sinistral
Fish Addict
I'll second what rdd wrote about the LFS tank water-- not enough to cause the readings that you got. It's still a mystery about how the ammonia got into your water in the first place. Glad you took readings with dechlorinator added, as it eliminates one potential source of ammonia from consideration.
Your readings at this stage have the look of a tank that is nearly done cycling. Very strange. The only explanation I can think of is that some ammonia was added to your water at some step that nobody can identify.
As I see it you have two options: drain the tank and start over, or wait until nitrite goes to zero and then do a big water change to get rid of nitrates, add some hardy fish and treat as if starting a cycle.
I would not be inclined to add fish at this point while there are elevated nitrite and nitrate levels.
As it's not completely clear what's going on, I don't know that there would be a benefit to waiting til the nitrite goes to zero. The readings make it *look* like the tank is almost done cycling, but then it's not really clear if that's the case. Let's say the tank *is* cycling...well, without a source of ammonia, you'll have a rapid die off of beneficial bacteria anyways-- this would have started when your ammonia reading went to 0.
As you have to do a water change to get rid of nitrates anyways, I'd be inclined to do a 100% water change, test the water, let things settle and then add a couple of fish-- in other words, start from close to square 1. If ammonia shows up in your water again, then that might tell us something...
Your readings at this stage have the look of a tank that is nearly done cycling. Very strange. The only explanation I can think of is that some ammonia was added to your water at some step that nobody can identify.
As I see it you have two options: drain the tank and start over, or wait until nitrite goes to zero and then do a big water change to get rid of nitrates, add some hardy fish and treat as if starting a cycle.
I would not be inclined to add fish at this point while there are elevated nitrite and nitrate levels.
As it's not completely clear what's going on, I don't know that there would be a benefit to waiting til the nitrite goes to zero. The readings make it *look* like the tank is almost done cycling, but then it's not really clear if that's the case. Let's say the tank *is* cycling...well, without a source of ammonia, you'll have a rapid die off of beneficial bacteria anyways-- this would have started when your ammonia reading went to 0.
As you have to do a water change to get rid of nitrates anyways, I'd be inclined to do a 100% water change, test the water, let things settle and then add a couple of fish-- in other words, start from close to square 1. If ammonia shows up in your water again, then that might tell us something...
