# Fishless cycle ends -- keep dosing ammonia?



## yomon347 (May 27, 2014)

Stop dosing ammonia when you add fish. The bacteria colony will be fine and will grow accordingly as you stock the tank. The plants should help smooth out any ammonia spikes you get with large bio load additions. 

Its good to have some nitrate readings in a planted tank. I like to keep my low tech tank at 10 ppm.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

That is a tricky one. 

I would not be adding ammonia to the tank once you have added fish. 

I would pull out the bio media from the filter and run it separately, perhaps in a bucket, and add ammonia to that, keeping the bacteria population going just like doing the fishless cycle. 

There will be PLENTY of bio-filtration all over the tank, and with the plants that the slow stocking rate will not cause ammonia or nitrite problems. Just add a handful of the bio media back to the filter each time you add some fish.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

yomon347 said:


> Stop dosing ammonia when you add fish. The bacteria colony will be fine and will grow accordingly as you stock the tank. The plants should help smooth out any ammonia spikes you get with large bio load additions.
> 
> Its good to have some nitrate readings in a planted tank. I like to keep my low tech tank at 10 ppm.


This IMO

Add fish slowly and the bio-filter will adjust. Fishless cycle gave you more than enough to handle a small amount of fish. As you add fish it will re-grow. IMO you don't need the full amount of bio that you have established during the fishless cycle.

Diana's idea is great but a PITA lol. I wouldn't want to deal with that but it will be the best option when you add more fish. IMO if you go slow this will absolutely not be an issue though.


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## Linwood (Jun 19, 2014)

klibs said:


> Diana's idea is great but a PITA lol. I wouldn't want to deal with that but it will be the best option when you add more fish. IMO if you go slow this will absolutely not be an issue though.


Yeah, been thinking about it, but I have three filters going on that tank, even one is a pain, if it were really needed to keep it well alive I might need two.

Maybe I can add fish faster.  

Thanks for the input. Letting it cook a while, I can't believe how long the last traces of nitrites take to go. It went (in day measurements), 10, 10, 5, 2.5, 0.25. Did it twice this morning trying ton convince myself it was blue not purple.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Some people use ammonia in their fertilizers, as a nitrogen source. (I believe it usually in the form of Urea.) It works, but the amount you can dose without harming the fish is pretty small. And, some commercial aquatic plant fertilizer mixes contain some ammonia. Ammonia in water is usually in the form of ammonium, which is better tolerated by the fish. Personally I don't see any benefits to adding ammonia to any planted tank, and never have done so.


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## Gavin Citrus (Aug 2, 2014)

If you have no fish you need to dose an ammonia source to keep your cycle going correct?

Does a product like aqua vitro Synthesis do the same thing? Does it feed the bacteria as well as the plants in a fishless cycle?


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## FatherLandDescendant (Jul 24, 2014)

You could inject some safe start or other type of bottled BB when you increase your stock.


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## BigJay180 (Jul 20, 2014)

You're lucky to have found pure ammonia. Everything around here has surfactants, lemon scents, or both.

I'm forced to go with the nylon bag of flake food. It's messy, but that's what water changes are for. I also have an Eheim filter pad from a large established tank of tinfoil barbs a friend has.

Bump:


FatherLandDescendant said:


> You could inject some safe start or other type of bottled BB when you increase your stock.


I don't understand how safe start works.

It's a bottle of What I assume has to be dead bacteria?


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## FatherLandDescendant (Jul 24, 2014)

BigJay180 said:


> You're lucky to have found pure ammonia. Everything around here has surfactants, lemon scents, or both.
> 
> I'm forced to go with the nylon bag of flake food. It's messy, but that's what water changes are for. I also have an Eheim filter pad from a large established tank of tinfoil barbs a friend has.


Look for janitorial ammonia, they say Ace hardware has it? I just use shrimp pellets myself. 



BigJay180 said:


> I don't understand how safe start works.
> 
> It's a bottle of What I assume has to be dead bacteria?


Not according to the product description. Another poster here, Diana recomends it quite often.



