Yellow but not a bright yellow

[Jerry Sem]

I just added 16 Cardinal Tetras and 6 Otocinlus cats in my heavily planted 60 gal aquarium with 11 Zebra Danios that were already residence. Today when I tested the water my API showed yellow but it was just slightly off. My wife sais it was still yellow. I would say it's less than .1 ppm Ammonia. is this ok and will it adjust back to a yellow yellow (0ppm). Going to clean my filter tomorrow. I also added about 15 SeaChem root tabs yesterday too.

 

[Byron]

Taking "well planted" to mean just that, you are not going to have ammonia issues from adding fish, regardless of how many (within reason obviously). The plants need nitrogen, and plants use ammonia/ammonium and can assimilate a lot of it.

As for the 0.1 ppm ammonia, do you by any chance have chloramine (instead of chlorine) added to your city water? If yes, this is probably the answer. Chloramine is a combination of ammonia and chlorine, and during the first 24 hours ammonia often shows, but at these very low levels.

 

[Jerry Sem]

No chloramine, I have tested. My wife says it was yellow and it was, but just not like the yellow that I've seen. Of course it might be my 66 year old eyes and my kitchen light today.

 

[Essjay]

What type of light is in the kitchen? Fluorescent lights are known to make the water look a bit greener than it really is. If possible, read the test under daylight but not bright sunlight.

 

[Byron]

@Essjay raises a very significant point, one I had forgotten earlier. The light youuse to read test results is important because all light is a mix of colour wavelengths and "white" can be incredibly different from source to source. Always use daylight, but not direct sunlight, never any artificial light. I stand by the back window which is bright but not ever in sun, facing north as it happens, but the light is always the same and renders a true colour for any object.

I remember many years ago buying a shirt in a department store, and when I got it home, the colour was so far off what it appeared in the store I thought it was a different shirt.

 

[Jerry Sem]

That's it. Thats why my wife saw it differently. I was up in my kitchen under the fluorescent light them went outside on my deck for "better lighting". My wife was in the family room under normal lighting and saw it yellow.