Too Much Ammonia in cycle?

[Grymatta]

So..I proceeded to follow Iggy's fishless cycle guide and added ammonia to my tank until i got it to 5 ppm.

Then I re-read the guide and realized my mistake. My tank is only 3 gallons and I forgot that the guide said it wasnt for tanks under 5 gallons.

What should i do now? Should I just go through with it anyways? or should i shoot for a lower PPM since my tank is only 3 gals?

I am only putting 1 betta in my tank anyways so I dont need the tank to handle 5 ppm worth of bioload right off the bat.

Also, I put some plants in the tank..but should i take them out? I dont want them to melt from the high ammonia levels..

thanks

 

[punkrockfish]

im not sure about what to do in terms of cycling under 5 gallons. i cant give you an answer to that, but what i can tell you is that, until somebody with some better knowledge on the matter sees this, that you should just do a bunch of water changes till you can get the ammonia back down to 0. that way it is just like starting over. the plants should be fine.

 

[FroggyFox]

I'd probably do a water change of about 50% to take it down to 2 ppm or so. With live plants in there your cycle should go pretty smoothly I'd think, as long as you have enough light in there for them. Tanks under 5 gallons have to cycle just like big tanks...the process is exactly the same so I'd say following iggy's recipe is fine...just maybe tailor it down to a lower ppm than 5.

 

[OCCFan023]

do you have a water test kit (or did you put the amount iggy suggested for a different size tank?)

 

[Grymatta]

hmmm ill do a water change then.

i used an ammonia test kit to measure the water after i dropped a bit of ammonia into the tank and it read 5 ppm.