Fishless Cycling
- Thread starter zennzzo
- Start date
5 drops is ~1/4th of a ml. This is a general estimate and might vary, but I'm certain the amount of variance is immaterial.
Either I'm way overdosing or way underdosing prime if 1 drop = 1/4ml. I just took a cap from a bottle of prime (5ml according to the label) and it took 124 drops from the pipette provided with hagen test kits to fill the cap. By that totally non-scientific measurement, 1mL = ~25 drops.
It's not 1 drop=1/4ml. It's 5 drops.
5 drops = 1/4 ml
therefore 20 drops = 1 ml
Per your analysis, 124 drops = 5 ml, therefore 24.8 drops = 1ml. Kudos to the patience by the way. Well done
I have 20 and you counted 24.8. So we seem darn close. Viscosity differences can account for the rest.
After reading this ive learned alot for when my PBass grow out of my 50. I will try a fishless cycle. IDK though I started fresh with my bass by just dechlorinating the water with prime and adding the recommended amount of artificial bacteria only once!. I just change out the water 40% every three or four days and there still going strong. I think I just did it naturally!
man i just took the easy way out and used the same water for my 30 gal to my 100 gal, and cycled my 100 gal for an hour our two. It was all good for my fish, they love the huge swimming space and I still have all my fish plus more
So once you have gotten the ammonia and nitrite to zero you continue adding three drops of ammonia per gallon? Even after the fish are in the tank?
No, as long as you are adding most of your fish at once, you can stop dosing with ammonia. The ammonia will then come from the food as protein---> nitrogen ---> ammonia.
If per chance one were adding only a couple small fish now and then planned to add a bunch more or several very large ones only a month later, it might be worthwhile to keep the ammonia up until the big additions were made. If not, the BB populations developed originally might dwindle significantly.
Most people would not do that, so it's more or less not a big deal.
The point to consider is that the BB population can and will increase to accommodate the tank but not instantly if the bioload is suddenly boosted 10 or 20 fold. Adding a lot of new bioload should lead one to patiently increase the feeding to allow BB growth to catch up. It will be soon but not instantaneous. A week would be enough time to ramp up for a 20 fold increase.
