First 4 Ppm Of Ammonia Wont Go !

[paulyoung666]

I had nitrite spike, dosing 2ppm of ammonia now after big water change is this correct ? Ammonia is gone so quick after dosing 6 hours ago

do you have no nitrite as well ? ....

 

[paulyoung666]

just checked my ammonia and it has gone again , so redosed to 2ppm , nitrites are still high at between 20 & 50 ppm , hard to tell to be honest ....

 

[paulyoung666]

Same this morning but nitrates are going up ....

 

[tomtomtom1230]

That's a good sign. It means that the bacteria colony is progressing onto to processing nitrites. When nitrites begin to fall, they will fall very quickly indeed!

 

[paulyoung666]

That's a good sign. It means that the bacteria colony is progressing onto to processing nitrites. When nitrites begin to fall, they will fall very quickly indeed!

Cheers , its a long waiting game though aint it .....

 

[gforce17]

You aint kidding mate!

 

[paulyoung666]

ammonia has gone again , but better than that , the nitrates have gone crazy !! , hopefully the nitrites will go shortly

 

[OldMan47]

If you are having trouble following what is happening with your nitrites, do an enormous water change to reduce the nitrites to something you can measure. I would drain the tank right down to the substrate before refilling it. That way you will get an on-scale reading for nitrites and will quickly know when things are going the right way. You might already be there and just can't see it because there is so much nitrite to process before it will be on scale.

 

[paulyoung666]

If you are having trouble following what is happening with your nitrites, do an enormous water change to reduce the nitrites to something you can measure. I would drain the tank right down to the substrate before refilling it. That way you will get an on-scale reading for nitrites and will quickly know when things are going the right way. You might already be there and just can't see it because there is so much nitrite to process before it will be on scale.

thanks , have done a diluted test so i can see that the nitrites are less than 5ppm , just need a couple of more days i reckon

 

[paulyoung666]

Nitrites were down to 0.25ppm this morning , hopefully they will be gone tonight .....

 

[paulyoung666]

nitrites have gone , however after 12 hours i still have a trace of ammonia showing ~0.50ppm , should i top up the ammonia and leave it overnight again ......

 

[waterdrop]

Not critical either way (by now you've probably done one or the other) -- you can let it just drop on down to true zero by the morning and redose then or you can go ahead and redose to 5ppm or whatever amount you are currently doing. The important goal is to get the filter routinely accepting 5ppm ammonia and then dropping that to zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite(NO2) within 12 hours of when the dose was put in. A filter can fool you unless you give it a good long test (we usually call this the "qualifying week") of repeating it's main job.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[paulyoung666]

Not critical either way (by now you've probably done one or the other) -- you can let it just drop on down to true zero by the morning and redose then or you can go ahead and redose to 5ppm or whatever amount you are currently doing. The important goal is to get the filter routinely accepting 5ppm ammonia and then dropping that to zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite(NO2) within 12 hours of when the dose was put in. A filter can fool you unless you give it a good long test (we usually call this the "qualifying week") of repeating it's main job.

~~waterdrop~~

thanks for the info ....