hig789
Active Member
Last Wednesday I set up my first tank in close to 10 years. I have had a few in the past but have only went through one full cycle which was the first one. The others were just upgraded from existing tanks.
I ordered a Salifert nitrate test kit with a bunch of the supplies but forgot to get a ammonia kit. So I went to Petsmart and all they had were the API test kits so I went ahead and got the ammonia kit. I know they can be inaccurate but it was cheap so I got one just to see what it did. I plan on ordering a Salifert ammonia kit tonight.
A little back ground. The tank is a 15g all in one with 20lbs of live sand and about 10lbs of live rock. The live rock sat in a sealed bucket of saltwater for about a week before I could get the tank setup. I know it wasn't good for it to sit like that but it couldn't be avoided since we had to go out of town for a emergency. I finally got it setup on 6/3. It is only running filter floss under the overflow. Mixing my own saltwater with IO and a refractometer.
I tested both nitrates and ammonia this afternoon and here's what I got. To preface this I am color blind with blue and purple and red and green so I had the wife read the charts while I was reading the instructions to her.
NO3 was between 2.5 and 5
Ammonia was 0
I understand it's just a waiting game but I figured the tests would be much higher. I ran both twice just to be sure.
Any thoughts?
I ordered a Salifert nitrate test kit with a bunch of the supplies but forgot to get a ammonia kit. So I went to Petsmart and all they had were the API test kits so I went ahead and got the ammonia kit. I know they can be inaccurate but it was cheap so I got one just to see what it did. I plan on ordering a Salifert ammonia kit tonight.
A little back ground. The tank is a 15g all in one with 20lbs of live sand and about 10lbs of live rock. The live rock sat in a sealed bucket of saltwater for about a week before I could get the tank setup. I know it wasn't good for it to sit like that but it couldn't be avoided since we had to go out of town for a emergency. I finally got it setup on 6/3. It is only running filter floss under the overflow. Mixing my own saltwater with IO and a refractometer.
I tested both nitrates and ammonia this afternoon and here's what I got. To preface this I am color blind with blue and purple and red and green so I had the wife read the charts while I was reading the instructions to her.
NO3 was between 2.5 and 5
Ammonia was 0
I understand it's just a waiting game but I figured the tests would be much higher. I ran both twice just to be sure.
Any thoughts?
