Ammonia in 55 gal tank with no fish

[missnikki]

Currently restarting a new tank (60 gal) - has been totally cleaned out and has been fishless cycling about 2 weeks now and tested the water yesterday at the aquarium shop. They said ammonia was very low but should be zero. My question is how is there any ammonia in the tank with no fish? If the ammonia is so low, can I add fish to the tank again? The other stats were normal except for the general hardness was too low. I have added more salt to help this. Is that correct?

 

[Fuzz16]

Unless you have been adding food to the tank or have a raw shrimp in there, your tank is not cycling.

You wait for the bacteria to build up and can do water changes if you want.

dont add any salt unless you are doing saltwater...you can add some plants to help soak up the ammonia.


It has been awhile since i have read up on cycling, but you may want to read some of the stickies.



nice dumbo btw! their rare around here -.- and never seen a hooded one before

 

[lauraf]

Your fish store is correct that your water should have 0 ammonia - but only AFTER the tank has cycled. During the cycling process, you want to see a spike in ammonia first, followed by a spike in nitrites, and then the nitrates showing. As Fuzz said, your tank isn't cycling right now...you need to kickstart with a source of ammonia. The reason you may see a small amount of ammonia is any leftover debris that you didn't get cleaned out, or if there are live plants in there, or just the bacteria that is naturally around us. But it's not enough to cycle the tank.