antisen

I've had Dory in his new 5gal filtered tank for about three-four weeks now. I've been testing the parameters regularly, but have a problem(?). His ammonia hasn't risen. It's been at 0 or near 0 since I've put him in here. He hasn't shown any nitrites either, though I haven't been testing for those as regularly so it's POSSIBLE they rose without me noticing. I don't have a test for Nitrates yet because I figured it'd take forever to cycle and therefore that I'd have some time to afford them.

Is it really possible his tank is cycled already?

Maybe he just doesn't put out very much waste?

The only other possibility I can think of is that my testing equipment is faulty. In case this was true I took his water to the pet store about 2 weeks ago to try to get a more accurate test and the guy said the ammonia was "pretty low," and when I asked him the exact number he said "maybe .2 or .25" but I noticed he was using test STRIPS, infamously inaccurate. After I got home I stupidly didn't test it myself and instead just did a partial water change, so I'll never know how accurate that figure was.

Or maybe this is normal....? But from what I've been reading a betta in a 5-gal tank's ammonia usually rises within a few days.
Please let me know your thoughts!

Thanks,
Whitney

antisen

Okay, sorry to double-post but I went and bought more accurate testing supplies today and they STILL say there is 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrites. Shouldn't Dory have made ammonia by now, having been in the tank for 3 weeks with only 2 water changes so far? (So few because her levels seem so eerily perfect!)

So confused,
Whitney

LZ Floyd

Are you using any conditioner like Amquel+ that might be neutralizing the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates?

Mike

antisen

I don't believe so... my water conditioner is Aquasafe and it says it removes chlorines, chloramines, copper, zinc, iron and "other heavy metals harmful to fish" but it doesn't say ammonia.

Edit: Uh oh... after reading this I hope very much that this stuff hasn't been cancelling out the Coppersafe I've been treating with...

LZ Floyd

I also wonder if the CopperSafe is suppressing the ammonia levels. That's something that has come up on the forum before but wrt the Maracyns possibly keeping ammonia levels down.

chickadee

The Coppersafe could be suppressing the cycle. I would just continue to check the levels and go accordingly. If you are using the liquid tests the addition of any medication can change the results sometimes.

Rose

Terry

Hi - which test are you using for ammonia - the API solution test? I recently bought a Seachem test as it will test for actual free (toxic) ammonia, as well as the tied up (non-toxic) ammonia. In a tank I'm cycling with a couple of fish, I've treated with AmmoLock once or twice when ammonia levels were getting too high. The API test really gives you a total ammonia test, rather than free ammonia. Anyway, the API solution test showed 3ppm ammonia, but when I ran the Seachem test I actually had 0 ammonia, while the Seachem test for total ammonia gave me the same 3ppm result that I got with the API test. I would say if you're using the API test & the solutions aren't expired, that you really do have no ammonia.

I didn't see that you did any nitrate tests (unless I missed it somewhere). If you have nitrAtes (end product of the nitrogen cycle), that would at least indicate that you have have biological activity going on, and that thre tank is either cycling or cycled.

COBettaCouple

From setting up our tanks, it seems about 50/50 on whether or not we see the ammonia spike and I'm not sure why, but a couple of the tanks just have stayed 0 on ammonia & nitrites, 7.0 pH right from the start and the only blemish is a nitrates count of 5, 10 or 20. I guess it happens but we're too new at this to have a clue as to why - maybe one of the experts on here has an answer as to why some tanks seem to have not gotten the memo on the nitrogen cycle.