When should I add ammonia?

[wilddiscuss]

I am going to start my fishless cycle and I am going to add the ammonia....but there is a question I need help answering. If it condition the water with amquel plus....won't that just take the ammonia out that I add? How long should I wait untill the amquel plus will stop taking the ammonia out? 24 hours? Or do I dose more? I know amquel plus messes with ammonia testers too so I am a bit confused. If I add ammonia I may not get an accurate reading of what is on there. Also I may not put enough. What do you guys all do when you start your cycle? What do you use for your conditioner or a wait time to start putting in the ammonia? Please Help!

Todd

[dishpanhands]

the amquel plus will bond with the ammonia but it will not remove it. It will still be in the water, and the tank can still use it to cycle. HTH

[Ardan]

Just use a chlorine remover for doing the cycle. If you have chloramine it will leave the ammonia from the cloramine (chlorine+ammonia). then you can test the ammonia and see how much more you need to add to maintain 5 ppm.

After the cycle is complete go back to the amquel plus or prime.

hth
Ardan

[kaceyo]

You can add the ammonia immediately before or after the dechlor (prime or AmQuel etc). Doesn't matter which.

kacey

[ed8t]

If you're doing a fishless cycle from scratch (no bacteria seed/source) then why bother with Amquel unless you have chloramines in your water supply? The chlorine will disipate soon enough and you don't have any fish to worry about to use a water conditioner. If you do have a source of bacteria, you can always add it the next day if you don't have regular water conditioners.

[Dennis The Mennis]

I have always heard that chlorine and ammonia creates a poisonous gas. Even in small quantities I would not want to take a chance if this is inside a home. I treated with dechlor first just to be sure.

[Apistomaster]

Chlorine gas dissolved in water under pressure will dissipate in hours under one atmosphere of pressure. Chloramine takes a few days to decompose at 75F. It's decomposition products can be a part of the normal cycle at first. The ammonia will become virtually undetectable after three days.
After that use one of the water conditioners to neutralize it as part of normal water changes. The water conditioners render it harmless to fish but the resulting ammonia compounds are still eventually incorporated into the nitrogen cycle.