Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've searched high and low on this site and others for 4 hours to find how much Charlie Carp is needed per L of water for fishless cycling but have not found anything specific.

I'm working away for a week at a time so wanted to start to fishless cycling my new system - ideally I'd go the peeponics route though my aim at 200km is not that good!

So does anyone know how much CC should be added to a 1000L FT to get ~2ppm of Ammonia to start the cycling?

Cheers
Matt

I've just found the breakdown of CC here:
http://www.charliecarp.com/technical_analysis.htm

Its 10% nitrogen - not sure how the maths work to convert that to a ppm of ammonia.....

I used a hundred mml in my 2000 litre tank to start as well as a hundred mm of seaweed extract for the plants

What ppm of Ammonia did 100ml produce cc?

Will have to find my original record book and check if I wrote it down.

Cool - I take it it didn't spike Amm off the charts, so even if its not written down its a good starting point...

It doesnt really matter Matt, within reason. There are many threads on fishless cycling but the methodology stays the same. You intoduce and feed an ammonia source to your system which starts the nitrogen cycle. You cant really do it wrong.

CC is basically a fish emulsion so it needs to break down to release the ammonia so it pays to go easy to begin with. Ive read of members starting with a capful, others with a dolop or even 100ml as Bear commented. But basically you dose then monitor amm levels, it will spike then slowly fall and also nitrites will spike, when amm drops to trace then add another dose of CC and repeat process until the conversion to nitrates is rapid and active which will be seen by minimal or no levels of amm or ites in your test results.

I added two quick pours over a few days and that was all I required for roughly 1500L. Then a couple capfuls at the end to make sure it was properly cycled. If I was to cycle again, I would do just one capful every second day until I reached the desired level. I can't see why adding the exact amount required in one hit would be anymore benificial to slowly bringing it up to level.

I wanted to know the rough amount as I'll be away for a week at a time so can't gradually add small amounts.

Also some stuff I read suggested that if ammonia is too high it can actually kill bacteria - whether this is true or not (and at what level) I'm not sure. This article mentions it (in the context of cycling an aquarium)

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/cycling-an-aquarium/

If you want figures you can work from Matty, I can tell you how much is required when using urea.

A few months back I cycled an IBC system with 500L in the FT, one very slightly heaped teaspoon (almost level) of urea gave a max reading of 0.25ppm after 3 days then plateaued, so I added another very slightly heaped teaspoon and it rose to 0.5ppm.

So as a guestimate, I would say 4 very slightly heaped teaspoons in 1000L would get you to around 0.5ppm... and 8 would get you to around 1.0ppm, which is more than adequate for cycling. Mine never went above 0.5ppm and it cycled beautifully, it also handled the Trout when I put them in, I had a very slight rise in Amm and no noticeable trace of No2... and some were reasonably advanced fingerlings, they ranged between 15cm-20cm.

At least if you used urea you could be reasonably certain of what levels you would achieve... and simply add a little Seasol for the plants, 250ml initially in 1000L is more than sufficient.

I dont think it would matter too much since there are no fish added until it is cycled.... but just to give you an idea of how much variation you can have to some of the other amounts you have been given:
I have 3000L and intially put in
-500 ml of seasol and 1 cap every day after that for 2 weeks
- and then after 2 weeks added 100 ml of charlie carp
- and I peed in it like 6 times in the first week

my system never went over 2.0ppm during cycling in those weeks
There are records on my thread in this link http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=14429&start=30

I cant remember where I got my amounts from when I started but everything grew well and it cycle in around 6-8 weeks (cant remember exactly)

It will matter if there's too much Amm Tom. It will inhibit, or completely stop the Cycling from happening. From what I've read Amm levels above 4.0 can start to inhibit the development of the bacteria colony, and I've seen levels of 7.0 stop the development completely... until such time as the Amm was reduced.

Yeah... there's just no point in ammonia levels above 1-2 when cycling....

So there is such a thing of too much Charlie Crap err I mean Charlie Carp!

You'd get along with my missus well, Arbe. She too is sick of all the Charlie crap lol