Peterpiper

Hello everyone,
Been doing a lot of research lately in regards to ammonia. I have been adding Ammonia to my 220lt ( 55g ) tank 2 times a day now for the past 2 weeks, the dose rate is 3 drops of 20%. As our tank has only 2 peppermints in it, and will not be stocked till late Jan. Why am I adding Ammonia to my tank? Well my understanding is that when you first cycle your LR, you will have a spike in Ammonia followed by a spike in Nitrites then nitrate is the end product. Once there is no more Ammonia the bacteria the converts it to nitrite will die back to the level of Ammonia that is in the tank. When you add fish at a later date you increase the bioload to the tank and the tank will go through a cycle due to the increase in Ammonia ( not enough bacteria to change Ammonia to Nitrite and then to nitrate ). By adding Ammonia now, I am keeping the bacteria count high, so when we add our seahorses we will have more than enough bacteria to deal with the Ammonia produced by the seahorses. its a lot kinder to the seahorses this way as they won't be put through a mini cycle as the bacteria grows to balance the new bioload. What will happen is the bacteria will reduce to the bioload that is produced by the seahorses. Just thought I would share this. Its not new, And I take no credit for this method.
PS When I add the ammonia i have a reading of .4 12hrs later the reading is 0

pistorta

Ideally, nitrogen would be the end product. If you use a plenum system, nitrate will be converted on an atomic level and aside from a protein skimmer, you wouldn't need any other filter.