# Ammonia source for fishless cycling



## bbbbbb (Nov 25, 2015)

Hello, everyone!

My tank will be arriving this weekend and I've started shopping for ammonia source. However, in my country this item is hard to find in stores. I've visited different hardware shops, groceries and nobody seems to know what Ammonia is. I'm already getting anxious until this friend came to mind (we all have this friend that we remember only when we need something from him/her  ). Anyway, he works for a firm who test different kinds of things using chemicals (he's not a chemist though). I phoned him and asked if they do somehow have Ammonia and he said they might. So I gave him a visit and brought me to their analysis department and found Ammonium Hydroxide.










Any experts on chemicals here that can tell if this is safe for use in fishless cycling? If it is, can you somehow tell me how to properly administer this thing? Should I be diluting it with water first then unto the tank or can go directly to the tank? Thanks!


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I would say no. Ammonia is used as a cleaner. Did you try the pharmacy/drug store?


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

NH3 is what we know as ammonia. That bottle has many times the concentration than is found in over the counter varieties. The stuff found for use as a cleanser is closer to 5%. Before using the stuff in that bottle I would dilute it down to 5% so that measuring is much easier.


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

Trying to remember my chemistry, but I think Ammonium Hydroxide is just Ammonia and water, but not diluted. I think you can use this but not sure on the concentration.


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

The bottle says 28-30%. To make that like the more commonly available products at 5% that tankless cycling doses are based upon, you would mix it with water at about 6 to 1 to prevent overdosing.


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## wortel87 (Apr 15, 2014)

Welllll

Amonia is always available to you. You produce it yourself. Its also an option to just take a piss in your tank.

This is no joke btw. Back in the day people sometimes did it.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

Just find another fish keeper, ask him for one of his decorations for a few days or a handful of his substrate, and buy a single guppy. Put both in the tank. Wait two weeks. Should be good to go.


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## bbbbbb (Nov 25, 2015)

Appreciate all the replies.

I will be going to Ace Hardware later. I hope to find something there. If not, I'll probably try RobsFishTank's advice. Diluting the solution with 6 parts water to 1 part NH3 before dosing it to the tank.

wortel87, the idea of urinating the tank also came to mind however I rather go with JRHorne's suggestion and do a more discrete filter floss hunting.


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

I know Ace Hardware store has it, at lease in my area. You can spill half the bottle and still have enough to cycle 10 other tanks.


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

JRHorne said:


> Just find another fish keeper, ask him for one of his decorations for a few days or a handful of his substrate, and buy a single guppy. Put both in the tank. Wait two weeks. Should be good to go.


That does not correspond with anything I've read about on how to do a fishless cycle. All that does is give it a little bit of a jump start. Adding any fish would cause the tank to cycle again while the bacteria grows to handle the additional waste.The idea is to populate to environment with enough bacteria to support the projected bioload. Unless you plan on keeping only one fish the size of a guppy, this method won't do much. That approach would work if you could get a substantial amount of filter media from an established tank.

As to urinating in your tank, I've never heard of that before and first thought was that it is a joke or an urban myth. I used to run fish departments back in the 80's and 90's and, again, never heard heard of anything like that. In fact, fishless cycling was pretty much unheard of back then. So, I decided to look up the chemical make-up of urine:

water 95%

urea 9.3 g/l

chloride 1.87 g/l

sodium 1.17 g/l

potassium 0.750 g/l

creatinine 0.670 g/l

Guess what, no ammonia. If you want to add that other stuff to your tank, have at it.


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## wortel87 (Apr 15, 2014)

The statement that urine has no ammonia nh3 is totally fals btw.

Urine is also build up out of more ingredients than your putting on here.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I've heard of "human sourced" ammonia...let's hope no one has to resort to that.

One decoration plus one guppy for two weeks sounds VERY optimistic to me. Agree with RobsFishTank that you would need a substantial amount of established filter media. Or maybe the friend would let you run your new filter on his established tank along side his existing filter for 2 weeks...that should work.


