Still no ammonia after 2 weeks...?

Hello everyone! First-time poster here I've gained a ton of knowledge in the past few weeks reading through these forums, so first and foremost, thank you for that! But now I have a question that I can't seem to find an answer to, so I'm reaching out.

So here's where I'm at... new fish mom to a Betta (King Louie), Nerite snail (Norman), and a super tiny Trumpet snail that snuck into the bag with Norman at the pet store (I haven't seen him since the first night I put him in the tank, so I haven't had a chance to get to know him and name him yet lol) They are living in a 5 gallon planted tank, and I have driftwood and a Catappa leaf in there as well, so there are tannins in the water... not sure if that could be relevant to my question, but maybe...

And, dun dun dun, yes I am doing a fish-in cycle. Don't judge, I had no choice. After growing up with Betta's living in tiny, filterless tanks, I bought Louie intending to do the same with him without a second thought. But after a few days and a little research (which turned into a rabbit hole of information :bookworm, I realized how unethical that really was, so I upgraded the tank, got the snails, and Louie became King Louie in his new palace. Okay, back to my question!

Today is day 14 of living in the new tank and I am still seeing absolutely no ammonia showing up in the water. I am using the API master test kit. I know the kit is good and working because it showed ammonia when I tested the old tank. Water temp is a steady 80, the pH is about a 7.1, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate all 0 since the beginning, every day. 14 days and no ammonia? I'm dying to vacuum this tank! There is poop and leftover food littering the sand. I have left it this way on purpose to encourage the cycle, but it's not doing anything. Why? I have dosed with Seachem Stability every day, which now seems like a waste because the bacteria have had nothing to feed on. I was dosing Seachem Prime daily as well (12 hours apart from the Stability), but then realized I really didn't have to use it continuously until I started seeing ammonia, so it's been 8 days since I've put that in.

Shouldn't I be seeing ammonia by now? Could it be all of the plants clearing the water of ammonia? I have 2 moss balls, a java fern, sword amazon, 8 bunches of corkscrew val, a cute little miniature plant I can't recall the name of, and a few little floaty things. There's gotta be enough waste in there to be seeing ammonia by now. I'm perplexed... any thoughts, opinions, experiences, questions? Help, please! For the love of my ocd, I need to vacuum this tank. I have white sand

 

Hi and Welcome! Can I check a few things, are you changing the water each day? And do you test before or after a water change?

 

Hi and Welcome! Can I check a few things, are you changing the water each day? And do you test before or after a water change?

Thanks for your prompt response Mazeus! I haven't changed the water at all. Along with letting all the waste stay in there, I've left the water be as well. It's not cloudy, everyone's happy, healthy, and doing their things. I test the water every day around the same 2 hour window, mid-morning, and I even pull my sample water from 3 different areas of the tank trying to find that ammonia lol

 

Welcome to Fishlore. I am so happy you have read up on how much better it is to have a bigger home for your Betta

I am going to be perfectly honest with you. It doesn't matter whether or not you ever see ammonia in this tank or you ever go through the cycle. We cycle a tank to remove ammonia. It seems your plants are doing what a cycle would do. With just one fish and a couple of snails in this tank the bio-load is tiny.

I highly recommend you go ahead and clean out the poop and leftover food. If you will commit to changing out at least 30% of the water in this tank each week it won't matter if you never experience an ammonia or nitrite spike. It won't matter if you never see nitrates either. I normally recommend weekly 50% water changes but your plants need a bit of food.

 

Thanks for your prompt response Mazeus! I haven't changed the water at all. Along with letting all the waste stay in there, I've left the water be as well. It's not cloudy, everyone's happy, healthy, and doing their things. I test the water every day around the same 2 hour window, mid-morning, and I even pull my sample water from 3 different areas of the tank trying to find that ammonia lol

Ok so my first thought is that there is a problem with the test (either in how it is being used or with the kit itself). I would pour some water in a glass, add some ammonia (if you have it) or fish food. If you use pure ammonia you can test right away and see if you get a reading, if you use fish food wait 6 hours and test the water. If you get an ammonia reading then you know the test kit is working, if you don't then you know it's a problem with the test.

 

There are things that build up in the water that we don't test for. Even if the test we do run show all is well those things are building up if we don't do our water changes thus the reason for water changes even though the tests show all is well.

I do have to ask if you are sure you are running the ammonia test correctly. Are you adding 8 drops from bottle #1 and then 8 drops from bottle #2? I only ask because occasionally folks have thought they just had 2 bottles of the same solution and were not using both for the test.

 

Welcome to Fishlore. I am so happy you have read up on how much better it is to have a bigger home for your Betta

I am going to be perfectly honest with you. It doesn't matter whether or not you ever see ammonia in this tank or you ever go through the cycle. We cycle a tank to remove ammonia. It seems your plants are doing what a cycle would do. With just one fish and a couple of snails in this tank the bio-load is tiny.

I highly recommend you go ahead and clean out the poop and leftover food. If you will commit to changing out at least 30% of the water in this tank each week it won't matter if you never experience an ammonia or nitrite spike. It won't matter if you never see nitrates either. I normally recommend weekly 50% water changes but your plants need a bit of food.

Thanks mattgirl, I appreciate your input. I was kinda thinking along the same lines. The tank sits right on my kitchen counter, very much "in my face" so I will definitely be committed to its upkeep. It has a great filter in it too, and I've modified the output flow with a spray bar that I also modified lol thanks to info from another forum site, or maybe it was within an amazon review for the tank itself (can't remember, I've read so much!), which by the way I absolutely love and highly recommend for a fabulous betta tank with lots of horizontal swimming room and a narrow footprint ((in case anyone else may be manically reading forums for this kind of information like I have been )) - as long as you do some kind of output flow modification - it's the Fluval spec 5! So yeah, it keeps the water moving and clear but at a peaceful pace for a betta. I think you may be right though. Time to clean this tank!

