Hi all,
OK, so this is a long story which I will try to keep short. I purchased a brand new aquarium 3 weeks ago, 130 litre Aquaone. I decided that I would do a fish-in cycle, having had success with this method before. I filled that tank with gravel and plants (fake) and let it sit for a couple of days. I then introduced 6 guppies to start my cycle. At the same time I purchased several individual water quality test kits; ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I tested the water for the first time after about 5 days of initially setting up the aquarium and to my suprise I had no ammonia, relatively high nitrites and some nitrates. After several more days of testing and being annoyed at the difficulty in distinguishing colours of test results I bought myself an API matertest kit...much better and clearer. I have been testing the water everyday for the past 2 weeks (3 weeks in total) and I still have not seen any ammonia at all. I guess my main question is could I have missed the occurence of ammonia? As I have fish in the aquarium I am assuming that ammonia is being produced? It does appear that nitrites rose and have now started dropping (possibly due to several small water changes) and that nitrates certainly did increase.
I guess I just want to know whether I have done something wrong or whether the ammonia spike was very fast and quite low that I missed it. I understand the nitrogen cycle and the various methods of cycling a tank, however any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance and please feel free to ask any questions. I want to get to the bottom of this before I started stocking proper.
OK, so this is a long story which I will try to keep short. I purchased a brand new aquarium 3 weeks ago, 130 litre Aquaone. I decided that I would do a fish-in cycle, having had success with this method before. I filled that tank with gravel and plants (fake) and let it sit for a couple of days. I then introduced 6 guppies to start my cycle. At the same time I purchased several individual water quality test kits; ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I tested the water for the first time after about 5 days of initially setting up the aquarium and to my suprise I had no ammonia, relatively high nitrites and some nitrates. After several more days of testing and being annoyed at the difficulty in distinguishing colours of test results I bought myself an API matertest kit...much better and clearer. I have been testing the water everyday for the past 2 weeks (3 weeks in total) and I still have not seen any ammonia at all. I guess my main question is could I have missed the occurence of ammonia? As I have fish in the aquarium I am assuming that ammonia is being produced? It does appear that nitrites rose and have now started dropping (possibly due to several small water changes) and that nitrates certainly did increase.
I guess I just want to know whether I have done something wrong or whether the ammonia spike was very fast and quite low that I missed it. I understand the nitrogen cycle and the various methods of cycling a tank, however any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance and please feel free to ask any questions. I want to get to the bottom of this before I started stocking proper.