Hello,
So I have been fishless cycling my BC29 for a couple weeks now and I went through an ammonia spike, nitrite spike, and… not a nitrate spike?
[USING API TEST KIT— I know, it’s junk]
I may sound delusional but literally, my ammonia was so high that the tests were robin-egg blue. Everyone told me my ammo was well over 8ppm. Anyway, come the drop of ammo and spike of nitrites, my nitrite skyrocketed to magenta.
Through all of this I was dosing a cap of microbacter7 a day just to help everybody along. Anyway I got fed up with the dead stuck nitrite and dumped the rest of the bottle in. (Roughly 4oz.) Of course, my intention was to dump the entire bottle in, in the first place. The whole reason why I got more bottled bacteria was because everyone had me convinced that my ammonia killed all the bacteria culture in my tank.
That was a few days ago. Fast forward to this morning, I am getting a pee yellow ammonia test, sky blue nitrite test, and… a yellow nitrate test?
One may blame API, which, of course, API is probably playing a role in this. However, could it have been the bottle of microbacter7? I’m not familiar with the chemistry of lowering nitrates in a system without the use of photosynthesis in plants. To make things more confusing, I was reading nitrates half way through my nitrite spike— which I know that the presence of nitrites will skew a nitrate test.
I am confused, the only answer is either API sucks, microbacter7 is magic, I am an idiot, or a combination of all three.
Any advice is welcome.
So I have been fishless cycling my BC29 for a couple weeks now and I went through an ammonia spike, nitrite spike, and… not a nitrate spike?
[USING API TEST KIT— I know, it’s junk]
I may sound delusional but literally, my ammonia was so high that the tests were robin-egg blue. Everyone told me my ammo was well over 8ppm. Anyway, come the drop of ammo and spike of nitrites, my nitrite skyrocketed to magenta.
Through all of this I was dosing a cap of microbacter7 a day just to help everybody along. Anyway I got fed up with the dead stuck nitrite and dumped the rest of the bottle in. (Roughly 4oz.) Of course, my intention was to dump the entire bottle in, in the first place. The whole reason why I got more bottled bacteria was because everyone had me convinced that my ammonia killed all the bacteria culture in my tank.
That was a few days ago. Fast forward to this morning, I am getting a pee yellow ammonia test, sky blue nitrite test, and… a yellow nitrate test?
One may blame API, which, of course, API is probably playing a role in this. However, could it have been the bottle of microbacter7? I’m not familiar with the chemistry of lowering nitrates in a system without the use of photosynthesis in plants. To make things more confusing, I was reading nitrates half way through my nitrite spike— which I know that the presence of nitrites will skew a nitrate test.
I am confused, the only answer is either API sucks, microbacter7 is magic, I am an idiot, or a combination of all three.
Any advice is welcome.