ok.....WHAT THE HECK!!!

[EHFAR]

ok so my cycle on my 40g has been going well.....until this week. I had been adding ammonia to keep the BB alive and it was dropping ammonia well not completely cycled but definitely speeding up. But the last couple of days my ammonia is stuck on about .5ppm and wont go back to zero. Its been like that for three days now (.5 would usually be gone overnight), whats wrong here? what should i do?

[Cliff]

What have your nitrites and nitrates have been doing ?

Have you changed anything or done anything different ?

[EHFAR]

no i havent done anything different i added a new heater recently but nothing changed that was over two weeks ago. my nitrites are still where they have been never below 2ppm and they were going down but would go up when i added ammonia to feed the BB then back down to about 2ppm. i added about 2 gallons of water recently due to evaporation also. i added some Aquasafe Plus to the water before adding it to the tank.

[Cliff]

Could you get a sample of your water tested at a LFS to double check and make sure your test kit is working correctly ?

[EHFAR]

yeah i could. Ive used this kit for about a month now (bought it when i set the tank up) and its been accurate thus far. my fiance has been using it also on her new 10g tank and its working great for her.

[EHFAR]

not sure if this is spam or just an annoying person who discovered the caps lock button....reported either way mr. spammer

thank you......now back to your regularly scheduled thread

[Cliff]

I had been adding ammonia to keep the BB alive and it was dropping ammonia well not completely cycled but definitely speeding up. But the last couple of days my ammonia is stuck on about .5ppm and wont go back to zero. Its been like that for three days now (.5 would usually be gone overnight), whats wrong here? what should i do?

Have you been adding some ammoina daily during this period of time? I know I have a hard time reading the green / yellow colors on the API test kit. I have to get my wife to double check for me as I can't tell the difference between 0, 0.25, and 0.5 on the color charts. As you have stated it is alwasy at 0.5 it could either be the test kit or how it's being read (if you're anything like me).

Either way, keep bringing the ammonia level back up to 1ppm each daily to make sure your exsisting BB is getting enough food and see what happens over the next few days

[EHFAR]

ok update!!!
i just checked my tank, and the nitrites, and nitrates are both 0 and the ammonia appears to be .25ppm?! Shouldnt the ammonia be 0 too? shouldnt nitrates be high? is my tank cycled now?
the weird thing is my 40g and my fiancee's 5.5g (accidentally said 10g earlier in thread) both did this on the same day, but her ammonia is 0. Is it possible that something might be wrong here, just find it weird that all of a sudden both our tanks did this on the same and mine has been cycling for twice as long as hers.

[jbstc03]

I think there is an issue with your test kit. Is it a liquid kit or a strip kit? I would get a new kit, unless you did an absolutely massive WC your trates shouldnt be 0.

[Stlouisfish]

ok update!!!
i just checked my tank, and the nitrites, and nitrates are both 0 and the ammonia appears to be .25ppm?! Shouldnt the ammonia be 0 too? shouldnt nitrates be high? is my tank cycled now?
the weird thing is my 40g and my fiancee's 5.5g (accidentally said 10g earlier in thread) both did this on the same day, but her ammonia is 0. Is it possible that something might be wrong here, just find it weird that all of a sudden both our tanks did this on the same and mine has been cycling for twice as long as hers.

If your tank is cycled, you should be getting a reading for nitrates (20ppm or less) and everything else should be 0. What are you using to test the water?