I'm finally ready to start cycling the tank but can't seem to find any 'pure' ammonia.

I can find cloudy ammonia at Countdown but I'm hesitant to use it.

Does anyone know somewhere in Invercargill I can get some or places likely to stock it?

Cheers

Gareth

Hey Gareth,

I think chemists may stock it or a cleaning supply place such as cleanbiz down here. If you get stuck you could cycle with fish food or a raw shrimp from the supermarket.

Thanks godly. My next option was going to be a raw shrimp.

I'll check out the chemist when I get a chance.

Why worry---fish produce it for free.

Some people don't like cycling with fish Alan.

Why worry---fish produce it for free.

My previous attempts at fish keeping tortured enough fish. I'm going to try and avoid that this time.

Why not get some used filter media from Godly3vil

My suggestion for finding the ammonia would also be a chemist.

Because I only run marine now Caryl, lol.

I would have offered some straight away otherwise.

Isn't there anyone else in Invercargill who can help? :dunno:

My suggestion was not as silly as it may sound. If you buy from the chemist you will probably end up paying a fortune for analytical grade and if you buy elsewhere it will probably contain other cleaning agents---try that for torture. I have a problem with the fishless method of cycling tanks as no one knows how many dead shrimps or mls of ammonia are equivalent to the fish you are going to add. I have kept fish for over 30 years and used to breed 50000 tropical fish a year and have only ever cycled with fish. If you develop some patience and add fish slowly you are not torturing anything but your own patience.

Cloudy ammonia is fine, never had issues with it

With both fish in and no fish cycling you require some test kits for both to measure levels and stages of the cycle.

with fish in you build the bacteria levels as you go and no fish should be tortured in the process as you will do water changes as ammonia etc rise.

Starting with 2 or 3 small fish, depending on size of tank and doing 1 or 2 20% water changes a week has always worked for me so long as an eye is kept on toxin levels.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll stick with the fishless cycle at this stage.

My thinking is if the bacteria level isn't high enough for the initial bio load there is at least something already there to start from. I plan to stock up slowly at this stage anyway.

I have test test kits already. I actually tested the water last night and found that ammonia and nitrite was 0 but the nitrate was at about 20ppm. Is this normal for tap water down here?

Add in cloudy ammonia, most dairy's sell the stuff. i normally put in about 10ml. and test to see if i get a reading, if not add more.

Fish food or pet food, or even raw meat or egg (sparingly!), milk, yoghurt, or crushed leafy vegetables will also work.

If trying to seed new filter media then old media would definitely help, but if none available then try the nearest stormwater drain and scrape off some muck onto your new media to speed things up.

Very Macgyver, much No. 8. :dnc1:

Fish food or pet food, or even raw meat or egg (sparingly!), milk, yoghurt, or crushed leafy vegetables will also work.

Only one ammonia source missing now:

Not that I'd advocate that one or throwing any other garbage in your tank. Of course cycling with fish works. People have done it for ages. IMHO cycling with ammonia from a bottle is better, because it's clean, it's science based, it's fool proof, and you built up a huge colony of beneficial bacteria that allows you to fully stock a tank in one go.

That all said, if you have access to beneficial bacteria from an established tank, you can save yourself the whole cycling mumbo-jumbo. Just use established filter media, stock the tank, and call it a day. People with multiple tanks do it all the time. Personally I would not use muck from the gutter, but to each his own!

I wasn't able to find any 'pure' ammonia so I apprehensively went with Home Brand cloudy ammonia. I made sure I did a 100% water change before adding any fish and I have had no issues so far (First fish went in nearly two months ago).