My 75g tank (now fishless except for a small arrow crab and a plethora of brittle worms), in its 11th day, is still reading 8.0+ ammonia, but today nitrites have dropped to 0.25PPM (from a high of 2.0). I did a 30% or so water change yesterday, but after the change they were still much higher.
The water change hasn't affected ammonia at all (it must have been really high). Another 30% change coming later today to try and get that down.
My test kit seems accurate, still get the baseline 0.5 from the tap, and 1.0 from my quarantine tank (which is also due for a water change, but 10g is easy to manage).
Is it possible for the nitrite-eating bacteria to be ahead of the nitrite bacteria in a cycle?
Also, last week I did use ammo-loc and amquel+, is it possible that I'm reading residual non-toxic ammonia that's not being handled by bacteria? Or maybe the amquel killed off the nitrites...
The water change hasn't affected ammonia at all (it must have been really high). Another 30% change coming later today to try and get that down.
My test kit seems accurate, still get the baseline 0.5 from the tap, and 1.0 from my quarantine tank (which is also due for a water change, but 10g is easy to manage).
Is it possible for the nitrite-eating bacteria to be ahead of the nitrite bacteria in a cycle?
Also, last week I did use ammo-loc and amquel+, is it possible that I'm reading residual non-toxic ammonia that's not being handled by bacteria? Or maybe the amquel killed off the nitrites...