Help! Fishless Cycle With Ammonia Problem!

[Skorbitz]

I set my tank up today and added some ammonia, little less than a capfull maybe and let it circulate for 30mins.

When I did the test for ammonia it says 0ppm! I did THREE tests to be sure and still!

This is the right ammonia, my friend used the same and the tank is a 29g

 

[fluttermoth]

Have a look at your filter media.
 
We had someone a couple of months ago with the same issue and it turned out they had a chemical sponge in their filter. If you have one, replace it for a normal sponge.

 

[Skorbitz]

Have a look at your filter media.
 
We had someone a couple of months ago with the same issue and it turned out they had a chemical sponge in their filter. If you have one, replace it for a normal sponge.

 
The filter is new out of the box (Aquaclear 50) though?

 

[tmoney7]

Look at what it comes with for the different inserts for the filter i just got my aquaclear 20 and it came with a sponge filter, carbon filter, and biomax filter.  I would assume that they would give the same ones for all of the different sizes but things do happen so just check on what it says it comes with for filters

 

[shelbycole]

I'm having the same issue, even after removing the carbon, my kit reads 0.25 every time, no matter how much I add.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Hobby test kits are not made to test huge overdoses of things. Please watch the video below. Please not he telly you thhe problem he is about to illistrate with nitrite kits applies to the other hobby test kits. And when he says the Hach kit is a little better, that is a gross understatement.
 
[media]https/www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPiDRid_Km8[/media]

 

[Ch4rlie]

TTA - hugely informative from Dr Tim's clip.
 
Actually am quite surprised at the differences shown, and must remember to give the correct values when asking advice on any tests. 
Normally I use the API test kit, but this clip has given me doubt to trust it completely.
 
Have had a quick look on internet on the cost of these Hach test kit, kinda pricey TBH.
 
Hmm........
 
Think will try the diluted tests just to see for myself if any difference to my normal way of testing and like the tips given to make sure you get the water test from below the surface of water to avoid oils and scum from the water surface. 
 
Thanks for that informative clip, bit of an eye opener, I know that you have tried to explain this on other threads, but once you see for yourself and actually understand how the process works and happens then I could understand where you were coming from.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Here it the thing. Hobby test kits are what most folks use. If you understand where their short coming are, then you can find work arounds.
 
What can be the bigger problem is that most folks put way to much faith in test results without knowing enough about when they might be wrong.
 
Being able to use kits to their best advantage takes knowing both about the kits but also the things they are measuring. If you put 5 ppm of ammonia in, you should get 12-13 ppm of nitrite out. So if you see the ammonia dropping towards 0 but do not see the nitrite rising to off the scale on an API Kit (i.e. over 5 ppm) ask yourself why the kits are not reflecting what you know should be happening. Sometimes there is a good reason and sometimes there is something out of whack.
 
If you add ammonia, you should be able to test for ammonia. If you can't, either the ammonia or the test kit is bad or you mis-dosed ammonia so it is so high the kit says it is low or not there. And there are ways you can check for this. Diluted tests are one way.
 
We have no info on tank size or anything else, a capfull is not a measurement the last time I looked. Please provide as many deatails as you can come up with and maybe we can help with your issue

 

[Ch4rlie]

Absolutely, that makes a lot of sense.
 
Extremely good to know these sort of things.
 
Also agree about 'half capfuls' or 'inner capfuls' of whatever is basically next to useless, I measure in ml using syringes and this is what I've recommended on my posts other threads in the past .