Coffey5030

My aquarium is testing 5.0 mg/L for Nitrates. Could this nightmare finaly be over?

jdhef

Only if your ammonia and nitites have previously risen and fallen to zero

So assuming that that is the case...congratulations!

pepetj

How long have you been running that 55gal? I figure you have a liquid reagents test kit.
The problem with strips is their innacuracy (e.g. in my experience: false positives on nitrates, false negative on nitrites, at the lower end of the spectrum).

Since you list fish, I guess you cycled with fish, doing daily water changes, so you might not register a spike (but presence) of ammonia and nitrites. Could you provide all the readings (e.g. Temp, pH, Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates) with measures performed before (not after) a water change?

Pepe
Santo Domingo

Angelika

why does one measure before a water change and not after?....

Alessa

because when you take out water the reading will change (not because the bacteria are doing something but rather because you removed the stuff with the change, so a reading will not be accurate).

jdhef

alessa1235 is correct. That is why, if you are cycling with fish, you are supposed to do 50% water changes every day. By removing half of the ammonia and nitite containing water and putting fresh water in, you have diluted the ammonia and nitites by 50%

Evelyn1919

the only way to know if your cycle is finally over is if you had a rise of ammonia and nitrates and after a while you end up with ammonia=0, nitrites=0 and nitrates=10-20.
otherwise you are probably not.
if you are then congrats!

Coffey5030

Here are the current readings.
Ammonia - 1ppm (mg/L)
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10ppm (mg/L)

Lucy

You mention in another thread Ammonia in tap water? your tap water has ammonia.
Was this reading taken before or after a water change?

Are you using Prime like CWC recommended to neutralize it?

Coffey5030

I check the parameters before I do a water change. I cannot understand why both ammonia and nitrates are present but no traces of nitrites.

tzqng8

I have the same thing happening in my tank, but I used SafeStart. I am assuming that the bottle seeded the Nitrite eating bacteria properly, but not the Ammonia eating kind. Totally a guess but the only thing I can think of since I do have Nitrates (for now).