# Pure ammonia urgently needed !



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I need to test my new little tank to see if it's cycled yet, but I cannot find pure ammonia anywhere. I've tried Home Desperate, Cantire, Rona, several grocery stores, and a pharmacy, no luck. The only thing I've found is a huge jug of lemon scented stuff that foams when I shake it, even though the label says it's ammonia. Clearly it has some kind of soap in it, along with the lemon scent.

So does anyone know where I can get some pure ammonia. This tank is urgently needed, I want to try to raise larval shrimp and all the females are heavily 'in egg' .. I've already lost one batch in my main tank and another one is about to drop hers. So I need this quite urgently.


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## hornell (Oct 27, 2011)

Fishfur said:


> I need to test my new little tank to see if it's cycled yet, but I cannot find pure ammonia anywhere. I've tried Home Desperate, Cantire, Rona, several grocery stores, and a pharmacy, no luck. The only thing I've found is a huge jug of lemon scented stuff that foams when I shake it, even though the label says it's ammonia. Clearly it has some kind of soap in it, along with the lemon scent.
> 
> So does anyone know where I can get some pure ammonia. This tank is urgently needed, I want to try to raise larval shrimp and all the females are heavily 'in egg' .. I've already lost one batch in my main tank and another one is about to drop hers. So I need this quite urgently.


http://www.homehardware.ca/en/rec/i...LEANER-A-P-AMMONIA-900ML/_/N-ntkh4/R-I4521716

I have done some reading about this stuff and used it for mine. Seems to have done the trick. If you search "old country ammonia cycling" or something there is a discussion thread where a guy describes his dosing on a per gallon basis to get 4 mg/L.


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## SignGuy (Mar 3, 2012)

Found mine at walmart - Goldex brand I believe it's called. $2 for a 1.5l jug or something and it works great. It in the cleaning aisle but you have to look for as it tends to get hidden away. Not a big seller I guess.


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## Mlevi (Jan 28, 2012)

Got mine at Home Hardware, this January. Its called 'old country'. Huge bottle for like 3 and change, if I recall correctly. HH is your best bet. Previous to that, I checked a multitude of stores, including walmart, and could not find any.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Thank you so much.. I will hit HH today and look for that brand. It used to be you could get it in every grocery store, cause it was used to strip wax off floors, but I guess with the advent of no wax floors it's popularity has waned. The only two stores I already tried that had anything, had the scented, soapy stuff, which is presumably a bit less nasty to use for floor cleaning. What I can't figure out is, if fishless cycling is the way to go for the modern fishkeeper, why don't the aquarium stores sell small bottles of the stuff ? It would make it much simpler and we wouldn't have huge bottles of cleaner that we really don't need hanging around the house.


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## hornell (Oct 27, 2011)

Because selling "bacterial in a bottle" is much more lucrative. Based on the claims of Bottled stuff, no outside ammonia is required.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Yeah, I suppose that's true. And yet, even if you use the bottled bugs, how do you tell they've established themselves sufficiently unless you test them somehow.. either add fish and hope it's cycled, or add ammonia. I realize there is a bit of a difference in the type of ammonia, but still, no risk to fishes using ammonia. So it would still be useful, even if they are trying to sell bottled bugs. I've used one brand and while it does not instantly cycle a tank, it does seem to speed things up. However, not sure the slight speed up is worth the price of the product

Btw, Home Hardware does indeed carry the stuff, though I had to hit two stores to find one that had stock on hand.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

If it were you, would you be selling $20/bottle "bacteria" or $5 ammonia? Not to mention the liability of people adding ammonia in tanks with fish thinking it's good ;-)

And if everyone cycles their tanks properly there will be much less fish death and less people buying new fish.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Well, you asked if it were me, would I want to sell this cheap stuff in my fish store, instead of the bottled tank cycling aids. 

My answer is, yeah, I would, but under certain conditions. First, I'd keep it behind the counter, not on the shelf. People would have to ask for it, and then I could ask what they wanted it for. I'd make sure to have a printed pamphlet, with the appropriate legal disclaimer on it, on how to utilize it for fishless cycling, which would hopefully head off potential disasters. Let's face it, misuse of any chemicals can have disastrous results. I'd also put a seriously high markup on it, to cover my time and the aggro factor for having it behind the counter and printing costs.

But that's just me. I don't doubt you are correct, most fish stores would probably rather not be bothered. But that is shame, really. It is my belief that most of the large fish stores make the majority of their money on dry goods, rather than livestock. 

So if a newbie kills off a tank of new fish because he made a mistake with ammonia, it really is not going to make a fish store owner a great lot of money when said newbie replaces those fish. And maybe he won't replace them. Maybe he'll be put off the hobby altogether. If he does replace the fish, he will have had a very sorry experience to start his hobby with. 

I'd like to think if he'd been given the correct information and the correct product, he'd have a had a fair shot at success without fish losses. If he got those things from his local fish store in the first place, perhaps he'd have a higher chance of success, and a happy newbie might be more likely to buy more of those high priced dry goods from said fish store. 

Do I expect to find ammonia in a fish store ? Not really. I merely wish I could, because they could make some profit selling me small bottle for ten times what the hardware store charges for far more than I'll ever need. It would save me the trouble of having to hunt down a source for the darn stuff, & I would not then be stuck with more than a quart of something I no longer need.

I truly don't see a down side to this idea. Well intentioned people have killed off tanks full of fish with all kinds of errors besides those related to proper cycling. Perhaps if stores made a practice of handing out a pamphlet on proper cycling to anyone expressing interest in buying a tank, it would go a certain distance toward to saving a lot of unfortunate fishes. It could list the few methods known to work, and possibly save a lot of time and aggravation for many, including the fish store guys who spend so much of their time trying to explain the concept to customers who come in asking questions, the ones who don't find forums like GTA. 

No, it won't make up for the folks who operate 'full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes', but it might help the ones who are willing to take the time to read a pamphlet. You might even get some stores to list the web address of good local forums on the pamphlet. The more people in the hobby, the better for the store, after all. More members for a forum might mean many good things. A forum might even be able to arrange a small discount for it's members. Just an idea, but lots of things are possible if you are willing to look at things in a positive way.

Maybe in the end the store won't sell as much of the instant cycle products, but I'd be willing to bet they'd more than make that up with greater sales on other products, if they had more happy customers. I will always be willing to spend more in a place where it seems they will go out of their way sometimes to make my life easier, than I will in a place where I can't even find a clerk to assist me.

But that's just me.


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

Why don't you just pee into your tank, it will work, LOL 

Sent from my HTC Magic using Tapatalk


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Aside from the sheer 'ick' factor.. I lack the directional aim equipment so thoughtfully provided for the other half of the population .


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## Scotmando (Jul 10, 2011)

Good response.



Fishfur said:


> Aside from the sheer 'ick' factor.. I lack the directional aim equipment so thoughtfully provided for the other half of the population .


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Fishfur, I appreciate your taking time to lay down your thoughts. I totally agree with you on the right things to do by the store owners. I also don't blame the store owners because they have overhead to deal with. Frank (Frank's aquarium) is a good example, I often went to his store for some opinion and his solution seldom involved buying something in his store, if when it did, it was something really cheap. He had given me free fish-safe screen door mesh for my UGF, he had given me free moss balls... etc, and for that reason I don't mind spending money on some shrimp food that I would've not bought. But look at what happened to his business.


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