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

I like the idea of running the new filter on an established tank. Lightly stocked tanks would take longer to grow anything substantial, though.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

RobsFishTank said:


> JRHorne said:
> 
> 
> > Just find another fish keeper, ask him for one of his decorations for a few days or a handful of his substrate, and buy a single guppy. Put both in the tank. Wait two weeks. Should be good to go.
> ...


Too bad, because oddly enough it is almost exactly what Drs. Foster Smith recommends. Also,it's not fishless...

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/artic ... tegory=266

"...Better yet, use a small amount of gravel from an established aquarium to cycle your new aquarium. This gravel already houses a good number of beneficial bacteria to speed up the cycling process."


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

Sure, that statement is somewhat true but there are so many factors involved that a much more systematic approach is needed for fishless cycling.

Do you think for one minute that one guppy is going to cycle to full capacity anything larger than a 2.5 gal planted tank, let alone a 120 gal one? The entire point of doing a fishless cycle is to create enough bacteria to handle the equivalent of a fully stocked tank. Thus avoiding the damage that it causes to the fish when doing a fish in cycle.

IMHO, Dr. Fosters is nothing more than a big box retail store and the information on that website is so generic, it's sad.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

From the same article: "Add fish and aquatic life gradually since your system will once again need time to adjust to the increased ammonia generated by each fish. After cycling is complete, we recommend weekly testing of ammonia and nitrite to monitor water quality."

To recap: OP posts about trying to do fishless cycle, but having trouble finding appropriate ammonia source or dosing his obtained source. People suggest peeing in tank. I suggest adding a small fish (or fish, I realized he didn't say his tank size) and some colonized source from another aquarium, then gradually adding more fish.

So, is it fishless cycling? No. Why? Because OP can't readily find a suitable product. So by all means, please continue to make this more complicated for OP. Or, OP can probably spend the equivalent of $3 on a few guppies to kick things in gear, not have to worry about sourcing ammonia, and on his return trip to the fish store for his preferred fish, he can return the guppies (donate them back).

Why do people in this hobby want to make things more complicated than they have to be? The Nitrogen cycle is taught to kids in the 5th grade for a reason: it's well known and easy!


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

The ammonia source is in the first post.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

RobsFishTank said:


> The ammonia source is in the first post.


Yup, and the label says very clearly that only 28-30% of that product is NH3, so what is the other ~70%? It's not a 28-30% concentration. So without knowing what else that company may use as a filler in that, I wouldn't drop it in my tank as my ammonia source. Hence my recommendation to NOT do a fishless cycle if you can't find a reliable source of NH3 suitable for aquarium cycling.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

So I found the Mallinckrodt listing of ingredients based on the product number of the picture. http://www.berktree.com/mallinckrodt-am ... -5-l-.html

Grade AR. ACS Grade.

Aluminum (Al)	0.3 ppm max.
Appearance	Passes test
Arsenic and Antimony (as As)	3 ppm max.
Assay (as NH3)	28.0-30.0%
Boron (B)	0.1 ppm max.
Calcium (Ca)	0.3 ppm max.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)	0.002% max.
Chloride (Cl)	0.5 ppm max.
Chromium (Cr)	0.2 ppm max.
Copper (Cu)	0.1 ppm max.
Gold (Au)	0.3 ppm max.
Heavy Metals (as Pb)	0.5 ppm max.
Iron (Fe)	0.2 ppm max.
Lead (Pb)	0.2 ppm max.
Magnesium (Mg)	0.3 ppm max.
Manganese (Mn)	0.2 ppm max.
Nickel (Ni)	0.1 ppm max.
Nitrate (NO3)	2 ppm max.
Phosphate (PO4)	2 ppm max.
Potassium (K)	0.3 ppm max.
Residue after Ignition	0.002% max.
Sodium (Na)	2.0 ppm max.
Substances Reducing Permanganate	Passes test
Sulfate (SO4)	2 ppm max.
Tin (Sn)	0.3 ppm max.
Titanium (Ti)	0.3 ppm max.
Zinc (Zn)	0.3 ppm max.

