Hello! Newbie here. I've been keeping a betta or three and even successfully bred and raised a group of fry of them a couple years ago. I recently decided to get some fancy goldfish for the kids so I'm doing a fishless cycle in a 10 gallon right now. I know that's not big enough for several goldfish and will get a 40 or 50 soon.
I bought a API master freshwater test kit yesterday to monitor the fishless cycle. Anyway since I have the liquid tests now I tested the water my betta is in (2.5 gal) for ammonia and it read 1 ppm. This was last night (Wednesday) after a 100% water change Saturday and a partial since. So I did another partial and tested it again when I got home from work today and it's the same. This makes absolutely no sense to me. He is not being overfed and there is nothing in the tank except him.
For a control I took a gallon of my tap water treated with 3 drops of Prime, let it sit for an hour and tested it. It reads 0.5 ppm! Just did API strip tests on the water from the betta tank AND the treated tap water read 0 ammonia.
This is driving me nuts.
I bought a API master freshwater test kit yesterday to monitor the fishless cycle. Anyway since I have the liquid tests now I tested the water my betta is in (2.5 gal) for ammonia and it read 1 ppm. This was last night (Wednesday) after a 100% water change Saturday and a partial since. So I did another partial and tested it again when I got home from work today and it's the same. This makes absolutely no sense to me. He is not being overfed and there is nothing in the tank except him.
For a control I took a gallon of my tap water treated with 3 drops of Prime, let it sit for an hour and tested it. It reads 0.5 ppm! Just did API strip tests on the water from the betta tank AND the treated tap water read 0 ammonia.
This is driving me nuts.