Quick question on fishless cycling!!

Hi all

I'm about to do a fishless cycle for the first time EVER... But the problem is I'm under a bit of a time constraint.

So heres the picture:
I'm three hours away from my boyfriend and moving in with him on Friday/Saturday. I have a small tank set up there (About 60l) which we are putting guppies into with an adorable baby pleco. But because these guys are babies (both guppies and the pleco) I wanted to cycle the tank before putting them in otherwise I fear the nitrite spike would kill em all. So anyway he set it up yesterday. We can't seed the tank yet because obviously everything that we could use is up here with me. As soon as I get there I will seed the tank but that day is also the day the fish arrive. It has numerous ornaments and a filter and stuff. It's been running about twelve hours so far. He's put a pinch of freeze dried bloodworms in there (thats the only fish food he has handy) and has set the filter up to crete bubbling.

Delima:
Because we are under time restriction we are tryna make it cycle super fast! I've read heat and bubbling helps - hence making the filter bubble and we are working on the heat thing.

Questions:
1. When you put ammonia in it whats the best thing to use? I told him bleach with no fragrances.. Is there a pure ammonia you can buy from a LFS? (he hasn't added anything yet other than a small pinch of bloodworms
2. What else can he do to cycle the tank till I get there with seeding material? I told him to stay away from beneficial bacteria in a bottle and then he has it bubbling and tryna get the temp up. He's also gonna ask the LFS if they can give him some seeding material.
3. If he uses bleach, how much? It's probably got about 40 litres in it currently.


I know this is about fish not axy... But I figured y'all should know all about fishless cycling for your axys anyways Thanks for y'all help

Don't put bleach into the tank! This is pure chlorine and will do nothing to help with the cycle. He should be able to find pure household amonia in either hardware stores or chemists. We have Jeyes over here, not sure about NZ though.
Can he put a frozen prawn, shrimp I think to you, in the tank? This will add enough ammonia to kick start it for a few days.
This is a fairly helpful quide, with an ammonia calculator included Good luck with the cycle!

You can't get pure ammonia in a bottle as its a gas, its always disolved in water. I think the max that can be disolved in water is somewhere around 32%. I got household ammonia at a local hardware store that is a 5% sollution, just make sure it says nothing else then water and ammonia on the bottle and it should be fine.

If you shake the bottle and foam forms that stays, dont use it. The foam formed should disappear fast