Did i use to much ammonia??

J

Jeffd1979

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Nov 18, 2003
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Well here is the story.. I set up a 40 gallon tank about 5 weeks ago... this is a fish only tank no live rock.. i used 25 lbs of southdown sand and 25 lbs of live sand mixed together as the substrate. My LFS gave me 3 damsels to cycle the tank with.. well i did that for about 3 weeks and never saw any readings on my ammonia, nitrate or nitrite tests.. so about 2 weeks ago i returned the damsels to the LFS and got a bottle of Pure ammonia.. i poured in about 2 1/2 cap fulls untile the readings were at about 5.0ppm (or so i thought) well after 2 weeks my readings are now as follows

ammonia 5.0 ppm (looks like it has not changed)
Nitrites 4.0 ppm
Nitrates 30ppm

not sure if it matters but Ph is at 8.2

So it appears that my nitrites and nitrates and coming along nicely but the ammonia seems to not have moved. IF i did use to much will that hurt anything besides take it longer to cycle?
 
wow, 2 and 1/2 cups seems like a whole lot to me. I've never cycled this way but I would guess in a tank that size 1/10th of a cup or maybe 1/8th would have been plenty... Maybe doing it two times over the course of a week at the most.

did you also make sure it was pure ammonia, no other chem's in it for making it smell good?
 
Originally posted by Guy W
wow, 2 and 1/2 cups seems like a whole lot to me. I've never cycled this way but I would guess in a tank that size 1/10th of a cup or maybe 1/8th would have been plenty... Maybe doing it two times over the course of a week at the most.

did you also make sure it was pure ammonia, no other chem's in it for making it smell good?
Click to expand...

2 1/2 Cap fulls not cups... Yes it was pure clear ammonia.. (smelled horrible)
 
sorry, miss read your post... it was getting late :rolleyes:

Aside from the sand what other filtration do you have in the tank? 50lbs of sand seems like it probably isn't quite enough of a biological filter bed by itself.
 
Originally posted by Guy W
sorry, miss read your post... it was getting late :rolleyes:

Aside from the sand what other filtration do you have in the tank? 50lbs of sand seems like it probably isn't quite enough of a biological filter bed by itself.
Click to expand...

I am guessing at the lbs... i know for sure i used 25lbs of the live sand.. the Other sand came in a 50lb bag and i was just guessing at how much i put in.. may be more.. i have a good 3-4 inch base in there.... here is a pic
salt1.jpg


the damsels in the pic have been taken out since i put the ammonia in.. Don't want to scare anyone :p

I am using a emperor 280 filter as well.. the LFS sold me some of these bio stars to put in the cage the comes with the emperor as well as just the reg filter element in there...
 
Update:
My ammonia today is down to 1.0 ppm
my nitrites are up to 5.0 ppm
my nitrates are at 40ppm

I assume the nitrites will take about 4-6 more days to clear up.. after this happens i am guessing my nitrates will be at about 80ppm.. how big of a water change should i do?
 
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