Fishless cycle with Ammonia

[mattyg18]

25ml of ammonia

 

[cougareyes]

+1, absolutely do not add additional ammonia. The posts claiming you should are completely wrong and anyone advising you to do so should be ignored. As Dk advised, adding more ammonia will prolong the cycle and leave you with much higher than necessary nitrates at the end of the cycle. The bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrites and nitrites to nitrates can live over a year without food (ammonia and nitrites).

I use Dr Tim's ammonia chloride and followed instructions on their website; and it has served me well. If you are going to slowly stock your tank when cycled it won't matter because your tank will have time to build up to the stocking. But if you want to add a heavier stock all at once then using Dr. Tim's method is the way to go. Make up your own mind, if your tank can process a higher level of ammonia in a shorter amount of time, go figure?

 

[mattyg18]

Im not in any great rush so i'll probably stock it up slowly as I find fish and corals that I like. From speaking with people and reading everyones posts here at the forum time and patience is the key to success with having a successful reef.

I'm only on day 4 but so far so good.

 

[bonjorno2]

What test kits are you using? I am having issues with false positive from api ammonia.

 

[mattyg18]

Bonjorno

I'm also using the API test kits. I thought they were faulty at first because when curing my rock the ammonia level was always sky high. I did some detective work and tested the water before putting it into the rock tub and the ammonia was 0. After a few hours in it started rising. It seems to be on par now. I know API doesn't make the best stuff but for me its working so far. At least the ammonia test is....

Double check the expiration date on the kit. Mine is 2020. Someone here on the forum mentioned that could be the issue. Hope it works out!