Using Ammonia for fishless cycle

**johndimo** · 12-06-2012, 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by dborregoa

I've been reading about doing a fishless cycle with Ammonia and that's probably what I'll end up doing.

Can anyone tell me, loosely, how much ammonia to add to a 75 gallon tank. I know that the amounts vary and the general reading should be 4-5ppm, I just need to know a quantity to start with.

When I did my 55 gallon I used the Ace brand ammonia. It believe it was 10% strength.

I dosed 5ml (used a test tube from API test kit as measuring device) and it brought ammonia up to around 5ppm.

**Bolsen27** · 12-06-2012, 07:36 PM

Here is a calculator I found online. It worked well for me.

http://www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm

**Cliff** · 12-06-2012, 08:13 PM

This thread is a great example of why you can not always trust the on-line calculators to tell you how much ammonia to add to your tank. Johndimo used 5 ml of a 10% solution to get around 5ppm of ammonia in his 55 gallon tank while the above link tells you that a 5 ml amount of 10% ammonia will give you 9ppm in a 55 gallon tank.

While those calculators may be somewhat accurate at times, I have never found them to be reliable. There are far to may variables that pop up for those calculators to be accurate in all conditions. I've tried a few different ones as well.

The best is approach is to add a bit, wait, test, and re dose as required. That had always worked best for me

Just my $0.02