I'm trying to get a 20g fish quarantine tank ready and it's been a struggle. My problem now is my latest measurements:
Nitrate: ~50ppm (NYOS)
Nitrite: 0.0 (Salifert)
Phosphate: 0.00 (Hanna Colorometer)
Ammonia: <0.15 (Salifert)
dKH: 3.1 (Hanna Colorometer)
pH: 7.8
Salinity: 35ppt
The nitrate and ammonia are explainable from my having added ammonia to continue cycling. It was cycling out ammonia in about 24 hours but I replaced the foam filter with filter floss and apparently that's where my nitrifying bacteria was hanging out, not in the Seachem Matrix in the HQB filter or the fifteen biomedia "sticks" I have in the tank. It now takes about two days to cycle out 3mL of Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride so I'm trying to build up the nitrifying bacteria.
What's throwing me off is the dkH. I can't add fish with that, can I? Is the ammonia affecting the reading? I re-tested the dkH after starting this post, thinking maybe I just made a mistake. Got 2.9 that time. I haven't been testing dkH as I've been mostly working on the ammonia cycle, so no idea on trending but my invertebrate quarantine tank was 5.8 dKH when tested last Thursday (same water source, RO/DI system I installed), also low but not as low.
Any ideas that might help? Encouragement? This process continues to drag along; my display tank and Apex hardware are going to be out of warranty before the DT is even wet.
Nitrate: ~50ppm (NYOS)
Nitrite: 0.0 (Salifert)
Phosphate: 0.00 (Hanna Colorometer)
Ammonia: <0.15 (Salifert)
dKH: 3.1 (Hanna Colorometer)
pH: 7.8
Salinity: 35ppt
The nitrate and ammonia are explainable from my having added ammonia to continue cycling. It was cycling out ammonia in about 24 hours but I replaced the foam filter with filter floss and apparently that's where my nitrifying bacteria was hanging out, not in the Seachem Matrix in the HQB filter or the fifteen biomedia "sticks" I have in the tank. It now takes about two days to cycle out 3mL of Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride so I'm trying to build up the nitrifying bacteria.
What's throwing me off is the dkH. I can't add fish with that, can I? Is the ammonia affecting the reading? I re-tested the dkH after starting this post, thinking maybe I just made a mistake. Got 2.9 that time. I haven't been testing dkH as I've been mostly working on the ammonia cycle, so no idea on trending but my invertebrate quarantine tank was 5.8 dKH when tested last Thursday (same water source, RO/DI system I installed), also low but not as low.
Any ideas that might help? Encouragement? This process continues to drag along; my display tank and Apex hardware are going to be out of warranty before the DT is even wet.