Nitrates appeared, now totally gone

[pyro9097]

Hi All,

Attempting to fishless cycle my 25g bowfront freshwater tank. Last night I tested my water with the API MasterKit and got extremely excited, my NitrAte reading was between 80-160ppm. I have been cycling with pure ammonia for almost 6 weeks now, so I thought that this was happening at just the right time. I just tested and got a clear 5ppm on the NitrAte test.

Both times the tube was inverted several times after the addition of test solution 1, and test solution 2 was shaken vigoursly for 30 seconds. After adding the 10 drops, I shook the tube vigorously for 1 minute.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what could have caused the false positive yesterday? Also I've read about the importance of shaking the bottles, but never actually what happens if you don't, is a false positive or false negative what happens?

Thanks in advance! I'm off to retest...

 

[Bloodroot]

false positives normally come from contamination of the tube you are testing in... well that is at least the case at the lab I work at. How did uou clean your test tube between readings? And did you use the same tube both times?

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[Bloodroot]

Guess I could add. When I do any tests I rinse the tubes out in the sink. I fill them up and dump them out 5 times. And make sure to rinse the lids just as well. I then let them dry out and when I go to take the water out of the tank I actually rinse them 5 times with the tank water by dipping them in and pouring them back out.

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[Mebbid]

If you don't shake the bottles properly it results in a false negative on the nitrate test. I still screw it up once in a while so if I get a 0 reading on a test I will double check it.

 

[pyro9097]

As far as cleaning goes, I rinse both the tube and cap 3 times, fill up the tube, cap it, shake, and then rinse two more times. All of this is done in hot water. I then leave the tubes to air dry until the next day.

I decided to try a bit of detective work and re did the test twice. I shook one tube (tube a) and did not shake the other (tube b) after adding solution #1. Tube a gave a reading of 5, just like my original one from last night. Tube b gave A highly elevated result. My fiancée was helping me do the tests two nights ago, and now I'm thinking that I forgot to tell her to invert the tube as she was doing the test :/

Hopefully the nitrates will appear for real soon, we would love to get some fish in the tank! Thanks so much for your replies


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[pyro9097]

Just an update (for anyone who may have a similar thing happen)...

I just tested the water and the Nitrite was 0.25!! The NitrAte is again very high (for real this time hopefully), so I think I'm almost there. Hopefully next weekend, I'll be ready to have some new roommates?!