Still Cycling?

[EthanF]

okay thanks,(again sorry for the idiotic comments) from what tests have shown me my tank can process the ammonia and nitrite within 24 hours no problem, but on the thread on fishless cycling it states you must be able to process this in 12 hours. now it seems it cant do that but it reads wierd things such as some ammonia but no nitrite - so what does this mean? i am good to go ?

 

[daizeUK]

If ammonia seems stuck at 0.25 and nitrite is zero then you can proceed to add fish with caution.  That's exactly what happened to me and I continued to get low ammonia readings in my tank for about a month before it settled in fully.  I also had diatoms for the first month which supported the evidence of low levels of ammonia.  A few hardy fish will be fine until your tank has had a chance to mature.
 
If your ammonia is stuck at 3ppm then sorry that's no good!

 

[EthanF]

nope my ammonia is 0 and nitrite 0 within 24 hours however in 12 hours it is not, sooo... what is your comments time space describing? 12 or 24 hours?

 

[daizeUK]

If your nitrite reads zero in 12 hours that's good.  I wouldn't get fish with more than 0.25ppm ammonia on any time frame though.

 

[EthanF]

okay thanks  for the help really appreciated

 

[TwoTankAmin]

24 hours is the correct time frame.
 
daize- diatoms do not consume ammonia, they are almost all autotrophic photosynthesizers. The one thing they do need is silica. A lack of silica is usually what ends diatom blooms. And they are essentially microalgae. Here is some good info on them in fw tanks http/badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article85.html
 
I still maintain your .25 reading was not real. You can not possibly have ammonia showing for that long and not have any nitrite readings, it is pretty much not possible.

 

[daizeUK]

Thanks for the info on diatoms TTA!  The usual theory I hear is that they are an indicator of trace levels of ammonia so I took that as confirmation of the API kit readings.  Very interesting.