Msg for Sky042

[daisycat]

I saw your quote below on another thread:

"I use the API nitrite test kit and I saw colors that were barely in the visible spectrum not to mention neon green, neon blue and all sorts of purples till finally the water came down to a level that registered. I'm thinking thats where you're at now the nitrite is above the test kits ability to detect. I know when my nitrite was at its peak it got close to the color assiciated with zero but was just a little "off" when in reality it was sky high."

I wanted to ask - when you did the test did you observe it during the 5 minutes development time or not...

Our nitrites went from off scale (darkest purple) to 0 (light blue) seemingly overnight a couple of days ago and we thought that meant all was well and the cycle was over...seemed to be very sudden and quick for the nitrite part of the cycle (ammonia also went from high - but lower than peak readings for the cycle - to about 0.1 over the same period) but as we had unblocked the filter a couple of days before we figured that is what had caused it.

The first time the nitrite came up as 0 I remembered your post about neon blues and greens so I made my hubby do the test again and I watched it during the 5 minutes, it didn't change colour once so I assumed that meant it was definitely 0...but now I saw your quote above and got a bit worried...]

Any words of wisdom?

 

[Sky042]

yeah during the time when I was getting the wide specturm of colors you could tell it was too high because as you dropped the 5 drops in the vial the drops themselves would turn deep purple. then when you shook it up it was still purple but quickly faded out to other colors.

Basically if you look on your chart at the deepest purple thats what it was the moment you added the drops but after 5 mins it was something else entirely. Though after the 5 mins there were a few times it looked close to the 0pppm color but wasn't/couldn't be.

HTH

 

[Sky042]

if when you put the drops in they started blue and stayed blue the whole 5 mins then sounds like you're fine. My nitrites went from unreadable to readable in 1 day and then from readable to 0 the next day so it's not uncommon for the nitrite dropoff to be very sudden.

 

[daisycat]

Thanks, you've set my mind at rest! There was definitely no purpleness at any point.