Nearly There :d

[gaz gun man]

tested my water this morning and my levels are ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20

Going to check it for a few days now, do my water change and if all is good im done cycling

Taken just under a month so far

 

[rabbut]

Did you do a fishless cycle or a fish-in cycle? How long did it take? Those water stats are perfet Certainly looks done from what you have told us

 

[gaz gun man]

yep fishless

 

[rabbut]

You done a waterchange then? Nitrates are very low for the end of a fishless cycle

Looking good though

 

[gaz gun man]

no I havent done any water changes, I'll be keeping check of the nitrites, as they have only started dropping this morning.


I added around 5ml of ammonia this afternoon, im going to retest the water late this evening to see where the Nitrites are.

I havent had any algae either in my tank.

 

[rabbut]

What test kit are you using? I would speculate that after 4 weeks of fishless cycling the nitrate should be arround 100 mg/l or 100ppm. 20 to me does not sound a plausible reading
Can you get the nitrate tested at the LFS, just to verify the reading, as it should be higher. If it isn't higher something is removing it. Is the tank heavily planted? What filter media do you have?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[gaz gun man]

im using a liquid nutrafin mini master test kit, all plastic plants, the filter media is what came standard in the Fluval 205 (Biomax ceramic and carbon)

maybe I am interpreting the results wrong? I'll retest it tonight and see where its at.

 

[rabbut]

It could be a dodgy test also. Getting the LFS to test the water will verify if the results are in error, if the kit is dodgy, or if that is what the results are. I assume the flow through the filter is still good?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[gaz gun man]

yes flow is good.
5ml Ammonia added at 1:30 this afternoon.
Tonight at 10pm my levels were;

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.3
Nitrate 20

The nitrate is between 20 and 50, its hard to call exactly.

I'm going to take a sample to pets at home and see what they make of it.

 

[rabbut]

Remeber to draw off your own sample at the same time as the Pets At Home one, as things constantly move. Tests give a snapshot of what the tank looked like chemically at the time of the sample being taken, therefore to make a fair comparison the same sample must be tested by both kits. Make sure they use liquid drop tests, as dip strips aren't worth the paper they are printed on.

HTH
Rabbut

 

[gaz gun man]

thanks, I will do.

Used to work in QC so know the importance of accuracy

Thanks for the heads up about the test strips, I was going to get some of those when I took my sample to pets at home, but I wont bother now.