Tropical Fish Keeping banner

cycle help

2K views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  MinaMinaMina 
#1 ·
im cycling a tank well two, One with fish and one with out, For the one with, the ammonia tests are all different, the strips show .25 and the seachem test with the sensors, the sensor is supposed to go from green to blue, but it looks brown! it works on the fish less one tho. I had a nitrite spike then the nitrite went down but now I'm getting some ammonia again, unless my test kits are false.

My question is, i have 20 ppm nitrate in my tap water, so why after 3 weeks in the aquarium, trying to get it to cycle, my tests read

ammonia-.25 if its correct?
nitrites.25
nitrates .25! when my tap water had 20!!

how did it go down?
 
#2 ·

Those are some crazy numbers. Are your fish still alive in the tank with fish? Of course, you need to do a water change for the fish to survive. Be careful how much you're feeding the fish, because the nullifying or good bacteria, may not be in large enough numbers to handle the ammonia/waste, so you're still getting ammonia and therefore nitrites still, even though you are seeing a reading of nitrates. 20ppm seems high for tap water, what a drag! See what other say. I'd also just use the API liquid test kits, and make sure you shake the nitrate #2 bottle 2 minutes, as suggested here many times by Byron. These test kits are the most accurate.

Gwen
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top