[APD] Ammonium Sulfate Cycling

[Phil Bunch <pbunch at cox_net>]

Just a quick report on playing around with NH4SO4 for cycling a tank.

I started cycling a 60 gallon tank about 10-days ago with a does of NH4SO4 
strong enough to move a SeaChem Ammonia Alert to the toxic reading. I've 
also been adding very small amounts of fish food every couple of days. I 
tested the water for NH3/NH4 two days ago as the SeaChem started to show 
lower concentrations and did an Aquarium Pharmaceuticals NH3/NH4 test that 
came out at +/- 4 ppm. I also dosed the tank with an ounce of Biospira just 
to add some additional bacteria. Temperature has been kept at about 83 F 
(28.3 C).

This morning I noticed the SeaChem was showing a substantial drop in 
NH3/NH4 so I did additional tests.
NH3/NH4 2 ppm
NO2        2 ppm
NO3        50 ppm

I had very cloudy water for about 4 days but it started to clear yesterday 
and is nearly clear this morning.

This seems to be pretty good progress for 10 days. I'm going to make a 
saturated solution of Ammonium sulfate and start adding drops gradually.

I'm only reporting on what's happening with the tank so any of the new 
folks that read this probably should not make too much of it. There had 
been some interest in using ammonium sulfate for this purpose so I thought 
I'd drop a line. For the plant folks this is going to be a cichlid tank so 
I'm not going to do extensive planting. I read Tom's note on not needing to 
cycle in a properly planted tank but it does not apply to my situation.

Phil Bunch

_______________________________________________
Aquatic-Plants mailing list
Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
http://www.actwin.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/aquatic-plants