HOWEVER, it is pharmaceutical grade, and says AMMONIA WATER on the information page, so OP, I'd feel safe using it in my aquarium, unless anything above scares you. I honestly am not going to take the time to cross reference US drinking water standards to see if any of those PPMs exceed standard drinking water.


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

JRHorne said:


> Yup, and the label says very clearly that only 28-30% of that product is NH3, so what is the other ~70%?


Water, that's what they use to dilute solutions at pharmaceutical grade. Which you verify in your subsequent post.



JRHorne said:


> HOWEVER, it is pharmaceutical grade, and says AMMONIA WATER on the information page, so OP, I'd feel safe using it in my aquarium, unless anything above scares you. I honestly am not going to take the time to cross reference US drinking water standards to see if any of those PPMs exceed standard drinking water.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

So Robs, if you knew that was Pharma grade NH3 product, I didn't glean that from any of your previous posts since you only mentioned dilution without answering one of the OPs most critical questions from the first post: "Any experts on chemicals here that can tell if this is *safe* for use in fishless cycling?"

Telling him to dilute a product with water that he is about to add to water (in the tank) isn't confirmation it is safe.

Enough of the pissing match (funny because of the other content in the thread, right?). Turns out Robs and I could have been on the same page a lot earlier, as I was telling OP how to avoid using the product if you couldn't confirm it is safe and he was assuming (or knew?) the product was safe and was telling you to use it.


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

JRHorne said:


> So Robs, if you knew that was Pharma grade NH3 product, I didn't glean that from any of your previous posts since you only mentioned dilution without answering one of the OPs most critical questions from the first post: "Any experts on chemicals here that can tell if this is *safe* for use in fishless cycling?"


I answered the question, thus fitting the criteria of the OP.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

RobsFishTank said:


> JRHorne said:
> 
> 
> > So Robs, if you knew that was Pharma grade NH3 product, I didn't glean that from any of your previous posts since you only mentioned dilution without answering one of the OPs most critical questions from the first post: "Any experts on chemicals here that can tell if this is *safe* for use in fishless cycling?"
> ...


And with so much detail as to how you knew it was SAFE! :roll:

OP, to give you a little more data than "I answered the question," it seems ACS is the American Chemical Society and from what I can tell, their grading system means the product is extremely pure.

HOWEVER, I am not sure I'd use it. It says on the safety sheets to have on goggles, gloves, and a full face respirator mask with cartridge. The warning symbols also indicate it hazardous to your skin, eyes, and the aquatic environment. Did your buddy just give this to you? Please tell me one of the folks helping you told you it could be super dangerous.

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/pro ... &region=US


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

JRHorne said:


> And with so much detail as to how you knew it was SAFE!


I read the label.


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

Just to clear things up. The ammonia, NH3, in the OP is in a glass bottle with a detailed list of the make up of the contents of the bottle. Since it is pharmaceutical grade, it is very pure and more concentrated than what is available to the average hobbyist. There are reasons why purer is not always better. Ammonia in a fish tank is measured in parts per million. The ammonia in that bottle is measured in percentage at a bit less than 33% ammonia. Trying to accurately dose anything other than very large tanks with that concentration of ammonia would pretty much impossible. That's why I suggested diluting the solution to a concentration found in commercially available products, 4 to 5%.


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## bbbbbb (Nov 25, 2015)

Hello, again!. Before I continue, I would like to apologize to all for my neglect in providing less detail with regards to my setup. Tank is 48x18x18 inch. Filtration is a canister filter, Sunsun 304B - filled with coarse, medium and fine foam; 1 liter of generic glass ceramic ring; and 1 liter of Seachem Matrix. Planning an Mbuna tank, consisting of Yellow Labs, Aceis, Rustys, Afras and Albino Greshakeis. After cycling, will put 25 juvies. Then trimming until I come up with 15-20 adult of each species.

First, urinating an aquarium, for me, is just a humorous talk about fishless cycling. In my opinion, a rotten shrimp will produce more ammonia than human urine.

