Is This Normal!

[danon]

Started my fish-less cycle on Friday 11th April

Added ammonia to 5.0ppm

This has remained the same since, BUT, today i am getting a Nitrite reading of 2.0ppm and a Nitrate reading of 10ppm.

Is this normal or has something gone seriously wrong, its only been 4 days!!!

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Danon,

What is your ammonia level now? When ammonia is processed by the filter bacteria, 1ppm of ammonia will produce 2.7ppm of nitrite, so to get 2ppm of nitrite would require less than 1ppm of ammonia to be processed.

Is your ammonia 4 - 4.5ppm now by any chance?

The nitrate reading is probably from the tap, so in wouldn't concern yourself too much with that just now.

Cheers

BTT

 

[danon]

Hi Danon,

What is your ammonia level now? When ammonia is processed by the filter bacteria, 1ppm of ammonia will produce 2.7ppm of nitrite, so to get 2ppm of nitrite would require less than 1ppm of ammonia to be processed.

Is your ammonia 4 - 4.5ppm now by any chance?

The nitrate reading is probably from the tap, so in wouldn't concern yourself too much with that just now.

Cheers

BTT

Hi, Just this minute checked the Ammonia level it is about 4.0ppm.

Very hard to tell because the colour chart goes 0 0.25 0.50 1.0 2.0 4.0 8.0

If this is ok then do i what till Ammonia drops to about 0, then add some more to fetch it up to 5.0ppm again?

 

[backtotropical]

Sounds like everything is fine.
Yes, just wait until it falls to 0 then top it back up to 5ppm.

Good luck.

BTT

 

[danon]

Thanks for the reasurance.

Can you get a test card that has the inbetween numbers ie 3, 5, 6, 7 etc

Surely it is just guess work finding the inbetween colour and number.

How can you bump it up to 5.0ppm when there is no colour on the chart for that reading.

 

[backtotropical]

If its easier, use 4ppm. That is still more than sufficient.

 

[waterdrop]

Yup, the colors are just guesswork. You get better and better at noticing little changes.

 

[danon]

Cheers