An I Doing It Right?

[SteM]

So Friday I picked up some household ammonia from homebase, used the calculator which told me 9.5 ml needed to get me 180 litre to 5ppm, so added it tested it sat and it was around 2 ppm so added more and tested some hours later, it was about 5ppm, tested again this morning and it was about 0.5ppm? Is this right?

 

[snazy]

What's the type of ammonia you bought? It may not be 9.5%. How did you test 5ppm ammonia because on my API liquid test it's impossible. I can't even make a great difference between the higher amounts of ammonia
As for the ammonia going down, are you using a new filter or have you seeded the filter with mature filter media? Sometimes the ammonia goes down quite fast, in a few days after the cycle has started so it's possible.
Test the nitrItes as well.

 

[SteM]

It's the homebase own brand some other members have stated that it is 9.5%, well it was a bit darker than 4ppm but not quite as dark as 8 so i just assumed 5 yea it's a new filter but the tank has been running for 2 or 3 weeks before I added the ammonia, ill test for nitrite in the next hour and ill post the reading here, also yesterday I added some plants

 

[SteM]

Just tested nitrite and it's at 5ppm, so does this mean my cycle has started?

 

[snazy]

Yep,

 

[SteM]

Will it be ok til next Friday without adding more ammonia as I'm 2 hours away from home during the week?