Ammonia At 8ppm!

[Paavn]

i started my fishless cycle and my ammonia readings are at 8ppm using the API test kit
i was using the strips that i had got from a friend and i had no idea the test readings would be so skewed because the strip shows the ammonia level at less than 3ppm. i read in one of the threads that a 8ppm kills the bacteria culture
should i do a partial water change or is it not necessary to do a water change at this point?

 

[LauraFrog]

I would do a partial water change - about 50% - and then after letting it settle for half an hour, check the ammonia levels again and bump it up to 5ppm. 8ppm does not kill the bacteria colony but it selects for the wrong species of bacteria, so that when you put fish in the tank, the bacteria (which are used to ammonia being very high) will not have enough ammonia to feed on and will die - resulting in a fish in cycle which is exactly what you are trying to avoid.

How far through the cycle were you? I did this once in my first week, didn't bother to water change, and my cycle has progressed normally. If you're cycling a very large tank doing a water change will probably be a complete pain in the butt.

 

[Paavn]

im not that far into the cycle yet, so far today is the second day since i put in the ammonia
and as for my tank size its a 30 gallon tank.
i take that it should be fine if i leave the water the way it is....

 

[LauraFrog]

I'd just leave it. Are you using mature filter media? It's safer if you are using mature filter media because the correct species of bacteria is already there, so the chance of unintentionally growing the wrong one is less.

 

[Paavn]

im not using mature filter media....
its my first tank ever. i went to a pretty well established LFS and owner told me they did not sell any mature filter media nor did they give any out just incase it had something else in the media besides beneficial bacteria. this did make alot of sense.
i had to run to class or i would have done the water change. i'll just do a partial water change to be on the safe side.
i got the fluval ceramic media for my empty filter cartraidge as extra room to cultivate the bacteria till my bio wheel matures then was planning on using it as a prefilter.

 

[LauraFrog]

I'm using Fluval at the moment (biomax) it's really great media for biological filtration and my cycle time was very low using it (although admittedly I did put in an awful lot of mature media). There are people on this forum who'll donate mature media if you wanted to speed it up, and if you can get hold of a product called Bio-spira, that's supposed to work a lot of the time as well.

But yeah, you will still eventually cycle the tank without it... it just takes ages.

 

[Schmill]

How did you dose your ammonia, how did you work out how much to put it? Seems you may have overdosed if you were just adding it until the dip-sticks said 5ppm.
I'd do as said above, and do a water change, to bring the level down to a more reasonable point. Also post on here what concentration your ammonia solution is, and then we can tell you how much you need to add to take your tank from 0ppm to 5ppm

 

[waterdrop]

Ah Schmill, in USA they often don't put the concentration on the bottle, so it will be hit or miss.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Paavn]

i took a look at the list of members willing to give mature media but there was none on the list in my area or close to my area haha
i will do a partial water change and bring it down, the problem i have is that i cant find the concentration on my bottle. i googled it too but i couldnt find the concentration. its the walmart brand ammonia

 

[waterdrop]

Is is a walmart "gold" something or other? I think there was another member who used it and it was ok. Are you able to determine that its clear and doesn't foam (should just bubble like water when shaken.) ?

Don't worry about the concentration. Its better to do the little experiment with a couple gallons of water in a bucket like RDD describes in the article (I think.) You see how many drops (if you only have a dropper) or how much (if you have a marked syringe, which is best method) it takes to get to 5ppm and then write this down. You can then do the math to get you close to what you think your tank should need, always starting a little low and then using testing to ease up to the true 5ppm level for your final tank volume (which is always a little unpredictable anyway, due to gravel, decorations etc.) Don't forget that a mixing period (hour?) always helps to give a better ppm reading in a tank.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Paavn]

yea i checked the ammonia and it doesnt bubble or foam or have the white residue at the bottom. i just put too much because of the test strips i used werent accurate, but i have a water test kit now.

 

[waterdrop]

good, sounds like you're all set...

except have you picked up your "fish sunglasses" yet?

Since you're closer to Hollywood than the rest of us you may need these.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Paavn]

so after doing my water change the ammonia is still at 8ppm....
damn test strips!!!!

good, sounds like you're all set...

except have you picked up your "fish sunglasses" yet?

Since you're closer to Hollywood than the rest of us you may need these.

~~waterdrop~~

what are "fish sunglasses" ? i have a feeling im about to look retarded

 

[OldMan47]

Ditch the strips. You want to get a liquid reagent based test kit such as the API master freshwater kit or the Seachem equivalent.
The sunglasses looks to me to be some kind of reference to typical Hollywood star sunglasses to hide identity.

 

[andywg]

Have you considered that the water test solutions may be reading badly?

I have found the API kits to massively over read both ammonia and nitrate to the point I lost any and all faith in them and ceased using them. All the kits we use in the hobby are likely to fail positive (so they are far more likely to detect that which is not there than miss that which is).

If you are really that worried do a 50% water change, or even a 100% and start again. Otherwise just don't add any more until it starts to go down.