I started my tank a week ago with live rock. I threw in an uncooked shrimp and have been dosing Seachem Stability every day as instructed. I expected cycling to take about 4-6 weeks but I've been tracking the water chemistry.
On monday ammonia went up to 1.5 mg/L and has stayed there since. Today I got curious because suddenly some brown and green algae have started growing. So I decided to test nitrite and nitrate and parameters were as follows:
Ammonia: 1.5 mg/L
Nitrite: 0 mg/L
Nitrate: 25 mg/L
pH: 8.3
My tap water reads 0 in every parameter, pH 8. I triple measured everything and used two different kits (I'm a scientist by trade, haha).
My guess is that the shrimp sustains the ammonia levels but nitrite is converted straight to nitrate. Can this really be the case in just a week? Should I wait until there is zero ammonia? Will the ammonia ever go down to zero while there's a rotting shrimp in the tank?
On monday ammonia went up to 1.5 mg/L and has stayed there since. Today I got curious because suddenly some brown and green algae have started growing. So I decided to test nitrite and nitrate and parameters were as follows:
Ammonia: 1.5 mg/L
Nitrite: 0 mg/L
Nitrate: 25 mg/L
pH: 8.3
My tap water reads 0 in every parameter, pH 8. I triple measured everything and used two different kits (I'm a scientist by trade, haha).
My guess is that the shrimp sustains the ammonia levels but nitrite is converted straight to nitrate. Can this really be the case in just a week? Should I wait until there is zero ammonia? Will the ammonia ever go down to zero while there's a rotting shrimp in the tank?