No ammonia in tank?

So I've had 3 guppys and 3 swordtails in my new 20 gallon aquarium for 3 days now, and I just finally got my hands on a good master test kit from Nutrafin.

So I discover my water is 7.0, seems fine, but then upon checking my Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate, I can't get a reading for any of them, seems to be 0 across the board.

I even checked everything twice just to be sure. Is it unusual to have no readings after 3 days?

 

I would think after 3 days you would have a reading. But maybe there just isn't enough ammonia to register yet. I'm don't have any experience with the nurtifin test kit, so I can't give any further advice.

 

The nutrifin kit I'm using is a liquid based kit, put 5ml of water in a test tube, add 5 drops of X/y/z, shake, see what color the water turns, supposedly right away for ammonia, wait 2 mins for nitrite test to turn color, 5 mins for nitrate.

 

You need to wait five minutes for each of the tests - I can notice a definite difference in color after waiting, even for ammonia.

Are you shaking the bottles of solutions well? The second bottle for the nitrate test especially; because there are crystals suspended in the solution, they collect at the bottom and if you don't thoroughly mix it (I mean really bonk it on something), it will read lower than the true value.

 

I also have an ammonia test kit from Nutrafin and the instructions say to check right away. The API Master Kit says to wait... Maybe the Nutrafin instructions are just messed up?

Pyth: You should see if it does indeed change color after a few minutes..

 

kinezumi89, are you by any change confusing the Nurtifin Kit with the API kit? Because the API kit instructs you to wait 5 minutes, and nitrate bottle #2 of the API kit is the one which requires being beaten up.

 

Oops! I missed where the OP said they were using the Nutrifin kit. My apologies, I was thinking of the API kit. For the nitrate test for the Nutrifin kit, I believe I've read that it's the third bottle which requires the beating. (I don't have one though, so I may be remembering it incorrectly.)

 

I use the nutrafin kit and ammonia is six drops and an instant reading...nitrites is 5 drops of bottle 1 and 2 then wait 2 mins...nitrates is 5 drops of bottles 1 and 2 and shake, then shake the living daylights out of bottle 3 for 30 seconds tip to 45 degree angle add 3 drops shake then wait 5 minutes...if you don't shake bottle 3 hard enough you won't get a good result, I found that out a few days ago
And I remember it being at least a week before I started to get any readings ..

 

Yeah, I gave it a third run of tests just now, and blank across the board. Guess I'll just keep testing everyday and keep an eye on things.