> Accelerate the establishment of biological filtration in new freshwater aquariums. The patented blend of live Nitrosomonas, Nitrosospira, and Nitrospira bacteria in SafeStart Plus is proven to work, reducing dangerous ammonia and nitrite to prevent new tank syndrome. The live bacteria blend begins working immediately to create a safe, healthy environment that allows the immediate addition of fish. SafeStart Plus significantly accelerates biological filtration and keeps ammonia and nitrite concentrations below harmful levels. SafeStart Plus can also be used after a water change, when adding new fish, or after medicating. SafeStart Plus' patented, concentrated blend of live bacteria is shelf-stable - no refrigeration required. 3.38 oz treats 200 gallons; 8.45 oz treats 500 gallons


http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=26269


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## Hardstuff (Oct 13, 2012)

Linwood you are doing great. A fishless cycle is the way to go especially if you do not have any bio media to start off with that has bacteria. IMO , fishless cycling is the way to go in any tank, because even if you have bacteria to spike you still need to spike it with a food source an thats less risky than subjecting pain to your livestock do to an ammonia spike anyway which you know is there in a new tank even if your test kit does not show a spike. 
Point is, why put your fish through pain that you your self cannot feel or detect? 
Your NO3 is a little low, how long have you been cycling for? Usually that stuff builds up more but your plants may be taking some in as well which is a good sign. You maybe ready for a small stock now, but I would do a large water change or 2 an go right in with fish soon after. I would not add fish until Nitrites go to zero an stay there. I would test the cycle soon after nitrites go to zero. Dose 3ppm's of ammonia an check both NH3 NO2 an make sure they are both zero, if not, you are not ready. But if they are zero the next day, follow with a big water change an stock small.


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## Linwood (Jun 19, 2014)

Hardstuff -- the ammonia started a bit high (my mistake I think) but the nitrite spike looked normal compared to what I've seen posted elsewhere. Nitrites went to zero last night. If anyone is curious here is what the cycle looked like: 










The nitrate line is straight because I didn't test nitrates while nitrites were high -- seemed no point as I think the API test is not specific enough and gives falsely high nitrate readings. The nitrite readings during the spike were made using either 4:1 or 1:1 mixtures with distilled water to try to discern the real values. The slight ammonia peak on the right is from a day where I tested ammonia without 4 hours of dosing ammonia as opposed to the following day -- it's really zero from 9/5 on even with a daily dose.

I just tested again this morning and nitrites are solidly zero, no hint of purple.

As to NO3 being low, I think it's uptake from the plants. It's been planted from early in the cycle with a fair amount of foliage so I'm not very surprised by that. The cycle should have been abbreviated as I moved some media over from an established tank (but much smaller tank so it wasn't a lot of media).

I added 5 pleco's last night, along with some snail and ghost shrimp. So I'm getting started.

I'm either going to do nothing if it looks like I can get a bit more stock soon (and depending on source whether I plan to quarantine, which is another complication) . I might add half a milliliter of ammonia a day or so for a while, that's barely 0.1ppm in that size tank and it will at least keep the BB on a starvation diet as opposed to starvation. 

Hardstuff, as to doing one or two water changes -- why? Water changes to me are to fix a problem. The nitrates are starting to be on the edge of too high, but I want to see if now they come down, or go up first, now that the ammonia dosing is gone (or way down). I'm betting down. I don't see any other problem I really have that a water change will fix? After big water changes you kind of start over with any trends... I'm interested to see where things are going now. Will the nitrates drop, will the cloudiness abate (it's not too bad, but not real clear), will the diatom bloom cease to generate new or is it still going, where will the PH and hardness land and will it stay steady.


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## BigJay180 (Jul 20, 2014)

I'm pretty sure that 5 plecos will handle any diatom bloom, then be ready to eat some zucchini.

What kind did you get? Post pics! My personal favorites are the leopard and sailfins.


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## Linwood (Jun 19, 2014)

BigJay180 said:


> I'm pretty sure that 5 plecos will handle any diatom bloom, then be ready to eat some zucchini.
> 
> What kind did you get? Post pics! My personal favorites are the leopard and sailfins.


Not to side track this conversation, I posed an update on the tank thread (not sure how to point to a reply, but just go to the end of the thread in my signature).


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