I'm still having weird ammonia problems. So originally my tap tested 2ppm ammonia but when I went to test my first cycling tank it was insane for nitrites and nitrates. I left a dish of tap water sit and I got more like 4-5ppm ammonia. I've been through 3 api ammonia kits and 2 tests later on a stocked tank with a seachem kit that matched the api
So I got an RO unit and seachem equilibrium and alkaline buffer. The ro water tested 0 everything including tds. This is the only time I have gotten a true 0 reading on ammonia. I always get a small positive ammonia on all water but the straight RO. It's just not quite the color of 0. If I put the ro water in a plastic container and immediately add buffer I gain 1ppm ammonia per day on the water sitting there. No matter how much I buffer and 2 different kinds of plastic containers including the ones the betta breeders use for spawning. I went back to using glass tanks for mixing my water. I still get .25-.5 ammonia increase a day whether I leave the buffer out or heavily buffer it as soon as the water is deep enough to run the powerhead. I use seachem prime and seachem assured me it should not be causing any false readings, but I'm wondering about the equilibrium now. Some ingredient in it really does not mix into my RO water at all and makes a brown precipitate
Once water is in a tank the ammonia gets processed to the equivalent nitrate and then the nitrates stop going up. Most of my tanks still only test 20ppm or less so I've been running the ammonia positive water through the biggest tanks and taking the cycled water out for the small tanks. I'd like to solve this mystery though.
So I got an RO unit and seachem equilibrium and alkaline buffer. The ro water tested 0 everything including tds. This is the only time I have gotten a true 0 reading on ammonia. I always get a small positive ammonia on all water but the straight RO. It's just not quite the color of 0. If I put the ro water in a plastic container and immediately add buffer I gain 1ppm ammonia per day on the water sitting there. No matter how much I buffer and 2 different kinds of plastic containers including the ones the betta breeders use for spawning. I went back to using glass tanks for mixing my water. I still get .25-.5 ammonia increase a day whether I leave the buffer out or heavily buffer it as soon as the water is deep enough to run the powerhead. I use seachem prime and seachem assured me it should not be causing any false readings, but I'm wondering about the equilibrium now. Some ingredient in it really does not mix into my RO water at all and makes a brown precipitate
Once water is in a tank the ammonia gets processed to the equivalent nitrate and then the nitrates stop going up. Most of my tanks still only test 20ppm or less so I've been running the ammonia positive water through the biggest tanks and taking the cycled water out for the small tanks. I'd like to solve this mystery though.