ammonia is getting lower but nitrite still 0

[sith j]

i have a 10 gal that has been running for almost four weeks, i have some tetras in it. the ammonia has been off the chart at times and have done a lot of 25% pwc to keep the ammonia down. for the last 7 days the ammonia has went down to .5 and not climbing. but not seeing any nitrites or nitrates, both at zero. I am following the direction to a t on the tests. i am using an ap master test kit. i have a pengiun 150 as a hob filter. have gravel substrate and no live plants. my ph is 7.0 and the only thing i havent tested is the phosphate level. fish are doing great. just hoping im not stalled

thanks for anyone help

sith j

 

[malkore]

make sure you REALLY shake up the nitrite reagent bottle. same for nitrate test bottle #2.

my guess is that its a light bioload, so the nitrite levels are gonna creep up on you unexpectedly. the AP kit is good, but it'll likely miss finding .25ppm of nitrite , and won't register til at least .5ppm. Just keep testing it daily. you may not get a wicked high nitrite spike, but I'd expect to see 1ppm or so in the near future.

if its not a planted tank, skip the phosphate testing.

 

[sith j]

i have these fish in the tank, which is to many to not be cycled. but didnt know about cycling when i purchased the fish. they are doing good.

3 neon tetra
2 gold skirted tetra
1 lamp eye tetra
1 fancy gupppy

 

[TomK2]

Well, you still have ammonia, so you haven't finished that phase. I would have thought that you would see nitrite since ammonia no longer climbs. A little puzzling, but I would just wait it out. Sure, we could consider test kit error, operator error (i know, you have been careful), bad test kit too. I suppose you could have the water tested by another kit, your LFS might do this for you.

Glad your fish are doing well. It sure takes a lot of work (PWC) when you have too many fish in an uncycled tank, and you seem to have kept up with it. You could also test your tap water to make sure you don't have a positive ammonia result with tap water. Municiple tap water supplies can add chloramine to the water, which tests positive on the ammonia test.