Frustrating tank build: need advice

MONTANTK · Nov 28, 2020

iamacat said:
Please come back and tell me I’m wrong. Go get that test kit and prove me wrong. Do it.

Deal. I’ll go grab some strips and post the results today or tomorrow

MONTANTK · Nov 28, 2020

Brett S said:
Obviously the salinity is an issue and needs to be corrected, but I don’t think that just because you identified one problem that it is safe to assume that everything else is fine. It’s pretty common to have ammonia spikes after adding rocks and that may or may not have happened in this case, but we don’t know because you haven’t tested for it.

It’s not like testing for ammonia is expensive or time consuming. You very well may find out that you you have 0 ammonia, but given that it’s so easy it’s worth doing the test just to rule it out. At least in my opinion.

I decided I’ll run to the store and get an ammonia strip. It’s probably best that I shouldn’t be stubborn if I want my tank to thrive in the future

Brett S · Nov 28, 2020

MONTANTK said:
I decided I’ll run to the store and get an ammonia strip. It’s probably best that I shouldn’t be stubborn if I want my tank to thrive in the future

It’s a good idea to have an ammonia test on hand anyway. I don’t routinely test for ammonia on my established tank, but I will test if I add rocks or move the tank or have unexpected problems.

I suspect that you will probably find the ammonia to be 0, but the way I look at it you can spend a little money and a little time doing the test and know that ammonia isn’t a problem or you could have an undetected ammonia issue that would cost you a lot more time and money to try to resolve blindly.