I'm setting up a small 10g tank, and instead of waiting the month for a fishless cycle using ammonia to complete, I decided to give Bio-Spira a try. However, before I added Bio-Spira to the tank, I dosed it with enough ammonia to get a 5ppm reading. I then added the Bio-Spira. If the Bio-Spira worked as advertised, the ammonia should magically disappear within a few days.
Well, in about 3 days the ammonia did in fact disappear. I checked for nitrates and there were nitrates present. I was like "wow ... this stuff really works". Since I didn't have any fish to stick in the tank yet, I decided to do a "maintenance dose" of ammonia to keep the bacteria alive so they won't starve to death. So I dosed it with enough ammonia to get a reading of about 3ppm.
It's been almost a week and a half later, and there is still ammonia in the tank
. It's not as high as 3ppm, but the color indicator is a yellow-green and not just yellow indicating that there is still some ammonia in the tank. Anybody have any ideas as to what went wrong here? Perhaps I exceeded the bio-filtering capacity of the bio-wheel in the filter? The filter I'm using is the one built into the Eclipse 1 hood. Since some of the ammonia got consumed but not all, thats probably the most reasonable hypothesis. However, I'd like some input from others as well.
I suppose one way to help confirm this is to do a 100% water change, then dose it with enough ammonia to read only 1ppm or something. Then see if the ammonia disappears entirely. If it does, then I'm probably right. If it doesn't, then I'll really be confused!
Well, in about 3 days the ammonia did in fact disappear. I checked for nitrates and there were nitrates present. I was like "wow ... this stuff really works". Since I didn't have any fish to stick in the tank yet, I decided to do a "maintenance dose" of ammonia to keep the bacteria alive so they won't starve to death. So I dosed it with enough ammonia to get a reading of about 3ppm.
It's been almost a week and a half later, and there is still ammonia in the tank
. It's not as high as 3ppm, but the color indicator is a yellow-green and not just yellow indicating that there is still some ammonia in the tank. Anybody have any ideas as to what went wrong here? Perhaps I exceeded the bio-filtering capacity of the bio-wheel in the filter? The filter I'm using is the one built into the Eclipse 1 hood. Since some of the ammonia got consumed but not all, thats probably the most reasonable hypothesis. However, I'd like some input from others as well.I suppose one way to help confirm this is to do a 100% water change, then dose it with enough ammonia to read only 1ppm or something. Then see if the ammonia disappears entirely. If it does, then I'm probably right. If it doesn't, then I'll really be confused!
