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[oswoldy]

Difficult to see properly but I would agree at around 4 - same test kit as mine

I would leave for an hour after doing the water change before testing - as you may have for a more accurate read, so if you did wait that should be ok.

How is the tank water looking - clear, cloudy or murky? mine goes cloudy for a few hours after adding the ammonia.

Paul.

Paul,
The problem is I have not added any Ammonia that test was taken 1-2hours after a 40% water change!

Mike

 

[waterdrop]

You can't trust the color of pictures transferred via digital computers for something like test shades, so there's no way any of us can judge as accurately as you. Nonetheless, what you're showing us could easily be too high. At around 8ppm ammonia level, the wrong species of bacteria grow and this causes a complicated stall of the fishless cycling process. The wrong species gets established in the best spots on the biomedia and then when the ammonia level drops back down below 8ppm, this species dies off but it takes time for its spots to clear out and the correct species to re-establish in those spots and grow new biofilm, so the stall-out period ends up being longer than you would think (but still unpredictable.

Anyway, hopefully you've identified your problem and now can stay closer to a level that looks like 4ppm on the chart and things will get off to a better start.

~~waterdrop~~