I am in the middle of cycling my first reef tank and have been testing Nitrite and Nitrate with the Red Sea kit. I started the cycle and went out of town for 5 days, so missed the early ammonia spike. When I got home I started testing. Ammonia was at 0.8 ppm, then 0.5, then around 0.1 to 0.2. Pulled the shrimp and manually dosed 2 ppm ammonia and hit ZERO in 36 hours. Nitrite has been at 0.5 with no changes.
Out of curiosity more than anything, I have been testing Nitrate. Using their card, its off the chart 50 range. In the manual for the test kit, it states that if you get a 50 range, take 1 ml of the solution and add 4 ml rodi water to that then use the chart and multiply by 5 for true values.
I did this and ended up with 2 ppm x 5 = 10 ppm. What I don't get, if this is a true value, why isn't it reading 10-12 ppm initially on the color card?
Out of curiosity more than anything, I have been testing Nitrate. Using their card, its off the chart 50 range. In the manual for the test kit, it states that if you get a 50 range, take 1 ml of the solution and add 4 ml rodi water to that then use the chart and multiply by 5 for true values.
I did this and ended up with 2 ppm x 5 = 10 ppm. What I don't get, if this is a true value, why isn't it reading 10-12 ppm initially on the color card?