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this is a stupid me incedent.

ok i filled my soon to be rift lake tank today ready to start cycling. i went over to my grandfathers house (he keeps fish too and has for many years) and he gave me extremely concentrated pure ammonia and a spare heater. apparently he said to me to only put 1-2 drops of the stuff with an eyedropper in. well when i got home i had forgotten what he said and put 3 full eyedroper squirts in! i feel so stupid. now my tank probably has the highest reading of ammonia in a fish tank in history!

now should i empty the tank again and start again or should i just leave it?

oh by the way the filter at the moment only has biological media in and a fair amount of it. actually ive ordered some more ceramic noodles but they wont be coming till the middle of january because the shops closed over the festive season. also ordered an aditional filter to do the mechanical filtration.

hi
woot woot woot woot woot woot

If no fish, i would say just to leave it alone, and it will supply the bacteria for a good long time. If you are truly worried, then just do some WCs and then just wait. If there is fish, then i hope they wil survive, and you should put them into another cycled tank.

Good Luck! We all make silly mistakes like this. One time i forgot to add dechlorinator to a 75% WC, and i put the fish in. I did add some later of course, but i felt so bad...

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That's a fishless cycle, right? Just leave it alone. You can have pretty high levels of ammonia in a fishless cycle. Seriously, when I fishless cycled a 55 gallon, I didn't even use a dropper, I just poured the stuff straight into the tank. I don't remember the specific directions but I'm pretty sure that the amount of ammonia to add for a fishless cycle is given as drops per gallon, so what your grandfather said sounds a little low.

You won't need any mechanical filtration considering you shouldn't really have much particulate business to clean out of the water. You can be pretty patient with that.

--------------------------------------------
The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

Bubblebrain
I bought some filter material for my Eheim Pro11 some time back, it was for the bottom basket it cost me a small fortune and it was nothing but good old fashion scoria (crushed red rock) I could have got a bucket full at the garden supplies for less than a $1. It is fantastic stuff. Think about it for a minute it is porous, rough surfaces perfect for the job. Get some and wash it then boil the daylights out of it wash it then boil it again. No old sauce pan buy one at the local opp shop.

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Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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Hi,
Similar stuff is marketed here in the States, as "Lava
Rock" and is used in gas BBQ grills. Buy a bag, and
smash the briquettes up into pieces, discard the powder,
and use the small pieces.

Pure ammonia, unscented, is THE way to do fish-less cycling.
Your Grandfather is spot on.
Actually, for normal stocking, 3 or 4 drops is normally
what is used. You should read this information:
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article14.html

Essentially, the ammonia is the equivalent of several fish.
You add it often enough to maintain a given amount of
ammonia reading on your tests. During the process of
adding it, soon nitrite will begin to show and the ammonia
will drop off, you add more ammonia to maintain the
original ammonia reading despite the nitrite, and then
when the nitrate reading shows up, you add more ammonia
again maintaining the original reading. The nitrite will
drop off, and the nitrate will increase. When you can add
the original amount of ammonia, assemble your test kit,
and take a sample, test it, and the ammonia reading is
zero as is the nitrate reading, then the tank is fully
cycled. When the ammonia (reads 0)goes straight
to nitrate with no "stop over" as nitrite (reads 0)
the tank is cycled.

At this point you stop adding ammonia, and add the fish.
This should be done within a day of discovering that the
tank is cycled. If you wait several days, the bacteria
will begin to die off and they might not be able to support
a full load of fish. The ammonia resembles the output of
x number of fish, and if you don't replace that amount of
ammonia with the equivalent number of fish, the bacteria
colonies will die back, or grow, for the output of the fish
you do put in the tank.


Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

thanks for all the replies. the tank was not filled all the way to the top (about 80%) when i put the ammonia in and i filed it with dechlorinated water. on the 3rd i bought a chinese algae eater and put it in and its quite active and look happy so the water must be adequate. today i put in my bristlenose and its looking alot better than when it was in a twenty litre tank with an agressive electric yelow lab. going to order some fish from livefish.com.au soon after they open again on the 7th.

i went to a lfs today to look at some female electric yellow labs for my restless male and they were quite expensive ($23 for small ones $33 for mid sized ones) and one of them only had one eye! the poor thing was swimming around in circles.

edit: by the way the male electric yellow isnt staying in the 20 litre tank it is going in the new tank

hi
woot woot woot woot woot woot

Keep an eye on the CAE as they get bigger and older they can become very aggressive. You will find a SAE will be a far better choice they are extremely peaceful and excellent algae eaters.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

i took that into consideration when i bought it (the cae) i got that because they can handle more extreme conditions than a sae. i also thought a sae might not hold its own in a tank filled with mostly cichlids and cae, being similar in attitude to cichlids would be better.

yesterday i bought 2 electric yellow labs and tried to get two females but when i got home there colours came out a bit more and i ended up with 1 male and 1 female and seeing as i already got another male ill have to cram in some more females i wont be getting any more fish for a while (ive ran out of money and waiting for additional filtration to and filter media to arrive) so this will give the new electric yelows some time to establish themselves (they are only like 1" long and my old one {is in a different tank} is like 3-4" long)

hi
woot woot woot woot woot woot