So, first of all, I want to apologize to any of you who've read my past claims that my tanks show 0 ppm nitrates. Something always did seem a little bizarre about that reading, but I couldn't see anything I was doing wrong ... until last night!!!
I noticed that the nitrites on my 29G suddenly dropped to zero from 2 ppm (that seems a bit odd, too, but others have described precipitous drops before). Looks to me like it's cycled! I'm going to give it a couple of days before adding fish. So, that's the good news.
Then I decided to have a look at my nitrates. That's when I re-read the nitrate instructions! D'oh!!! You're supposed to shake the second bottle of nitrate solution, not the test tube with the solution already added! And, yeah, you guessed it: nitrates showed up in hearty numbers in the 29G and my 10G (I didn't check the 2.5G QT tank -- too scared ). Good thing I've been doing regular water changes, despite believing that I had no nitrates.
So, clearly there's something in solution in bottle #2 of the API nitrate test. And, given that I've been adding just the solvent and not the solute all this time, I'm guessing that I shouldn't trust the numbers that I got yesterday from the nitrate test (the ratios between the solvent and solute must be all out of whack). So, I'll be going to the LCS tonight to pick up an API nitrate test. I'll cross-calibrate to see what I believe. The other benefit of doing that is that it should come with another pipette. Those things are so flimsy! I've already broken two of the four.
Well, I feel like a complete moron about this. Shake bottle #2. Seems simple. Seems like a simple mistake that a noob might make. That's why I'm putting this in the beginner information/questions section. Sorry about any confusion I may have caused in previous posts.
I noticed that the nitrites on my 29G suddenly dropped to zero from 2 ppm (that seems a bit odd, too, but others have described precipitous drops before). Looks to me like it's cycled! I'm going to give it a couple of days before adding fish. So, that's the good news.
Then I decided to have a look at my nitrates. That's when I re-read the nitrate instructions! D'oh!!! You're supposed to shake the second bottle of nitrate solution, not the test tube with the solution already added! And, yeah, you guessed it: nitrates showed up in hearty numbers in the 29G and my 10G (I didn't check the 2.5G QT tank -- too scared ). Good thing I've been doing regular water changes, despite believing that I had no nitrates.
So, clearly there's something in solution in bottle #2 of the API nitrate test. And, given that I've been adding just the solvent and not the solute all this time, I'm guessing that I shouldn't trust the numbers that I got yesterday from the nitrate test (the ratios between the solvent and solute must be all out of whack). So, I'll be going to the LCS tonight to pick up an API nitrate test. I'll cross-calibrate to see what I believe. The other benefit of doing that is that it should come with another pipette. Those things are so flimsy! I've already broken two of the four.
Well, I feel like a complete moron about this. Shake bottle #2. Seems simple. Seems like a simple mistake that a noob might make. That's why I'm putting this in the beginner information/questions section. Sorry about any confusion I may have caused in previous posts.