Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I sent someone out to get pure ammonia so I could start cycling. They brought back Great Value Ammonia. I check the ingredients and it ingredients list these: Ammonium Hydroxide and Surfactant.

My question is this. Will this be suitable for Cycling or will the surfactants cause problems?

Surfactants are detergents... no good for fish sorry.

Get yourself some pure ammonia, urea or charlie carp. You can also age some urine and do it that way. Search fishless cycling, there are a number of options.

Thanks I was a bit worried.

They can cause problems depending on what kind of surfactants there are.
Read the wiki-page on "surfactant" near the end about "Health and environmental controversy".

Why not "make" your own ammonia for free?

Or use some urea..

Or maybe even some urea

Good idea Charlie... great minds think alike...

Looks like I'm going to be using the Peeponic way of cycling my system.
Can't find Ammonia without surfactants anywhere locally.

start bottling some up now, once you let it sit for a couple weeks it converts to ammonia..
if you use it "fresh" you won't see an ammonia reading in your system for a few days, so don't overdo it