doresy
Sometimes Right, Sometimes Wrong but ALWAYS certai
Just like to share from an 'old hand' at cycling 
I have been cycling my 240 ltr for several weeks now after using a fair sized bit of matured media.
All went text book style and in just under 4 weeks a zero zero was achieved after the nitrite spike....
Then I went into a week of making sure but then I started getting odd shows of some times ammonia then nitrite
I just couldn't make sense of it until today. Last night I got a zero-zero so did a complete water change. I added 1 more dose of ammonia and checked it this morning expecting a zero-zero and then transfer all my Cichlids into the tank..........but no!!!!
a .25ppm of ammonia was showing 
NO!
But then I thought something fishy is going on (no pun intended) so thinking that just maybe a bit of contamination was happening I did another test but this time using brand new test-tubes.
Well there it was, a vivid yellow for ammonia
I checked my vast collection of testing tubes and yes, I had fallen foul of bad house-keeping. Where I had been testing day and night (and sometimes even leaving the sample in the tube all day that I had hurriedly done in the morning before work) the tubes had become pretty scummy. The unstable readings that I had been getting all week (and probably during the cycle too) was down to trace being left in the tubes after bad cleaning
The API Liquid Testing Kit, in my opinion, is one of the best but don't (like me) underestimate it's accuracy and that it will detect a trace left in dirty tubes no matter how small.........it's THAT accurate!
Lesson learned
CLEAN THOSE TUBES THOROUGHLY EVERY TIME
I have been cycling my 240 ltr for several weeks now after using a fair sized bit of matured media.
All went text book style and in just under 4 weeks a zero zero was achieved after the nitrite spike....
Then I went into a week of making sure but then I started getting odd shows of some times ammonia then nitrite
I just couldn't make sense of it until today. Last night I got a zero-zero so did a complete water change. I added 1 more dose of ammonia and checked it this morning expecting a zero-zero and then transfer all my Cichlids into the tank..........but no!!!!
a .25ppm of ammonia was showing NO!But then I thought something fishy is going on (no pun intended) so thinking that just maybe a bit of contamination was happening I did another test but this time using brand new test-tubes.
Well there it was, a vivid yellow for ammonia
I checked my vast collection of testing tubes and yes, I had fallen foul of bad house-keeping. Where I had been testing day and night (and sometimes even leaving the sample in the tube all day that I had hurriedly done in the morning before work) the tubes had become pretty scummy. The unstable readings that I had been getting all week (and probably during the cycle too) was down to trace being left in the tubes after bad cleaning The API Liquid Testing Kit, in my opinion, is one of the best but don't (like me) underestimate it's accuracy and that it will detect a trace left in dirty tubes no matter how small.........it's THAT accurate!
Lesson learned
CLEAN THOSE TUBES THOROUGHLY EVERY TIME
