Adding bacteria

[Mustang Boy]

I was wondering if anybody here has used a brand called Special Blend to help jump start their cycling and if so about how long should it take cause i added the recommended amount about a week ago and the next day i added some ammonia to get it around 5.0 and since then the ammonia hasnt dropped one bit and i was wondering if i may have added too much ammonia and killed the bacteria i added or if i couldve did something wrong

[Alfcea]

Exactly how much ammonia did you add and what was the source?

[cocoa_pleco]

i use it all the time, i had a instant population of good bacteria. i used a new filter on my 90g and added alot of stock and the bacteria took care of the waste, i had no cycle. I added 1/4 of a bottle i think

[Mustang Boy]

i added about 5mL of the Walmart brand ammonia and i also added the recommended amount(5mL only a 10gal tank) of Special Blend and the ammonia hasnt changed in a week and there are no nitrites or nitrates

[Alfcea]

Well, 5 mL of ammonia certainly was a huge amount. For fishess cycling you should use 5 DROPS of it per 10 gallons. In general, it is considered that 1 mL equals about 20 drops, so you added the equivalent to 100 drops! Ammonia is added as a "substitue" for fish wate... I don't think a fish that would fit in a normal aquarium could generate that much waste...

Anyways, you probably did kill all the bacteria with that ammonia. (Have you tested the pH? Must be somewhere about 8 or 9, eh?). To fix the problem I suggest you drain the tank completely and wash everything with clean water. There aren't any fish, right? Then fill it up again and you can start over, though if you are adding some bacteria from a bottle you probably won't need to do any fishless cycling anyways...

Good luck,

[fins_n_fur]

I think you need to choose here. Either cycle the tank using ammonia (no other additives like Special Blend) and wait it out until it cycles adding no fish--and it's a patience builder :hmm3grin2orange: , or put in fish (small bio-load) with Special Blend. Special Blend is meant to jump start the whole ammonia, nitritre, nitrate process when there are fish in the tank. I think you may be frustrating yourself in cycling with ammonia and Special Blend and no fish. If you choose to cycle the tank without Special Blend, then aiming for about 4-5 ppm of ammonia is a good start to a cycle.

10 drops is about, roughly, 2.5 ml, 20 drops being about 5 mls.

[cocoa_pleco]

I think you need to choose here. Either cycle the tank using ammonia (no other additives like Special Blend) and wait it out until it cycles adding no fish--and it's a patience builder :hmm3grin2orange: , or put in fish (small bio-load) with Special Blend. Special Blend is meant to jump start the whole ammonia, nitritre, nitrate process when there are fish in the tank. I think you may be frustrating yourself in cycling with ammonia and Special Blend and no fish.

ditto, its to help if you are doing a fish cycle

[Mustang Boy]

aahh that must be why it wasnt working then

and ill drain it out tomorrow and refill it and then start getting my plants together in preparation for the fish that i want and ill start out small with a few neon tetra and then add on to them in a week or so with some more any idea if adding 6 small neons would be too much if i put the Special Blend in too

[Lady Hobbs]

I want not put neons in a tank not cycled. They are rather fragile. Danio's are a good cycling fish if you like those.

[Mustang Boy]

dang i was kinda set on making this a tetra tank with neons and glowlights

[Luna]

i added about 5mL of the Walmart brand ammonia

Um.... did you check the ingredients on that? It cannot contain dyes, fragrances, or surfactants. If it did have any of this, drain the tank and thoroughly rinse eeeeevery thing under hot water. I'm talking, several times over. Follow that with cold water a couple of times. Ditch the filter media.

The surfactants probably killed your bacteria, not the amount of ammonia. The recommended ammonia levels for a fishless cycle are between 3.0 and 5.0 ppm, so it wouldn't stall your cycle that much.

[Mustang Boy]

i couldnt find any ingredients on the label so i assumed it was straight ammonia i know it didnt have any fragrance cause it smelled horrible just like ammonia

oohh never mind i just went and looked at the bottle again and looked really hard and there is surfactant in it and i didnt see it before crap that is gonna make things a little more difficult tomorrow but i will make sure to clean everything really good and change out the filter and biowheel

[Mustang Boy]

would it be safe to reuse the same bio-wheel if i rinsed it out really well

[Luna]

I personally would not. It's a very absorbent material and would be difficult to fully rinse. However.... Well, let me tell a story. When I first started in fish-keeping a little over a year ago, I mistakenly used a surfactant laced ammonia for my fishless cycle. This particular bottle did not have any ingredients on it... none. I checked three times over. It was suspicious, however, that my water was forming bubbles in one corner of my tank after only 18 hours. I was told to rinse everything thoroughly (and working in labs taught me what that really means) and pitch the filter media. I assumed this to include the bio-wheel.

Now, I had silk plant decorations in this tank. They were rinsed the same way as the other items. It is possible that surfactants would cling to the material, but this wasn't brought to my attention. Those plants have stayed in this particular tank to this day with no ill effects.

Could this same idea be applied to the Bio-wheel? Perhaps. However, I think the amount of material on a bio-wheel would make rinsing difficult. It is just as easy to buy a new one.

[Mustang Boy]

i drained all of the water i could out of the tank then took it and placed it in my bathtub and filled it up with water and while fresh water was flowing through it i stirred the sand around for about 4-5 minutes then drained as much of that water out as possible then took the HOB and rinsed it and scrubbed it with a rag with water and did the same with my hood and i got a small container and filled it with water and swished the bio-wheel in it and dumped it and refilled it and did the same thing 3 more times and then i refilled the tank and added Prime and a new filter that once i rinsed i poured Special Blend on top of over the tank and also added a little to the tank water and i have added 2.5mL the following day

and i have found out my tap water has ammonia in it somewhere between 1.5mg/L and 2mg/L

[Luna]

The rinse sounds good. I would rinse the bio-wheel under running water for a few minutes, though. Swishing it is only good for large particles, not chemicals so much. If you have filtered tap water (brita pitcher or bottled water), use that as a final rinse.

That's not good about your tap water. The Prime should help bind the ammonia, but I've never seen levels that high out of a tap.

[Mustang Boy]

i am testing the water in my tank right now which is tap water with Prime and Special Blend and the test will be done in like 12min and im gonna reply back again with those results to make sure my memory isnt wrong about those figures

[Mustang Boy]

i just finished the ammonia test nd it is <1.5 but i dont know how much less cause my test jumps from .25 all the way to 1.5 on the color chart