Cycling With Fish Diary

[mbsqw1d]

Im trying to get my hands on some gravel from a mature tank, but wouldnt 0ppm ammonia starve the bacteria.

I have just swapped my gravel for sand. You wouldn't live near Chester would you?

is that near Edmonton Alberta ,Canada

unfortunately not. Chester as in United Kingdom. sorry.

 

[darenshan54]

####, i tested my tap water for ammonia result: 0.25ppm? is it that the test tube is dirty or .... api test is messed up

 

[OldMan47]

It may be that the test tube is dirty or you are testing wrong or you may have my problem. In my tap water there is a bit of ammonia from the chloramine breaking down to ammonia and chlorine. Before I dechlorinate the tap water mine reads a nice zero. Name brand dechlorinators are designed to not only dechlorinate but to also make the ammonia take on the less damaging form. It does not remove it but makes that bit of ammonia less toxic to the fish while the filter theoretically gets rid of the ammonia. Unfortunately you do not yet have a functional filter that can do that.

 

[glolite]

Hi Darren

I don't know where you come from but in the UK there is a dechlorinator which neutralises ammonia and nitrite. It is called Seachem Prime, is about the same price as other dechlorinators but is very concentrated, so will last ages. You still have to cycle the tank but it may reduce the amount of water changes you are having to do.

Hope this helps

 

[darenshan54]

the wierdest thing is that the tap water reads more ammonia ppm, than my aquarium water. Im using big als water conditioner, so i don't think is a big name brand

 

[glolite]

No that's not weird, my tapwater has a 0.25 reading but my filters are matured enough to cope with it, with the help of dechlorinators of course. Water companies do sometimes add a lot of chlorine and other heavy chemicals.

You could try doubling the dose of dechlorintor though, while your filter is cycling, most of them are pretty difficult to overdose. Just check the label first to make sure it's ok. With seachem prime it says you can add up to 7 times the recommended dose in emergency situations, like if you had a huge ammonia/nitrite spike in a mature tank. I wouldn't suggest you do that though, as it could affect your cycle.