First tank cycle questions

[Mantuque]

Just got my first AIO reef aquarium, and using Dr Tim’s one and only starter. To add ammonia to start this system, would yall recommend just adding food or is there a more efficient choice?

Some background on me, for my first aquarium I had a 75 gallon that was a full HOB system. Double tidal 110s, and bio filtration, long story short my LFS told me that would suffice for a reef tank and it did not long term. Had many problems but all of my fish seemed perfectly fine.

Anyway life happened and I had to move into an apartment that I wouldn’t be able to bring my aquarium. Im still able to go and take care of my fish no problems, and was finally able to get this 40 gallon AIO from neptunian cube and want to do everything right. I had to give most of my fish away but still have my two clownfish that started it all.

For my first aquarium the LFS told me to do a fish in cycle, and I don’t want to do that again because I figure the stress from moving them, knowing what I know now about fish in cycles, and the fact they’re in a system that I go to daily, it would be better to do the traditional fish-less cycle. Sorry for the long winded post, but how would yall recommend going about adding the ammonia. Thank you!

 

[Jamie9]

I would do the fishless cycle and use ammonium chloride solution.

You can add food instead, but then you need to wait for the food to break down. This skips that step.

Do note that in my experience it takes most people a bit more than the 8 days or so implied by the instructions (my 40 AIO took 2 weeks).

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I agree with the fishless cycle good for you not listening to poor advice. Sure you can use any type of fish food to get the cycle going, or buy a small bottle of ammonia

 

[Mantuque]

I would do the fishless cycle and use ammonium chloride solution.

You can add food instead, but then you need to wait for the food to break down. This skips that step.

Do note that in my experience it takes most people a bit more than the 8 days or so implied by the instructions (my 40 AIO took 2 weeks).

Great, so it being the holidays and all I’m not wanting to order a bottle as it could take awhile, can I go to a local store and buy ammonium chloride powder and mix that with some RODI water?

 

[Fish Fan]

Great, so it being the holidays and all I’m not wanting to order a bottle as it could take awhile, can I go to a local store and buy ammonium chloride powder and mix that with some RODI water?

If you have a very good local fish store they may have some of the ammonium chloride available, but it's not the kind of thing you can find at a typical fish store or PetCo. You may have better luck looking for food grade ammonia bicarbonate, which is used for baking, and can be purchased locally at Michael's craft stores and other grocery or baking stores.

LorAnn Ammonium Carbonate, 2.7oz. | Michaels

Purchase LorAnn Ammonium Carbonate, 2.7oz. at Michaels. Baker's Ammonia (Ammonium Carbonate) is a leavening ingredient called for in many old fashioned recipes.

www.michaels.com

 

[Mantuque]

Great, so it being the holidays and all I’m not wanting to order a bottle as it could take awhile, can I go to a local store and buy ammonium chloride powder and mix that with some RODI water?

If you have a very good local fish store they may have some of the ammonium chloride available, but it's not the kind of thing you can find at a typical fish store or PetCo. You may have better luck looking for food grade ammonia bicarbonate, which is used for baking, and can be purchased locally at Michael's craft stores and other grocery or baking stores.

LorAnn Ammonium Carbonate, 2.7oz. | Michaels

Purchase LorAnn Ammonium Carbonate, 2.7oz. at Michaels. Baker's Ammonia (Ammonium Carbonate) is a leavening ingredient called for in many old fashioned recipes.

www.michaels.com

Oh that’s perfect there’s a Michael’s right by me, would you mix this into a slurry and then add it, or just put the powder in the tank. Is it possible to put too much?

 

[Fish Fan]

Oh that’s perfect there’s a Michael’s right by me, would you mix this into a slurry and then add it, or just put the powder in the tank. Is it possible to put too much?

Here's an article from Randy Holmes-Farley on dosing ammonia. From the article:
"High quality ammonium bicarbonate is also available from Amazon as baking ammonia. It is readily available and inexpensive.

Stock Solution
...we will make a stock solution for dosing. Keep it closed up as it will smell of ammonia and slowly loses ammonia to the air. Ammonium bicarbonate will have a higher pH, smell more, and lose ammonia to the air faster.

20 grams of ammonium bicarbonate (about 4 and 3/4 teaspoons) in 1 L RO/DI water.

Dosing

Don't be overly afraid of dosing ammonia due to toxicity, but one cannot dose substantial amounts all at once. IMO, it is safe to add 0.1 ppm ammonia (equivalent to 0.36 ppm nitrate) at once to any reef tank, and one can likely add more, if it mixes in well. Don't dose it right onto a fish, but dosing 2-3x that amount at once is also likely OK. Of course, using a dosing pump to spread out the dosing is fine and may be preferable, but be sure to guard against dosing pumps out of control (e.g., stuck on). Stock solutions can be increased or decreased in potency to match pumping needs. The ammonia could also be put into an ato since exact daily dosing is not required.

To add 0.1 mg/L ammonia to an aquarium, you would need to add 2.3 mL of either stock solution to a 100 L (26 gallon) aquarium. You may need to add this amount multiply times per day to dose enough.

I'd add it to a sump, if possible, to dilute it well before it gets to the main tank. Most folks dosing ammonia wouldn't also be using media intended to push the nitrogen cycle in various ways, but if you do, dose downstream of that media."

DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

Some reef aquaria have chronic low nitrogen availability. One indicator is very low nitrate. Nitrate dosing is a fine remedy, but it is possible that ammonia dosing may be more beneficial for some organisms since ammonia can be energetically easier to assimilate than is nitrate. For this...

www.reef2reef.com

In your case, since you have no livestock and are cycling your tank, I would just add enough of the ammonia solution to get the tank to about 2.0 ppm ammonia

I hope this helps, if you have questions please post back!

 

[Tinklez]

Why was your previous tank not audience for a reef? Just curious. I’m new to the hobby and learning