 

Ok so my first thought is that there is a problem with the test (either in how it is being used or with the kit itself). I would pour some water in a glass, add some ammonia (if you have it) or fish food. If you use pure ammonia you can test right away and see if you get a reading, if you use fish food wait 6 hours and test the water. If you get an ammonia reading then you know the test kit is working, if you don't then you know it's a problem with the test.

I totally hear you on the testing of the test kit. But when Louie was in the old tank, this exact test kit showed ammonia in that water, so I know the test kit is working. I've triple checked the directions and my performing the test as well. I dunno I suppose I could go out and buy some ammonia and give it a go though.

 

There are things that build up in the water that we don't test for. Even if the test we do run show all is well those things are building up if we don't do our water changes thus the reason for water changes even though the tests show all is well.

I do have to ask if you are sure you are running the ammonia test correctly. Are you adding 8 drops from bottle #1 and then 8 drops from bottle #2? I only ask because occasionally folks have thought they just had 2 bottles of the same solution and were not using both for the test.

Reasonable question. 8 and 8, 5 second vigorous shake, 5 minute wait.

 

I totally hear you on the testing of the test kit. But when Louie was in the old tank, this exact test kit showed ammonia in that water, so I know the test kit is working. I've triple checked the directions and my performing the test as well. I dunno I suppose I could go out and buy some ammonia and give it a go though.

Ok, in that case the plants are probably doing the work to remove it. Floating plants are great at getting out the nitrates!

Would still do a weekly water change (as Mattgirl suggests).

 

Ok, in that case the plants are probably doing the work to remove it. Floating plants are great at getting out the nitrates!

Would still do a weekly water change (as Mattgirl suggests).

This is great to hear. Thank you both. I'm a plant lover for sure, with about 30ish house plants, so I'm happy to hear all these plants in the tank were a good choice. And I'm looking forward to this new style of growing plants too!

This no ammonia thing has been driving me loopy... thanks for setting me at ease.

 

I will be sure to continue testing the water semi-regularly though. I'm thinking just for ammonia at this point, maybe once or twice a week? What do you suggest?

 

My daughter has a similar setup for her betta tank. We (I) test it for nitrates once per week and change the water every other week. Ammonia and nitrites have always been 0. You may eventually see nitrates, but maybe not. Still do the water changes to give the fish fresh water, it will appreciate it. And make sure to treat any tap water used. Welcome to the forum.

 

I will be sure to continue testing the water semi-regularly though. I'm thinking just for ammonia at this point, maybe once or twice a week? What do you suggest?

Twice a week sounds like a good plan. I don't expect you to see an ammonia spike but better safe than sorry when it comes to the health of our water pets. If you don't see any go to once a week for a while longer. If after a month or so if you never get an ammonia reading you probably never will.

BTW: You can make your testing solution go twice as far by just putting 2.5mls of tank water instead of 5mls in the test tube. Cut the number of drops down to 4 from each bottle. I tested this out and get the same reading whether using 2.5mls or 5mls. I do this for both ammonia and nitrates because it takes so much of the solutions to run the tests. I do a full 5mls for nitrites and pH.

 

My daughter has a similar setup for her betta tank. We (I) test it for nitrates once per week and change the water every other week. Ammonia and nitrites have always been 0. You may eventually see nitrates, but maybe not. Still do the water changes to give the fish fresh water, it will appreciate it. And make sure to treat any tap water used. Welcome to the forum.

Thank you! I was planning on doing regular water changes once I saw some action, but it sounds like at this point, I may just be good to start now. Definitely treating the tap water, and it's filtered through a Purr sink filter as well Thank you for your thoughts!

 

I want to take another approach - you said your using the API master test kit. Maybe you are cycled and the nitrate testing is your problem? The Nitrate test is the worst one of it. You need to shake that #2 bottle until your arm falls off. I mean shake the living life out of that bottle. Many people get the testing wrong on the nitrate side because of that part. Looking at the instructions it says "Vigorously shake the Nitrate Test Solution #2 for AT LEAST 30 seconds. This step is EXTREMELY important to insure accuracy of the test results" (emphasis mine).

I personally can't physically do that shaking on the nitrate due to issues in my arms. There's some great videos on youtube on doing the test, here's one I'd recommend that might help with accuracy:

 

I want to take another approach - you said your using the API master test kit. Maybe you are cycled and the nitrate testing is your problem? The Nitrate test is the worst one of it. You need to shake that #2 bottle until your arm falls off. I mean shake the living life out of that bottle. Many people get the testing wrong on the nitrate side because of that part. Looking at the instructions it says "Vigorously shake the Nitrate Test Solution #2 for AT LEAST 30 seconds. This step is EXTREMELY important to insure accuracy of the test results" (emphasis mine).

I personally can't physically do that shaking on the nitrate due to issues in my arms. There's some great videos on youtube on doing the test, here's one I'd recommend that might help with accuracy:

Thanks for your input aquachris, I appreciate it. That definitely could be it, if I wasn't 100% sure I was doing the test right. But I am, for sure, no doubt in my mind

 

Thanks for your input aquachris, I appreciate it. That definitely could be it, if I wasn't 100% sure I was doing the test right. But I am, for sure, no doubt in my mind

well if your arm felt like it fell off, you probably did.. LOL

 

well if your arm felt like it fell off, you probably did.. LOL

Indeed lol I turn it into a little dance to make it interesting