Yesterday I started cycling a new saltwater tank, I added Fritz TurboStart and 10ml of Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride (it said 5ml for each 25 gallon to get to 2ppm and I have 50 gallons).
I had previously purchased a Salifert Ammonia test kit on Amazon. The box came kind of banged up and the instructions looked like they had gotten wet and dried. The day after adding the chemicals I tested the ammonia and essentially got a 0 reading. I thought that was odd, so I pulled out my API test kit for my freshwater aquarium and it turned green pretty fast indicating a 2ppm ammonia reading. I thought the Salifert test was bad, so I took a water sample to my LFS and had them use their API AquaSpin and they also got an ammonia reading of 2ppm.
I bought a new Salifert test kit there and tested again when I got home. This one has the same reading, essentially 0ppm ammonia. It's not a complicated test, 2ml water, 0.5ml reagent, swirl for 30 seconds, 0.5ml reagent, swirl for 10 seconds then wait 3 minutes and swirl again for 5 seconds. I honestly have no idea what I could be doing wrong, could I have gotten two bad tests? They have different expiration dates.
API:
Salifert:
I had previously purchased a Salifert Ammonia test kit on Amazon. The box came kind of banged up and the instructions looked like they had gotten wet and dried. The day after adding the chemicals I tested the ammonia and essentially got a 0 reading. I thought that was odd, so I pulled out my API test kit for my freshwater aquarium and it turned green pretty fast indicating a 2ppm ammonia reading. I thought the Salifert test was bad, so I took a water sample to my LFS and had them use their API AquaSpin and they also got an ammonia reading of 2ppm.
I bought a new Salifert test kit there and tested again when I got home. This one has the same reading, essentially 0ppm ammonia. It's not a complicated test, 2ml water, 0.5ml reagent, swirl for 30 seconds, 0.5ml reagent, swirl for 10 seconds then wait 3 minutes and swirl again for 5 seconds. I honestly have no idea what I could be doing wrong, could I have gotten two bad tests? They have different expiration dates.
API:
Salifert: