TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
I do not think your nitrite reading is accurate. I think something is giving you a false reading. Here is why.
Lets examine the chemistry here. You add 3 ppm of ammonia and all other things being equal, the max. nitrite this can make is about 7.65 ppm. So when you test the next day and you have 0 ammonia, we know that as much as 7.65 ppm of nitrite was created from this. Then you test nitrite and it comes up as being 2 ppm. That means your tank was able to process 5.65 ppm of nitrite in 24 hours. Because there is still about 2 ppm of nitrite left, the bacteria will multiply. Now lets be slow here and say it takes a full 24 hours for the nitrite bacs to double when there is sufficient excess nitrite present to require that. But the amount your tank processed was 5.65 ppm and is double what is left. So to increase the capacity of the colony you already have, it doesn't have to double it barely has to increase by 50%. This then should be about 1/2 day.
Your nitrite reads 0 the 2nd day which means it too was processed. But it also means there should be more nitrite bacs present than when the ammonia went in. However, when you repeat the ammonia addition, instead of coming up 0/0 the next day, you get 0/2. It appears as if the nitrite bacs have not reproduced at all. This should not be the case. If it was possible for this to happen, how could anybody ever get a tank completely cycled?
So what you are reporting should theoretically not be possible. The is especially true when you consider that each time the excess appears to be 2 ppm of nitrite each time. Not more and not less but the exact same number. And that is also not a common ocurrance. That reading should change but it doesn't. And that leads me to think that reading must not be correct.
Lets examine the chemistry here. You add 3 ppm of ammonia and all other things being equal, the max. nitrite this can make is about 7.65 ppm. So when you test the next day and you have 0 ammonia, we know that as much as 7.65 ppm of nitrite was created from this. Then you test nitrite and it comes up as being 2 ppm. That means your tank was able to process 5.65 ppm of nitrite in 24 hours. Because there is still about 2 ppm of nitrite left, the bacteria will multiply. Now lets be slow here and say it takes a full 24 hours for the nitrite bacs to double when there is sufficient excess nitrite present to require that. But the amount your tank processed was 5.65 ppm and is double what is left. So to increase the capacity of the colony you already have, it doesn't have to double it barely has to increase by 50%. This then should be about 1/2 day.
Your nitrite reads 0 the 2nd day which means it too was processed. But it also means there should be more nitrite bacs present than when the ammonia went in. However, when you repeat the ammonia addition, instead of coming up 0/0 the next day, you get 0/2. It appears as if the nitrite bacs have not reproduced at all. This should not be the case. If it was possible for this to happen, how could anybody ever get a tank completely cycled?
So what you are reporting should theoretically not be possible. The is especially true when you consider that each time the excess appears to be 2 ppm of nitrite each time. Not more and not less but the exact same number. And that is also not a common ocurrance. That reading should change but it doesn't. And that leads me to think that reading must not be correct.