Cycling with the use of api quickstart

[Regirock]

I am currently doing a fishless cycle in which i am using Ace Hardware's ammonia, api quickstart, live plants (green cabomba and java moss), an airstone, 80 degrees fahrenheit heated water (which i read is supposedly the best temp for breeding the bacteria needed), and a dark place which will be my room that i will not be sleeping in for the next few weeks or however long it may take just for the bacteria to grow with root tabs to fuel the growth of my plants and for the iron which supposedly speeds up the growth of the bacteria. My initial question is how can i make use of api quickstart to speed that process up? How often should i use api quickstart/how long would i have to wait in-between uses of quickstart? My last question is how did my ammonia levels drop from 4 ppm to 0.03 ppm in just the span of an hour? Which i double checked and still came out to be the same in terms of result. I added 4 ppm which i know is 1.5ml which i also tested and came out to be 4 ppm of ammonia, then i added seachem prime into my pre-conditioned (2 days ago) and preheated water then added around 5 ml of quickstart because i didn't really know if i should've put the full amount since no matter how much research i did, there were no proper instructions in incorporating the use of it into my cycle. (sorry if what i wrote doesnt make sense my adhd brain gave up a while ago)

 

[Aiken Drum]

Did you take into account that the household ammonia isnt 100% ammonia when you calculated your 1.5ml? I cant find the actual concentration of the ammonia you used (i didnt look too hard though) but I think its a 10% solution. Household ammonia is typically between 5% and 10%. Commercial ammonia can be higher.

I did a spreadsheet on ammonia dosing a while back. If we assume a 10% solution, then 1.6ml will raise ammonia by 4ppm in a 40 litre/ 10 gallon aquarium. So if you have a 40 litre/ 10 gallon aquarium your dosage sounds about right.

What is your nitrite test now?

Are you seeing any signs of a bacterial bloom? ie the water going a white milky colour?

These bottled bacteria products may or may not do anything useful. Generally they dont do anything. Some are better than others, API Quickstart isnt one that produces positive results all that often. They are a live product and if they arent stored and transported in temperature controlled conditions everything is dead before you buy it. And most of these products dont even have the correct microbes in them anyway. While ive never personally used quickstart, its not one ive heard have good results from on.

On the other hand, if you genuinely did add 4ppm of ammonia, and its cycled out to near enough zero in such a short space of time then it may have worked remarkably well. I would leave things for 24 hours, dose another 2ppm of ammonia and see how long that takes to cycle out.

 

[Aiken Drum]

And to add, keeping the lights on or off won't help your cycle at all. The microbial growth isnt effected by light. Keeping them off all the time will stop your plants photosynthesizing and eventually they will die though. Turn your lights on for 6 to 8 hours a day on a regular schedule same as you would when you have fish.

And does your filtration contain any ammonia absorbing chemicals like zeolite? Filters often come with ammonia absorbing chemicals included. Maybe they are in a cartridge that came with the filter? That would explain where the ammonia went, and would stop your tank cycling as the microbes you are trying to grow will be starved of food.

 

[Regirock]

Did you take into account that the household ammonia isnt 100% ammonia when you calculated your 1.5ml? I cant find the actual concentration of the ammonia you used (i didnt look too hard though) but I think its a 10% solution. Household ammonia is typically between 5% and 10%. Commercial ammonia can be higher.

I did a spreadsheet on ammonia dosing a while back. If we assume a 10% solution, then 1.6ml will raise ammonia by 4ppm in a 40 litre/ 10 gallon aquarium. So if you have a 40 litre/ 10 gallon aquarium your dosage sounds about right.

What is your nitrite test now?

Are you seeing any signs of a bacterial bloom? ie the water going a white milky colour?

These bottled bacteria products may or may not do anything useful. Generally they dont do anything. Some are better than others, API Quickstart isnt one that produces positive results all that often. They are a live product and if they arent stored and transported in temperature controlled conditions everything is dead before you buy it. And most of these products dont even have the correct microbes in them anyway. While ive never personally used quickstart, its not one ive heard have good results from on.

On the other hand, if you genuinely did add 4ppm of ammonia, and its cycled out to near enough zero in such a short space of time then it may have worked remarkably well. I would leave things for 24 hours, dose another 2ppm of ammonia and see how long that takes to cycle out.

I did take into consideration that my ammonia was only 10 percent and my nitrates are 50 ppm with my nitrite being 2 ppm and no, my water is clear as day for some reason. I will be dosing another 2 ppm as you said and will monitor closely

 

[Regirock]

And to add, keeping the lights on or off won't help your cycle at all. The microbial growth isnt effected by light. Keeping them off all the time will stop your plants photosynthesizing and eventually they will die though. Turn your lights on for 6 to 8 hours a day on a regular schedule same as you would when you have fish.

And does your filtration contain any ammonia absorbing chemicals like zeolite? Filters often come with ammonia absorbing chemicals included. Maybe they are in a cartridge that came with the filter? That would explain where the ammonia went, and would stop your tank cycling as the microbes you are trying to grow will be starved of food.

Yeah i remembered i had plants an hour after posting that and made sure theyre getting a proper amt of light. As for my filtration, I believe it doesn't contain any chemicals like zeolite but it does have something called bio balls which supposedly aids in the breaking down of ammonia and provides a space for breeding grounds of the good bacteria but it is said that it doesn't directlly break down ammonia. (current filter i have is https://www.amazon.co.uk/hygger-Aquarium-Internal-Submersible-Filtered/dp/B0BC8XY33J/ref=sr_1_8 )

 

[Aiken Drum]

The specs do repeatedly use the term "chemical" filtration without ever being specific on what that is. It may be there is some chemical removal of ammonia going on.

On the other hand you have some nitrite and that should be coming from the nitrogen cycle. Unfortunately the nitrate test will give false positive results in the presence of nitrite, so you just cant trust the test result until all the nitrite is also being cycled out. You could have no nitrate, some nitrate or a lot of nitrate. Dont bother testing for nitrate until you are cycled and free of nitrite.

See how things go when you redose the ammonia, but overall the presence of nitrite is a positive step, and lets see how long that nitrite to nitrate stage takes to establish.

 

[Regirock]

The specs do repeatedly use the term "chemical" filtration without ever being specific on what that is. It may be there is some chemical removal of ammonia going on.

On the other hand you have some nitrite and that should be coming from the nitrogen cycle. Unfortunately the nitrate test will give false positive results in the presence of nitrite, so you just cant trust the test result until all the nitrite is also being cycled out. You could have no nitrate, some nitrate or a lot of nitrate. Dont bother testing for nitrate until you are cycled and free of nitrite.

See how things go when you redose the ammonia, but overall the presence of nitrite is a positive step, and lets see how long that nitrite to nitrate stage takes to establish.

Sorry about the late response but turns out i just had a faulty ammonia tester and immediately got a new one and the ammonia is 6.0 and now i feel stupid. But thank you so much for all the effort you put into trying to help me figure this out.

 

[Aiken Drum]

50% water change to bring it down. That much ammonia can kill all the microbes you are trying to grow.

 

[Regirock]

Got it. Thank you.