Second, since the plan is to stock lots of juvies, the accumulated beneficial bacteria on a 1 guppy + decoration path may not be enough for the stock. Unless I understand it wrong, beneficial bacteria relies on their food source to sustain life - in this case the Ammonia, nitrite next. Without enough food, some of the beneficial bacteria may die. To put it simply, Ammonia source = beneficial bacteria. Thus introducing another guppy after cycling the 1 guppy path will prompt another mini cycle since the beneficial bacteria needs to reproduce more in order to support the now 2 guppies in the tank. Please correct me if this is wrong.

Third, the product really does smell dangerous. When pouring the NH3 to another container, the gaseous smell filled the entire room. It's a strong smell that I think if you breath normally it can damage the nose track or whatever it is called. The lady gave us about 300 ml of the NH3.

Lastly, I went to Ace Hardware and haven't found Ammonia in their racks.

I think I'm gonna go with Robs' take. I will try to dilute it first and then dose a 5 gallon bucket with drops of it. And then test Ammonia using the API test kit and see if I can get 2-4 ppm.

Thanks, everyone!


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

It sounds like you understand the process well. Just one comment. Once established, it takes a while for the beneficial bacteria to die off if the bioload drops. Even if allowed to dry out, there is a dormant stage and it can bounce back pretty quickly.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

Ok OP, just understand that you could possibly kill yourself. Just confirmed with my wife, who has a 4 year undergrad degree in Chemistry and her Doctorate in Medicinal Chemistry both from UNC as well as currently working for a biopharma company for 5 years now: She confirmed it is a caustic chemical. It can burn your skin, membranes, and more. It is absolutely a bad idea.

I will be going back and editing all of my posts to note this in the event that others reading this thread don't read until the end.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

Well apparently this forum won't let me edit older posts. OP, I'd still suggest just cycling with fish. Wouldn't be worth it to me to be handling this stuff improperly just so I could cycle my tank faster.


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

JRHorne said:


> She confirmed it is a caustic chemical. It can burn your skin, membranes, and more. It is absolutely a bad idea.


Wouldn't that apply to ordinary ammonia too?? Even the kind we just buy from ACE Hardware?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

bbbbbb, why can't you just order ammonia on amazon? Cycling with fish is really hard on the fish, why kill or damage them needlessly? I know you said it was hard to get in your country, but you have Ace Hardware so maybe you can use amazon? WalMart?


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

JRHorne said:


> Ok OP, just understand that you could possibly kill yourself. Just confirmed with my wife, who has a 4 year undergrad degree in Chemistry and her Doctorate in Medicinal Chemistry both from UNC as well as currently working for a biopharma company for 5 years now: She confirmed it is a caustic chemical. It can burn your skin, membranes, and more. It is absolutely a bad idea.


Please see this fact sheet, http://cchealth.org/hazmat/pdf/chem_aqueous_ammonia.pdf.

Even at 30% it is used as a household cleaner. Like other household chemicals, bleach as an example, it should be handled with care. A little bit of good information and common sense is all that is needed in order to handle the 30% solution properly. Janitors and cleaning services probably use it on regular basis.

The best advice one can give is to be informed. When someone tells you absolutes and warns of emminent danger, be wary, most often they are exaggerated. When sources are given that cannot be verified, question the facts.

Most importantly, if you are at all uncomfortable with being able to handle it safely, don't do it.


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## JRHorne (Jan 2, 2016)

That is incorrect. Household cleaners with ammonia do not surpass 10%. Also, I am Admin Director of a Hospital (Duke Raleigh) and Environmental Services reports directly to me. We do not and WOULD never use anything with 30% ammonia concentration.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/81-123/pdfs/0028-rev.pdf

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/phs/phs.asp?id=9&tid=2

Edit: Here is the MSDS for 19% thats used as fertilizer. Notice the "May be harmful or fatal if swallowed or inhaled"? 
http://www.cfindustries.com/pdf/aqua-am ... t-msds.pdf


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

JRHorne said:


> That is incorrect. Household cleaners with ammonia do not surpass 10%.


