Api freshwater v salifert

[kenny_scotland]

Hello all

I have a question that hopefully someone can answer.

I have had tropical fish for years and have always used the api test kit. I thought the ammonia test would be fine to use for the saltwater now but I have strange readings.

the api shows 2ppm and the salifert shows a lot less. I’m struggling to figure out the colour of the salifert one. I’ve done 2 tests with it and both came out the same.

can someone please tell me which one is correct

Thank you

 

[brandon429]

The funny thing is, we can tell more about ammonia by a pic of your tank and two questions answered vs either of those

let’s see tank pic, and how many days has this tank had water in it/ how long since setup

api freshwater isn’t used for sw so we are about the reference the salifert between these answers and a pic

 

[kenny_scotland]

The tank has been up and running for 2 weeks now. I used household ammonia to dose up to 2ppm (on the api) and it’s at 27degrees

Bacterial bloom came and went within a week and the water is crystal clear now.

pics attached

 

[brandon429]

One more question and I think I’ll need a third question too, unique cycle here

did you dose any bottled bacteria or was the sand wet and that’s where the bacteria rode in?

if the salifert showed an initial rise in ammonia you dosed, and then went down to the above reading, and the only bac came from wet pack caribsea sand, we are almost set tracing the cycle completion or incompletion


the single most important detail was adding the ammonia and whether or not salifert showed that rise, then the action fall to the above levels.

 

[brandon429]

I really hope you didn’t add bottle bac and wet sand was the main inoculation source

reason why: everybody doses bottle bac nowadays, it works within the directions stated on the bottle and thats no fun to trace out. However if you did that I’m happy your cycle is done and u can begin and that salifert is looking very accurate above. Retire the api one


but wet sand only - nobody on our whole site has simply tested whether or not that’s real bacteria, in fact many believe it cannot oxidize and it’s a fake claim. I personally think bottle bac from a bag, or bottle, what’s the diff
I have never typed not once that I think wet sand cannot reduce ammonia out of the bag, after all my lfs used to run baby clown setups with only wet caribsea sand in a ten gallon with an air stone, I’ve already seen it tested just waiting on the interweb to run it

if you’ve used only wet sand then we may have the first clear test here

 

[kenny_scotland]

It was indeed bottled bacteria. The sand and rock weren’t live.

I can’t answer wether the salifert rose upon dosing bottled ammonia as I was using the API one. I boughtthe salifert one yesterday as I was sure the API wasn’t reading correctly. Can you tell the amount of ammonia the salifert is reading?

if I can tell the amount of ammonia the salifert is reading I can redose some ammonia again and take more readings in 24hrs. I used an online calculator for the amount of ammonia to dose based on the concentration of the solution. It was 2.5ml it worked out to.

 

[brandon429]

I’m fully certain your cycle is done. All directions on bottle bac timeframes are under two weeks and that salifert would be pegged color if failed cycle. Plus we were able to trace it out before final details, these are very common cycles and yours is complete

no need to dose again, you can, but it’s adding algae fuel. Time to begin reefing with the bioload you wanted.

*original question on how much ammonia: salifert requires something called TAN conversion that people in here taught me about

it means you have fractionally less nh3 ammonia than the above shows, and the above already shows apparent zero. All this data aligns to prove the tank is simply done cycling. Remove the api one from all factoring.

before tan conversion that and most ammonia test kits show nitrogen from two types of ammonia summed together, but we only need to know one form, nh3, and per above it’s in the safe zone-can reef right now zone. Your tank has demonstrated ammonia movement and within the timeframes the inoculation source has listed. I didn’t need to know the type of bottle bac, it’s already handled initial ammonia and Dr Reefs threads showed all common strains able in two weeks.


that is a huge amount of surface area to have bac attached to, the tank can carry any common beginning bioload you want.

