question about water levels....

djmodifyd

djmodifyd

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Jan 26, 2006
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Bondurant, IA
www.djmodifyd.com
I'm still trying to get my tank to cycle.....and i have a question

over the last few days, my ph, nitrate, and nitrite have stayed the exact same

ph: 8.2
nitrate: 10ppm
nitrite: .25 ppm

but my ammonia has been steadily increasing... from .25 ppm upto 4ppm today

i have no fish....but i'm wondering why my ammonia keeps increasing? i'm not adding any.

should i do a water change.....or just leave it and see what happens?

thank you
alex
 
What was the original source of ammonia? Anything organic in the tank (food, plants, mulm from another setup, etc)?
 
OrionGirl said:
What was the original source of ammonia? Anything organic in the tank (food, plants, mulm from another setup, etc)?
Click to expand...


it was set up before this...but i did a 75% water change and dug really well into the gravel....

the only thing in there is lace rock, and fake plants.
MAYBE a little bit of food left in there...but i don't think so.


so basically...nothing that i know of besides maybe leftovers from the old setup
 
You're not really seeing ammonia in the tap water. It's chloramine, which is a bound form of ammonia and chlorine. The kit can't tell the difference so it reads it as ammonia.

Use Prime to detoxify the ammonia. You can then either ignore any reading under 1ppm, or buy a SeaChem Total Ammonia test kit. It's a two step kit that will test for Free and Total (Ionized) Ammonia. It will tell you how much is bound ammonia -- okay -- and how much is not bound ammonia (not okay).

At 2ppm, yes water change it out.


Roan
 
Roan Art said:
You're not really seeing ammonia in the tap water. It's chloramine, which is a bound form of ammonia and chlorine. The kit can't tell the difference so it reads it as ammonia.

Use Prime to detoxify the ammonia. You can then either ignore any reading under 1ppm, or buy a SeaChem Total Ammonia test kit. It's a two step kit that will test for Free and Total (Ionized) Ammonia. It will tell you how much is bound ammonia -- okay -- and how much is not bound ammonia (not okay).

At 2ppm, yes water change it out.


Roan
Click to expand...

ok.....will do...i don't want to have her fishies hurt!


should i just leave my tank for now? just kind of a fishless cycle going? my lfs said leave it for a week or so and test it again to see what all the levels are at....since i don't have anything in the tank that the ammonia could harm
 
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