Cycling a new tank with dry live rock and no fish

[Bio-nut]

I am looking to cycle a new tank with dry live rock. I am not wanting to put any fish in to provide a source of ammonia. I plan to add either Dr. Tim's or Microbacter7 as a source of nitrifying bacteria. My question is if I dont want to add fish or ghost feed, can I use an aqueous solution of ammonia ( non detergent/ non scented) to dose the tank to start? If so what ppm should I target.

 

[Alan_J_MN]

Dr Tim’s sells ammonium chloride for this purpose. 4 drops per gallon, if I remember correctly. I am doing the same thing and just added some yesterday as my ammonia was down to 0.2

 

[Robelli]

I just recently used Dr. Tim's nitrifying bacteria and used the ammonia Chloride from them as well and would try to hit right around 2ppm and wait till it almost zeroed out to redose back to 2ppm until it would clear in 24 hrs. Took about a month but worked well.

 

[Dbichler]

Desired tank ammonia level/ (Ammonia concentration % (from the label) x 10/tank volume in litres) = Amount of household ammonia to add in ml

For 100g total water volume and using 10% Ace Hardware ammonia, you will need to dose approximately 11ml to elevate the ammonia to 3

Used this formula on all of my tanks works perfectly usually about 2 to 3 weeks adding dr tims or bio spira

 

[SMSREEF]

I am looking to cycle a new tank with dry live rock. I am not wanting to put any fish in to provide a source of ammonia. I plan to add either Dr. Tim's or Microbacter7 as a source of nitrifying bacteria. My question is if I dont want to add fish or ghost feed, can I use an aqueous solution of ammonia ( non detergent/ non scented) to dose the tank to start? If so what ppm should I target.

Microbacter 7 did not cycle the tank for me. It was 2 weeks and still had high ammonia.
I bought Fritz turbostart 900 and the ammonia was gone next day. Fritz come refrigerated. It smells bad, but works fantastic.
I’ve also used Bio-spira in the past and that gets rid of ammonia fast too, but nitrite takes a bit longer.

 

[Bio-nut]

Thank you everyone for the input. Since I didn't find too much information on this method, I might document the process and post it for others in the future.

 

[User1]

There is a thread on this forum somewhere that someone did multiple tests using Dr. Tim's and also Fritz. Fritz was consistently, and I mean consistently, faster. I'm talking 1 to 8 day sort of thing. Dr. Tims always works and both are solid. Just go about it a different make up of their product.

If you search on this board you will get directed to the named ammonia source / bottle. I seem to recall it being an Ace Hardware sourced item. In any case I just spent a few extra bucks and bought Dr. Tims ammonia and called it a day. I cycled my 210 gallon upgrade with it and it worked fine. 150 lbs of dry rock (Pukani). All in all I think my tank took about 25 days to be able to process ammonia in under 24 hours.

Yes, you can do as you are suggesting. Fishless and a lot of us are doing it this way now. Best of luck!