The fact sheet does not say it is that it is commonly available as household cleaner. It said that the 28%-30% solution is used as a household cleaner. I already stated that what you see in the stores is closer to 5%. Thus my suggestion to dilute it. One of those documents is addressing concentrations higher than 44%. That is a substantially higher concentration than the substance in question. I don't know why you keep trying to refute what I am saying and backing it up with pretty much the same information I am giving. It's a dangerous substance at any concentration but can be handled safely. Obviously the higher the concentration, like 44%, the more care that should be taken.


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

RJHorne and RobsFishTank:

Please, as a Very Happy Member of this forum, I appreciate this debate over the use of Ammonium Hydroxide for cycling. This exchange has been very informative but I think the "OP" will probably go the route of using just regular plain ammonia, rendering further banter of this issue to be counter-productive.

Thank you both for your opionions and information.


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## RobsFishTank (Nov 11, 2014)

tanker3 said:


> RJHorne and RobsFishTank:
> 
> Please, as a Very Happy Member of this forum, I appreciate this debate over the use of Ammonium Hydroxide for cycling. This exchange has been very informative but I think the "OP" will probably go the route of using just regular plain ammonia, rendering further banter of this issue to be counter-productive.
> 
> Thank you both for your opionions and information.


That would be the safest option but according to the OP he cannot find "regular plain ammonia". He needs an alternative, found one, asked about it, and was given some good and some not so good advice on how to use it. So I appreciate that you feel the banter is unnecessary, I have to disagree with your reasoning.


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## bbbbbb (Nov 25, 2015)

Quick update. My Ammonia source, I think, worked. I'm 5 days in cycling as of this post. Ammonia in the tank is slowly decreasing day by day. Dosed another yesterday to maintain 4 ppm of Ammonia into the tank. As of 12:10 PM (GMT +8) today, Ammonia is at 2 ppm.

Long update.

I went back to my friend to get help in diluting the solution to make it weaker in concentration. He took me to their laboratory and the lady there happily obliged. She asked me what I am going to do with it and told her I'm going to use it to fishless cycle an aquarium. Of course I got that blank stare. Anyways, she proceeded and diluted the solution with distilled water (1:5 parts, NH3:water) and lowered the concentration to 5%. She made me 500 ml of it.

So I went home. Tested the solution into a 5 gallon dechlorinated tap water. Dosed 2 ml of 5% Ammonium Hydroxide. Test result: 2 ppm of Ammonia. SUCCESS! Dosed another 2 ml of the solution just to make sure and true enough the test result came with 4 ppm of Ammonia in the water. SUCESS! SUCCESS!

BEGIN THE CYCLE

DAY 1. So I went and set up the tank. Turned the power on all equipment except the canister filter as I haven't got the seeding material yet. Besides I'm just still trying out the solution on my 67 gallon tank. Turned out the tank only can fill 54 gallons of water due to rocks and sand space in the tank.

Initially dosed 14 ml of 5% Ammonium Hydroxide and test for Ammonia resulted to 1 ppm. I then dosed another 26 ml of the solution to reach 4 ppm but test result is inconclusive, color is between 2-4 ppm. I dosed another 4 ml and test result became more conclusive with 4 ppm. All-in-all I dosed 44 ml of the Ammonia source to 54 gallons of water.

Later that same day, I went to an LFS and asked for established filter medias and gave me lots of filter wools and 3 pieces of bakki logs. Placed the bakki logs into the canister's top tray and the wools inside the tank.

DAY 2. No change in water parameters except for the higher pH which is understandable because of the Ammonia.

DAY 3. A little change in Ammonia color. Now closer to 2 ppm.

DAY 4. Significant change in Ammonia color, now at 1 ppm. 0 Nitrite. Got confused this time. I'm sure my Ammonia did go down, but why do I still have no trace of Nitrites? Can Ammonia evaporate? I also did a 4-6 gallon top off. Dosed 30 ml of solution to get Ammonia on the tank back to 4 ppm.

DAY 5. Change in Ammonia color, now at 2 ppm. Did not add solution this time. Still no trace of Nitrites. Did try to test for Nitrates though and result was inconclusive at 5 ppm, the color was 0-5 ppm but coloser to 5. To make sure the Nitrates wasn't from my tap I went and test it and sure enough it resulted at 0. There may be Nitrates in the tank.


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