 

[brandon429]

If we add bottle bac and any degree of estimated ammonia the whole thing kicks off. It is 100% not required to drive systemic free ammonia to 2 ppm.

adding more ammonia than directions stated has no harm, it converts into more algae fuel


adding ammonia under the required amounts does not matter, bacteria get feeding beyond what we provide by natural means in an open topped tank exchanging particles with the home. Getting any degree of help is always enough. What mattered most was your time # days underwater, and having all that surface area to attach to for a certain source of filter bac. One pinch of grinded up fish food would do more for those bacteria than anything you could add. = carbon and micronutrients, bac use these. With ammonia dosing alone which is very low diversity nutrient, and the most common way we cycle, environmental options for the carbon and micronutrients fill in.

add some life, new animals can’t live in an uncycled reef they’ll die in 48 hours and the water will be hazy bad cloudy. that won’t happen here, final proof cycle is done. getting to enjoy something moving and feeding, best benefit of the completed cycle

 

[kenny_scotland]

Many thanks for the excellent replies. Very helpful indeed.

I’m finding the test pretty difficult to read. Check the below pic. Definitely doesn’t seem to be reading as 0. Can’t seem to attach the colour to anything on the test card. The liquid almost seems split after it’s been left for a while

 

[brandon429]

after tan converison it’s safe zone.


want to re test it using the salifert?
this way will work: take a new reading and post it as a pic right clear above the sample and card, that’s baseline reading #1

Then add the ammonia a little bit at a time into the tank, wait five minutes, take a salifert ammonia test. Once the color is only slightly darker than pic 1 stop adding, post that second pic. *only slightly darker if you bump it a lot we might have to wait two days for it to come down, barest possible increase for pic #2


third pic, the test this time tomorrow we see if #3 matches pic 1 or 2

 

[brandon429]

Hey we typed at same time


u just posted pic #1 ha nice timing. Here’s example pic succession from another thread. they had Red Sea

their timeframe took a couple days but that movement change proved cycle was ready, that these non digital tests may take a couple days is no biggie. If the cycle was stuck, the second pic would not change from its darker setting.

A calibrated seneye changes by the hour and shows thousandths ppm action, these color kits need forgiving time and they need tan conversion, the colors we see aren’t just nh3 alone it wad much lower


*notice his final color isn’t hard zero

doesn’t matter, still cycled it’s the motion that counts. After tan conversion nh3 is lower than pic 3 anyway.

 

[kenny_scotland]

Here is a pic after 1ml dose of 9.5% ammonia solution. I’m pretty sure it’s a litter darker but then it’s a little darker outside now

 

[brandon429]

Maybe just a hair more, nice job not over driving, can u do a little darker

 

[brandon429]

Also can you add a nice well ground tiny pinch of fish food

 

[kenny_scotland]

Dosed another 0.5 ml. Definitely a change of shade but still doesn’t correspond to anything on the colour chart

 

[brandon429]

Heres side by side of em, if we need to hit again that’s not a prob it’s to create a clear division. Neat test, this is the updated way of gauging cycles in 2020

 

[brandon429]

Needs more they’re still very close to us. In person I’m sure it’s different, but for readers they’re still close we can’t see the difference

one more zap ha nice / x3 goosed with ammonia. The test is underway


wait ten mins after dosing to take the read, not immediately after

 

[takitaj]

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be looking down, from the top, into the test vial with it setting on the white section of the color chart. The color will look darker from the side and maybe why it doesn't match any colors on the chart. I don't use Salifert though so I could be wrong.

 

[kenny_scotland]

Good thinking on the way to read it. It’s definitely darker from the sides.

here’s another couple of pics. Dosed 1ml again. Seems to be reading just about 0.5

 

[brandon429]

Dont think I’m wanting you to dose to infinity lol but still can’t see a difference from pic one but that doesn’t matter.

you’ve for sure challenged these bacteria everyone would agree they’re under test now, report how you see the test this time tomorrow and I’ll have a lot of good uses for this thread for sure. Even if it takes until Monday nbd, but if not moved by Tuesday I’ll be shocked. I would put all chips on movement down by tomorrow