Weird Nitrite Reading

[Amunet]

All readings before this were pretty normal. First day or 2 of getting nitrite readings, it was at 0.25, then 0.50.. then went up to 1, then up to the 5.0 reading and stayed there for around 5 or so days.
Then I noticed that it was gradually getting lighter.
Yesterday morning test was at 1, that night it was at 0.50, and then this morning it was still at 0.50.
Hadn't checked pH for about 4 days so not sure when it crashed so dunno if the nitrite going down was b/c of the pH problem.


Just tested ammonia, pH and nitrite again.
At the 5min mark, it read at 0.50, but looked like it was going that gray color again.
Ammonia is still being processed in less than 12hrs though, so *shrugs* I'll take the "reading is off the chart" excuse lol

EDIT: Thanks Shmill... that's reassuring to know that it really could be the off the chart color. Dern though, was hoping the cycling was coming to an end! heh
Thanks everyone else as well

 

[Schmill]

It is DEFINITLY off the scale, the colour development in post #8 is EXACLTY what is does when it is off the scale, so you do not have a reading 0.5 or 0.25 nitrIte, you have a reading of > 5.0 ppm.

When the 'friendly' bacteria convert the Ammonia to NitrIte each 1ppm of Ammonia becomes 2.7ppm of NitrIte, so hopefully you can see how the NitrIte will very quickly go off of the chart. This is why the NitrIte readings take sooo long to drop back to zero during a cycle.

 

[pammy172]

Please see my post at #5.

It being off the scale is good - it will suddenly drop to zero almost overnight. Your ph suddenly dropping like that is likely to stall your cycle though and you may need to buffer with bicarb. Test your PH in the afternoon though just to be sure as it can fall in the night time. We had to buffer ours with bicarb to keep it up and the cycle going.

 

[Schmill]

Agree with Pammy, I forgot to mention the Ph level.

Do you have a standard PH test, and a High PH Test? I can't make out the figures on that test, but it certainly looks like a low, (or lower than lowest) reading.
If that is the High PH test, and you have the standard, do the standard as well. If that IS the standard then I think your Ph is going to be waaay to low.

 

[Amunet]

pH was adjusted right after I took that test. I suspected it was going to happen since we had a pH crash before when we fishless cycled. So no need to worry about that.
Todays nitrite test is still off the scale... turned that weird shade of gray again.

I took your advice Schmill and took 1ml of tank water and filled the rest w/ tap and got a nice blazing 5 reading.

 

[bagu]

haha when chemistry just doesn't make sense

 

[Schmill]

pH was adjusted right after I took that test. I suspected it was going to happen since we had a pH crash before when we fishless cycled. So no need to worry about that.
Todays nitrite test is still off the scale... turned that weird shade of gray again.

I took your advice Schmill and took 1ml of tank water and filled the rest w/ tap and got a nice blazing 5 reading.

Glad the 'double check' worked out for you, it's always a worthwhile thing to do if you are unsure on a reading

(Obviously if the reading really was 0, it would stay 0 when diluted with tap water)