I'm now at day 17 of my fishless cycle. Ammonia and Nitrite are dropping everyday (nitrite peaked at 2-5ppm). I'm topping ammonia up to 4ppm everyday, and so things seem to be progressing nicely.
Current parameters:
temp 84F, 7.6 pH, 0.5 ammonia, 0.25-0.5 nitrite, ~8 nitrate, 100 KH (was 180 at beginning of cycle), ~200 GH
However, I have a question about using the AP nitrite test kit. When I test for ammonia, the colour starts out yellow, and gets progressively darker until the 5 minute mark. When I test for nitrite, though, it goes dark immediately and then gets progressively "lighter" until the 5 minute mark. Is this normal? I seemed to recall, when I was fishy cycling, that the nitrite test went darker just as the ammonia test does. Is the backwards colour shift of the nitrite test a typical reading for the high levels in a fishless cycle? Today the nitrite test started at between 1-2ppm, and lightened to 0.25-0.5 at the end. I tested my tap water to see how it reacts, and it just stayed at 0 (light blue) the whole time.
mishi8
Current parameters:
temp 84F, 7.6 pH, 0.5 ammonia, 0.25-0.5 nitrite, ~8 nitrate, 100 KH (was 180 at beginning of cycle), ~200 GH
However, I have a question about using the AP nitrite test kit. When I test for ammonia, the colour starts out yellow, and gets progressively darker until the 5 minute mark. When I test for nitrite, though, it goes dark immediately and then gets progressively "lighter" until the 5 minute mark. Is this normal? I seemed to recall, when I was fishy cycling, that the nitrite test went darker just as the ammonia test does. Is the backwards colour shift of the nitrite test a typical reading for the high levels in a fishless cycle? Today the nitrite test started at between 1-2ppm, and lightened to 0.25-0.5 at the end. I tested my tap water to see how it reacts, and it just stayed at 0 (light blue) the whole time.
mishi8
And the test did go lighter to darker when I was fishy cycling, but that was with a really small bioload, so I'm wondering if the high ammonia during fishless has something to do with it.