So.....I have a pretty confusing issue. I have a 200g aquarium that have had up and running for a few weeks now.
I have yet to have any ammonia, nitrite or nitrates show up. The latter two are not really a surprise but the first one is.
For the first week I only had 3 2" fish in the tank so my thought was there simply wasn't enough bio-load to register meaningful ammonia compared to the volume of the tank.
However, over the last 10 days I have added 40 fish. They are all small fish so this should not be an unreasonable high bio-load. But it certinaly shouldn't be 0 after a week. My pH is ~5.8 so I am not worried about ammonia poisoning too much but I am very confused about why I am not getting a reading.
- I am using an API test kit.
- I tried opening a new one and got the same result.
- I am getting positive readings from other tanks that are cycling
This is baffling me. I am toying with the idea of running to the store tomorrow and getting some of the paper strips to see if they have a different answer.
I have yet to have any ammonia, nitrite or nitrates show up. The latter two are not really a surprise but the first one is.
For the first week I only had 3 2" fish in the tank so my thought was there simply wasn't enough bio-load to register meaningful ammonia compared to the volume of the tank.
However, over the last 10 days I have added 40 fish. They are all small fish so this should not be an unreasonable high bio-load. But it certinaly shouldn't be 0 after a week. My pH is ~5.8 so I am not worried about ammonia poisoning too much but I am very confused about why I am not getting a reading.
- I am using an API test kit.
- I tried opening a new one and got the same result.
- I am getting positive readings from other tanks that are cycling
This is baffling me. I am toying with the idea of running to the store tomorrow and getting some of the paper strips to see if they have a different answer.