Water Testing

[x_leanne_x]

thanks for your reply, i couldn't find ammonia but i bought some fish food today and added tetra safe start to the tank, the ammonia level has gone back down to 0 today, still no change with nitrite and nitrate levels but they may have been higher between satuday and tuesday as I wasn't around and didn't test them! I've got to take a sample of water to the LFS tomorrow for them to test but if the reading aren't different tomorrow I'll add some food and see if it goes anywhere!

 

[Angel_Queen]

You can buy ammonia from boots or homeware stores like homebase. Make sure it is pure ammonia and has no other chemicals added. The food will not do as much as pure ammonia will do IMHO. The cycle will take lot longer!

Good luck

 

[rdd1952]

The readings probably won't have changed by tomorrow. The fish food will not have had time to decay and produce a measurable amount of ammonia in that time and since there isn't any ammonia currently in the tank, there won't be any nitrite or nitrate either. You probably know how the nitrogen cycle works but just in case you don't, here is a simplified version.

Ammonia is produced by fish through waste or emitted from their gills or in the case of a fishless cycle, is added to the tank by us. Bacteria convert ammonia, which is highly toxic to fish, into nitrite (also highly toxic) Nitrite is then converted by a different type of bacteria into nitrate. Nitrate is toxic but only at high levels (over 100 ppm) and is removed with weekly water changes. So if you don't have ammonia in the tank, you will never have nitrite or nitrate.