birdie_bernie

Hi all,

I have 4 zebra danios in a 12-gallon tank. I did a fishless cycle, which took about 7 weeks, but after adding the danios about 3 weeks ago, I started getting .25 PPM ammonia readings. From another post on here, I learned that I should have had a nitrate reading (which I didn't) after my fishless cycle, so I may have done it wrong.

I have been doing 30% water changes every day or every other day, and adding Prime, as was recommended on here, and testing daily. But I still keep getting a .25 ppm ammonia reading. Is my test picking up the Prime, or do I have ammonia in my tank? Is there a reliable way to tell the difference? (My nitrites have been 0, and my nitrates still seem to be zero, or maybe just between zero and 5 ppm).

I read on another thread about Tetra Safe Start -- should I just order some and do that to try to fix my cycle so I can lay off these daily water changes?

Thanks for your continued help -- this place is great!
Birdie

eiginh

Check your tap water for ammonia.

jdhef

It does concern me that you seem to have zero nitrite and zero nitrate, so it is possible that something went wrong when you cycled. What method of cycling did you use? Also, you didn't take out your old filter media and put new in by any chance? Since most of the bacteria lives in the filter media, removing the media would put you back to square one cycle wise.

I guess you could try SafeStart, but then you would miss out on all the fun and joy that daily water changes bring!

Jackie Frost

Your situation is similiar to mine. I just did a 50% water change and still testing .25 for amonia. You mentioned Prime causing false readings. Is that possible? Because I use Prime constantly (my goldfish has scratches around her eyes) and that would explain alot.

Lucy

It depends on what kind of test kit you're using.
Here's a good read about water conditioners and test kits:
Seachem Support
and
Kordon Articles

Shawnie

Im with john..even if you get a false positive on the ammonia with the prime, you still should have nitrates in a cycled tank .....anytime you have doubt about the false positive or not, check the nitrates....really bang that #2 bottle as those crystals are hard to mix up...IMO I would continue daily water changes in any tank with the ammonia reading, IF you do NOT have a nitrate reading(execeptions would be HEAVILY planted tanks that the plants could eat up the nitrates)...better to be safe than sorry IMO

birdie_bernie

Wow, thanks for all the info! As usual, so much that I did not know. So I really shook up my 2nd test bottle for the nitrate test this time (thanks, Shawnie!), and . . . I discovered that I do in fact have nitrates! Between 5 and 10 ppm. I'm embarrassed to say how excited I was about that! :-)

Thanks for the info about the test kits, Lucy. I am using a salicylate (sp?) test -- the API master test kit. So I understand that I may be picking up a false positive from using Prime. I went ahead and did another water change anyway just to be on the safe side but didn't test for ammonia again. I realized after my kids went to bed (the fish are in their room) that I should have tested right away for ammonia, in order to get an accurate test. Oh well, too late for tonight.

jdhef, I did the cycling method where you add ammonia in the very beginning. I got it from aquariumguys.com and it was helpful but I wish I'd found the one on this site first. The one I used didn't mention testing nitrates. However, it appears that I do have them now!

eignh, my tap water tests completely negative for ammonia, thanks.

again, everyone! I will keep testing and hopefully my tank will get balanced out so it doesn't need so many water changes.