Liquid Ammonia Test False Readings?

[Amunet]

Is it possible for liquid ammonia tests to give false readings?
If so.. what could it be picking up that would indicate that there is ammonia in the water if there isn't?

Just curious.

 

[Majjie]

The only thing I know of which would give a false positive reading is if you have one of the ammonia binding chemicals in the water - such as Ammo-Lock.

What's far more likely to give a false positive is a dirty test tube (or possibly a very old ammonia test kit - past it's expiry date - which helpfully is not usually quoted on the bottle).

The first thing to do, if you get an ammonia reading you're not expecting, is to do the test again - in a fresh, clean test tube.

 

[zoekin8yg]

Also test your tap water, sometimes it has some in so i you have just done a water change that will show up. Also adding the wrong amount or leaving it too long can cause errors

 

[Tolak]

Chloramine, a disinfectant often added to tap water, is a combination of chlorine & ammonia. If your dechlorinator states that it neiteralizes chlorine & chloramine, it will leave you with some ammonia, which is often dealt with quite well by your bio filtration. The only exception is if you do a large water change, or have more sensitive species of fish.

If you dechlorinator deals with ammonia as well what you are probably seeing is a false reading, it's detecting ammonium. This is harmless to fish at levels found in an aquarium, but treated the same as ammonia by your bio filtration.

 

[Amunet]

Hrmm.. alrighty.. thanks so much!
Just wondering if my ammonia tests could be giving me false readings perhaps.
B/c I swear our big tank cycled... went through it's ammonia spike, nitrite spike, nitrates... ammonia went down to 0 and then all of a sudden I started reading ammonia again. No nitrites but have nitrate readings.
I make sure to not overfeed and I vacuum the gravel very well.

Now it's the same thing in my betta tank... it's showing low lvls of ammonia, no nitrites, but about 5-10 nitrates.... *shrugs*

I have no idea what could be going on other than it's cycling very weirdly.
Should I start using one of those ammolock things when I do water changes? If the tanks are still cycling... would using one hurt the cycling process?

 

[Majjie]

Well, if it is the test giving false readings then your tap water would be positive as well - did you try testing it?

I don't think Ammo-Lock is supposed to affect the cycling process - it removes toxic ammonia from the water but it can still be used by the bugs in the filter. You could just try a few extra water changes until it settles down, though.

 

[Amunet]

Yeah I tested our tap before and it came back with a readings of 0.25. I haven't done a test recently though. I'll do one in a bit.
I'm gonna start using some Amquel on water changes to see if that helps any.

 

[AndreaC]

So if your tap water has some amonia in it how do you get levels down to 0??

 

[Majjie]

So if your tap water has some amonia in it how do you get levels down to 0??

You don't - your filter does