Two fishless cycling questions

[keansor]

Hello. I'm planning on starting to cycle my 30G aquarium this weekend and I have two questions:

• 1. I've done a lot of reading on fishless cyling, and I have read conflicting reports on when to add live plants. Do I add them before I add the ammonia, after I have cycled, or sometime in between?
• 2. I bought a brand of ammonia at Home Hardware called "Old Country" and was told that it contains ONLY ammonia, no detergents or surfectants. I did a search on the net to be sure but couldn't find any info on this product. Can anyone verify that it is fine to use? I would hate to mess up my aquarium before I even start.

Thanks so much in advance for your help!

[dan2x38]

2. I bought a brand of ammonia at Home Hardware called "Old Country" and was told that it contains ONLY ammonia, no detergents or surfectants. I did a search on the net to be sure but couldn't find any info on this product. Can anyone verify that it is fine to use? I would hate to mess up my aquarium before I even start.[/li][/list]

with the cap on... shake up the bottle, if it does not foam up there are no additives... what part of the city do you live in?

[RedFish]

This is in no way scientific - I tried fishless cycling a few years ago, with Old Country.   Everything went fine until I was ready to put in my first fish.   Every fish I put in to that tank slowly got sick after a few days and died.   It took me four fish (poor fish) until I decided it was something in the tank, and I decided it was the Old Country.

I dumped the contents of that tank, thoroughly rinsed and cleaned it and started over with a "dirty" filter and fish and never had a problem.    So if you were to ask me, I cannot recommend Old Country!

[keansor]

Hmmm...now I'm not sure what to do. I shook it up and it didn't get foamy, but I'm a bit concerned hearing about the fish die off, although I suppose it could have been caused by any number of things. Perhaps I'll spend some more quality time with Google  .

By the way, I live at Carling and Merivale.

[Fishnut]

If you were to do a water change on an existing tank and siphon all the junk and fish poop out of the gravel, then dump it into the new tank, that should do a good job at kick starting the tank.  You'd be adding some beneficial bacteria as well as food for that bacteria.  That's how I start tanks without fish.  I have been successful at it so far, but I also add fish one week apart and in small numbers.

[KLKelly]

I did fishless cycling with that ammonia in a tank with lots of plants and the tank did great.  I had to add more ammonia though and only cycled it to a point where it was eating up 2.0ppm of ammonia each day because it was a low bioload tank.
I never looked into when to add plants or not.

Also I did a 100% water change once I was sure I was cycled.  From my reading the vast majority of the biobugs will be on tank and ornament surfaces and in the filter media.

[darkdep]

The water doesn't carry the bacteria; in theory once you are sure your tank is cycled, if you're concerned about something in the water, just change it...all.

For reference:  I almost never cycle a tank the traditional way (I don't need to, I have so many tanks now it's easy to just move media around).  But when I was setting up my fish wall I decided to try fishless cycling.  I went and bought a bottle of the only ammonia nearby (Sobeys brand).  It was yellow, lemon scented (lol), and for sure had extra stuff in in.  I used it anyway.  I was rather unscientific about this; I forgot a couple of days to add the ammonia so doubled up the next day.  Right before putting in fish I did about a 90-95% water change, added extra chloram-X, and in went the fish from a big fish order.  6 tanks, all went well and had no losses.

The moral from this one person:  I wouldn't worry too much about the brand of ammonia. 

[Ormarr]

Just wanted to add.  I cycled my 75g with Old Country just a month ago or so.  I did a 40-50% water change before adding my Cichlids and all 15 Mbuna juvies I have are alive and doing well.  So, from my point of view, the Old Country works fine.

[dan2x38]

I did find though that I got a small NO2 spike when I added my fish... but only the 1st 4 after that it was fine... before adding I did about a 75% WC...

[keansor]

Thanks all for your input. We planted the tank today with a hydrophila, a cryptocoryal, a java fern and a sword plant ( based on the MD-worthy handwriting of the truly lovely gentleman at the LFS). We dosed the aquarium with the Old Country ammonia about an hour ago, and are thoroughly looking forward to the results! We are starting a blog based on experience with this tank, will post the URL when it is ready, if anyone is interested to read and give their input!

[PaleoFishGirl]

I think he meant to write Hygrophila and Cryptocoryne, or 'hygro' and 'crypts'

Can't wait to see some pics and check out your blog! Good luck!