bio-loads. Then adding fish or others in small amounts and over weeks in time, the aquarium has chance to adjust and lessons the chance of a mess to clean up. Over time you end up with a nice clean aquarium with no on going wars with algae or bacteria and as even more time goes by you don’t even need to clean the glass but every month or 2! This is just another way to enjoy the hobby and not get over worked in the process. And if you have multiple aquariums to take care of this is an almost absolute requirement.
Just my 2 cents worth!
-MD


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## blair (Feb 8, 2009)

I'm trying this 'Dry Start Method' as stated above. I have changed my scape around a bit, but am now on an undisturbed day 3. I will try and photograph its progression. I have covered the top with ceran wrap to simulate a green house. I add CO2 directly into the contained atmosphere for about 1-2 hours a day.

Does this approach to it seem alright? My photoperiod is around 14 hours a day.

Sorry to hijack but I see it being discussed here and needed details to make sure I am going about it correctly :/


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## SJInverts (Apr 6, 2009)

Well my 10g is finally cycled.  I noticed 2 days ago that the ammonia had dropped down to 0 ppm. However, the nitrites were at between 1 and 2 ppm. Since it looked like the ADA soil was no longer leaching ammonia I added some household ammonia last night which raised it to 1.0 ppm. I checked again today almost 12 hrs later and the ammonia is at 0 ppm, nitrites 0 ppm, and nitrates at less than 5.0 ppm.

I just added some more ammonia to feed the bacteria and to double check the readings to make sure that everything indeed is cycled. Ammonia is now back to 1.0 ppm and as I expect it should be back to 0 ppm by tomorrow.

My question is can the ADA soil leach enough ammonia to cause a spike. The tank has been cycling for 18 days now. And I have done 2 100% water changes in that time period.


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